Cowboys, wrote Western historian Ramon Adams, would go to hell for a piece of pie. In the culinary wilderness that was nineteenth-century Texas, anything sweeter than molasses or prunes was just pie in the sky. Sugar was such a luxury that early Texans never dreamed of wasting it in their coffee or corn bread. Even rarer were eggs and milk, so Texans never cared much for cake. Maybe that early deprivation accounts for modern Texans’ wantonness. They’ll try anything to satisfy a sweet tooth, especially anything with a regional flavor: candied grapefruit peel, watermelon-rind pickles, pinto-bean spice cake, and prickly-pear, agarita, or mayhaw jelly. Rural cooks are especially fond of sweet congealed salads (gelatin is, after all, a beef by-product). They have added pecans, guacamole,…
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