The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 71, July 1967 - April, 1968 Page: 228
686 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
That his evaluation was substantially accurate owed for the most
part to the lingering effects of Reconstruction, an enfeebling and
often corrupt phase of Houston's municipal government. By the end
of the three decades that are the concern here, however, the city
had overcome the visitor's criticisms-only to face new ones. It is
hard, and of course artificial, to give a name to the three decades,
but the period, and certainly the first two decades, could be called
the recuperative years-the time in which Houston's municipal gov-
ernment recovered from the illness of Reconstruction.
Early in the period the Ladies' Association of the First Presbyterian
Church published The Texas Cook Book, A Thorough Treatise on
the Art of Cookery. The first such work published in Texas, the
remarkable book also reveals Houston during the first two of the
three decades. The most delightful recipe in the book was con-
tributed by the only male listed among the seventy-two contributors.
Capt. Joseph C. Hutcheson, who had moved to Houston nine years
before the book was published, represented the district in the Texas
Legislature, where he wrote the bill creating the University of Texas.
Later, in the 1890o's, he would represent Houston in Congress. Read
the captain's recipe for cooking cornfield peas-and come to know
a good man:
Go to the pea-patch early in the morning and gather the peas,
take them home in a split basket. Take them in the left hand and
gouge them out with your right thumb until it gets sore, then reverse
hands. Look the pea well in the eye to see its color, but cook them
anyway, as no color exempts the pea from domestic service, still the
grey eye and white lips and cheeks are to be preferred. Throw the
shelled peas mercilessly into hot water and boil them until they "cave
in." When you see they are well subdued, take them out and fry them
about ten minutes in gravy-a plenty of gravy, good fat meat gravy,
and try to induce the gravy to marry and become social with the peas.
When you see that the union is complete, so that no man can put them
asunder, and would not wish to if he could, put them in a dish and
eat them all.8
Perhaps one may be forgiven for thinking the good old days really
were good. Better so.
7Quoted in B. H. Carroll, Jr., Standard History of Houston Texas (Knoxville, Tennes-
see, 1912), 457-458.
8Ladies' Association of the First Presbyterian Church, The Texas Cook Book, A Thor-
ough Treatise on the Art of Cookery (Houston, 1883), 84.228
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 71, July 1967 - April, 1968, periodical, 1968; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117145/m1/260/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.