Some sample dishes and delicacies of Spanish Colonial Texas

Article 3 in a series about historic foodways of the Camino Real de Los Tejas by Richard G. Santos, an international research historian, linguist and educator based in San Antonio, Texas. If you have family recipes to share, please send these recipes and memories of home cooked meals to richardgsantos@yahoo.com.

The other two articles can be found here...

Enjoy!

3 Some Sample Dishes and Delicacies of Spanish Colonial Texas

Legal and Illegal Food Ingredients on Los Caminos Real

Article 2 in a series about historic foodways of the Camino Real de Los Tejas by Richard G. Santos, an international research historian, linguist and educator based in San Antonio, Texas. If you have family recipes to share, please send these recipes and memories of home cooked meals to richardgsantos@yahoo.com.


2 Legal and Illegal Food Ingredients on Los Caminos Real

Cuisine and recipes of the Camino Real de Los Tejas...

Article 1 in a series about historic foodways of the Camino Real de Los Tejas by Richard G. Santos, an international research historian, linguist and educator based in San Antonio, Texas. If you have family recipes to share, please send these recipes and memories of home cooked meals to richardgsantos@yahoo.com.

As a Board Member of the State Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail, Santos decided to do this series in a chronological perspective. He is about half way through, still wanting to deal with the Post Civil War, Great Depression and Mexican migration of the 20th Century.

Santos has graciously shared these articles with Log Cabin Village and other educational outlets. We will continue to bring the installments to you.

1 Cuisine and Recipes of the Camino Real de Los Tejas Wanted

On this date in Fort Worth...

Great info courtesy Texas Day by Day:

Seed of modern art museum planted in Fort Worth

On this day in 1892, a group of Fort Worth women received from the state of Texas a charter establishing the Fort Worth Public Library Association, a part of whose stated purpose was "the accumulation of paintings and artistic work of every character for the enjoyment and cultivation of our people. " The resulting gallery was named the Art Gallery of the Carnegie Public Library in 1901, the Fort Worth Museum of Art in 1910, the Fort Worth Art Center in 1954, the Fort Worth Art Center Museum in 1971, and the Fort Worth Art Museum in 1974. The current name was adopted in 1987. The museum, located in the Fort Worth Cultural District, houses the collection of the Fort Worth Art Association. It maintains a well-defined relationship with its two neighbors, the Amon Carter Museum and the Kimbell Art Museum. The Carter focuses on the art of the American West and American art in general until 1940, the Kimbell covers non-Western art and European art up to 1920, and the Modern Art Museum concentrates on European art since 1920 and American art since 1940.

And more Texas Day by Day...

Pioneer Texas inventor born in New York

On this day in 1801, Gail Borden, Jr., inventor, publisher, surveyor,and founder of the Borden Company, was born in Norwich, New York. He came to Texas in 1829 and became surveyor for Austin's Colony in 1830. In 1835-37 the ubiquitous Borden published the Telegraph and Texas Register, prepared the first topographical map of Texas, and helped lay out the site of Houston. In the middle 1840s he began inventing. He is supposed to have experimented with large-scale refrigeration as a means of preventing yellow fever and with a terraqueous machine, a sort of prairie schooner that would go on land or water. In 1849 he perfected a meat biscuit, made of dehydrated meat compounded with flour, which he tried to market on a worldwide scale in partnership with Ashbel Smith. In 1853 he sought a patent for his most famous invention, a process for condensing milk in vacuum. After several unsuccessful attempts, he opened a condensed milk factory in Connecticut in 1858. When the Civil War brought intensified demand for condensed milk, sales grew so much that Borden's success was assured. After the war he returned to Texas and founded the community of Borden, where he established a meat-packing plant. He died in Borden on January 11, 1874.

Another interesting tidbit from "Texas Day by Day"

On this day in 1845, two pioneer German-Texans, Friedrich Wilhelm von Wrede Sr. and Oscar von Claren, were killed and scalped by Indians at a place referred to as Live Oak Spring, ten to twelve miles from Austin, probably near Manchaca Springs. Wrede made an initial trip to Texas in 1837 and traveled and made notes of his observations in America. He returned to Germany in 1843 and compiled and published Lebensbilder aus den vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika und Texas (1844). Wrede's travel book is a generally realistic account of the opportunities and difficulties of colonists on the American frontier, especially in Texas. The book helped to influence prospective German settlers to come to Texas, despite the negative effect of Wrede's own violent death in Texas the following year. Wrede returned to Texas in 1844 as an official of the Adelsverein. His companion in death, Oscar von Claren, immigrated from Hannover to New Braunfels, Texas, probably early in 1845. His family correspondence indicated his interest in the botany and wildlife of the New Braunfels area, and he collected turtles and snakes to sell to naturalists in Germany. He wrote Indianer bei Neu Braunfels im Jahre 1845 (1845), a group of essays depicting Texas Indians. The two authors were buried at the site of the massacre by United States soldiers, who gave them military honors. Wrede's son, Friedrich Wilhelm von Wrede Jr., settled in Fredericksburg but returned to Germany after the Civil War.

The election that wasn't...

...at least "wasn't" for Texas. Did you know that Texas was not allowed to vote in the 1868 presidential election, having not been readmitted to the Union after secession during the Civil War? Apparently this first Reconstruction election was somewhat contentious...

What a different 140 years makes!

In 1868, as it would be for the next several elections, the main issue was the Civil War and its aftermath. In the years before this election, President Andrew Johnson drew the wrath of the Radical Republican Congress in his attempts to bring the rebellious southern states back into the Union fold as quickly and as painlessly as possible. His political opponents felt that the South should be punished for their actions. The President and Congress clashed often. Johnson vetoed 28 bills during his tenure; Congress was able to override a record 15 of them (in contrast, FDR vetoed 635 bills; only 9 were overridden). Early in 1868, after Johnson ignored a law Congress had passed over his veto that would have required him to get Congressional consent before removing his Secretary of War, the House of Representatives impeached the President. He was aquitted in a Senate trial by only one vote. The Radical Republicans were able to set up a legislative agenda that, among other things, stripped the state governments of the southern states and replaced them with military districts, disenfranchised most white citizens who had supported the Confederacy, and gave thousands of former slaves the right to vote. For a while, blacks in the south with the right to vote actually outnumbered whites allowed to vote there. A fringe benefit (if not the main purpose) of these objectives gave Republicans a major stronghold in the South that would take years to erode. (presidentelect.org)

Here is more information about the 1868 presidential election...

Texas History Day By Day...

Want history delivered to your inbox? Sign up for daily posts about what happened in Texas history! This service, sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association, is one of many great ways to learn about Texas history.

What's YOUR favorite way to learn about history? Leave us a comment...we want to hear from YOU!