Farm to Market
The food on our plates completes a long and complicated flow of planning, harvesting, distribution, and sale. The simplicity of a prepared dinner is made easy today with the wide availability of food choices and grocery stores. The intense labor of farming and getting produce to the consumer is at the heart of the Texas food story.
Up until that late 1800s, Texas was predominantly a rural state with small family farms. Families raised their own livestock and planted seeds by hand, generating enough food for subsistence living. In 1870, the number of Texas farms was about 61,000. By 1900 the number was 350,000 and a signal that the state’s role in agriculture needed to keep pace with a booming economy.
In order to feed growing population centers, the state needed pathways to connect outlying farmers with Texas markets hungry for agricultural products. In the late 1930s, the Texas Department of Transportation began developing a system of “farm to market” and “ranch to market” roads that stretched across counties to ensure farmers could supply Texas dinner tables with home-grown fare. Access to their rich diversity of crops became common.
Hominy Pot
The most significant grain crop of Texas was corn, also known as maize. Hominy consists of whole corn kernels that have been soaked in an alkaline solution in a process used by ancient Aztecs called nixtamalization. The fluffy white puffs of corn appear in posole, a Mexican stew. Nixtamalized corn kernels may also be ground into a flour called masa, which is used to create tortillas, chips, and tamales.
Exhibit Video
Turkey Recipes - Motion Picture, video, and sound recordings, Texas Department of Agriculture Records.
1994/099-03-07
Exhibit Items
Lemon squeezer, 1850-1900. Artifacts collection, ATF0223.
This lemon squeezer was once used by the family of Texas Governor Elisha M. Pease. Citrus is one of Texas’ successful agricultural products including grapefruit, oranges, lemons, limes, tangerines and tangelos.
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Cabbage growing, Hidalgo County, 1932. Stugard collection, Image 1963/185-163.
O.H. Stugard moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 1924 to begin operation of the Stugard Ranch, which grew irrigated citrus and vegetables. Multiple generations of the Stugard family were involved in expanding the operation. Click or tap on thumbnail for larger image.
Your Vegetable Garden: It’s only as good as the seed that you plant, 1989. Texas Department of Agriculture records, Box 2011/226.
The Texas Department of Agriculture works to ensure the success of both large and small vegetable production in Texas.
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Press release, Commissioner Jim Hightower, July 8, 1986. Texas Department of Agriculture records, Box 2011/226.
While wine production in Texas may seem like a recent endeavor, in fact it has been a focus of the Texas Department of Agriculture for decades. This press release invites attendees to learn more about awards won by Texas wineries, and taste the successful products.
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Governor Stevenson’s Victory Garden Week proclamation, March 6, 1945. Victory Garden Week, Texas Governor Coke R. Stevenson records, Box 4-14/172.
In 1945, Governor Stevenson issued this proclamation to publicize the state’s goal of 1 million victory gardens, with each garden producing several hundred pounds of vegetables. And the proclamation issued by the governor was encouraged to “concentrating the thinking and efforts of the people of Texas,” toward this goal.
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Farmer’s market, Dallas, 1983. Texas Department of Agriculture photograph collection, Box 2001/078-100, Image 83-030B-32a (digital facsimile).
Promoted throughout the state, farmer’s markets help communities taste some of the diverse array of fruits and vegetables grown in Texas.
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Hominy pot, 1835-1845. Artifacts collection, ATF0407.
This hominy pot was once owned by Nancy Simmons, who traveled to Texas in Stephen F. Austin’s second group of colonists.
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Hominy recipe from Fergusson, Erna. Mexican Cookbook. Albuquerque, NM: The University of New Mexico press, 1945. TSLAC-Main Collection, 641.5 F381 (digital facsimile).
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Texas Produce map, 1991. Texas Department of Agriculture records, Box 2011/226.
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Van De Walle Carrot Operation; harvesting and packaging, 1984. Texas Department of Agriculture photograph collection, Box 2001/078-105, Image 84-070A-13a thru 17a.
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Men in orange grove, San Juan, Texas, undated. Stugard collection, Image 1963/185-1559.
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Maiz pozolero (hominy) image from Medrano, Adán. Truly Texas Mexican: A Native Culinary Heritage in Recipes. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, 2014. Texas Documents Collection, Z TT422.8 M469tr.
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