The mission of Foodways Texas is to preserve, promote,
and celebrate the diverse food cultures of Texas.
Founded in 2010 by chefs, journalists, scholars, farmers, ranchers, industry pioneers, and Texas-food enthusiasts, Foodways Texas is a non-profit, member-driven organization that preserves, promotes, and celebrates the diverse food cultures of Texas. The Lone Star State boasts vibrant, rich cuisines that reflect the diversity of our peoples, cultures, and a geography that spans from the oyster reefs of Galveston Bay to the sweeping, wheat-rich plains of the panhandle, from the vegetable-growing regions of the Rio Grande Valley to the stockyards of Fort Worth. Our goal is not only to educate people about our shared food history and culture but to do the important work of preserving and promoting our foodways through oral history, documentary film, scholarly work, and food-related seminars. We are able to do this work because of the loyal support of our members.
Membership
Our members are critical to our mission. They fund our archival work and the day-to-day operations that make our events and educational work possible. Our members are our biggest supporters and our best resource for ideas. In addition, our business sponsors generously support our mission by helping fund our various events and programs. We want you to join us and be a part of this critical yet fun mission to preserve the food cultures of Texas.
PRESERVATION Work
There are millions of food stories in Texas. Every family, farmer, shrimper, restaurateur, taquero, pitmaster, chef, homecook, fisherman, wine maker, brewer, oysterman—every person—in Texas has at least one food story. Most will only be heard around the family dinner table or over a longneck at an icehouse or a taqueria, but here at Foodways Texas we are gathering and sharing a few of them, so that we can preserve and better understand the vibrant and diverse food cultures of Texas. Our oral history archive is now easily accessible on our website and our interviews are also archived at the University of Texas’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Check back often for new interviews and stories.
In addition, we began creating material for our documentary film initiative soon after Foodways Texas was born in July of 2010. You can now stream our completed films on our documentary film page.
celebratory AND EDUCTIONAL events
Throughout the year, we celebrate through education and educate through celebrating. We hold member happy hours, Barbecue Camps, Camp Vino, our yearly symposium, and more. The symposium is our family reunion. We meet yearly in a different Texas city or town to explore Texas food, history, and culture. This three day event, typically focused on a particular theme, includes panel discussions, scholarly presentations, videos, and more. Plus, all meals are included—meals that celebrate our communities and cultures and that expand our understanding of how Texans eat.
Foodways Texas Staff and Advisory Board
Executive Director
Marvin Bendele (Austin)
Program Assistant
Cynthia Frese (Austin)
ADVISORY BOARD
Lareatha Clay (Dallas)
Lareatha Clay, a Beaumont native currently living in Dallas, is an HR professional with 20+ years of experience as an independent training and HR consultant. She also has extensive experience in leadership roles at various nonprofits and working on many historic preservation projects. In 2017, Ms. Clay and her siblings founded Clay History and Education Services, Inc. as a vehicle for offering expanded history and preservation educational opportunities in partnership with the Shankleville Historical Society and the Texas Purple Hull Pea Festival, which she co-founded and organizes. She has a Master of Arts degree in Human Resource Development Leadership from the University of Texas, Austin and is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources.
Jessica Elizarraras
(San Antonio)
Randy Evans (Boerne)
Randy Evans is Executive Chef and Director for Restaurants for HEB. He is the former executive chef and founder of Cove and Haven in Houston and a former executive chef of Brennan’s Houston.
Jim Gossen (Houston)
Jim was the founder and chairman of Sysco Louisiana Seafood until his August retirement and a board member and president of the Gulf Seafood Foundation. He has been involved in Houston restaurants, Gulf seafood distribution, and Gulf conservation for over 45 years.
Bud Kennedy (Fort Worth)
Bud Kennedy is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he has covered politics for many years. His “Eats Beat” column has covered Texas food since 1985, focusing on Texas’ three major food groups: fried, barbecued or Tex-Mex. For 10 years, he was a weekly panelist and occasional guest host on a Dallas radio restaurant show. His motto is: “Never trust a dining writer with a clean shirt.”
Casey Kittrell (Austin)
Casey Kittrell is an editor at The University of Texas Press. He specializes in books about food and food culture. Three of his titles have won James Beard Awards. He is a founding member of Foodways Texas.
David Leftwich (Houston),
Board President
David is a writer interested in the intersection of food, culture, history, and immigration. His work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Sugar & Rice, Edible Houston, My Table, Food+City, Cite, and Houston Food Finder, where he is an associate editor. He co-founded and was executive editor of Sugar & Rice, a Gulf Coast food and culture journal; is the co-host of the Full Menu, a monthly segment on Houston Public Media’s Houston Matters; and is a research associate at the University of Houston’s Center for Public History. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University and received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from American University.
Stephanie McClenny (Austin)
Stephanie launched Confituras jam company in 2010, bringing small-batch preserves from her home kitchen to Central Texas tables. The business quickly grew and began winning awards, including an Austin Food and Wine Alliance Grant in 2013. Stephanie recently opened her own brick & mortar community kitchen and jam & biscuit shop in beautiful South Austin called Confituras Little Kitchen, which churns out seasonal jams and biscuits made with locally milled, heritage grains and offers an incubator mentorship program for women starting out in the food business.
Brian Michalk (Austin)
Brian Michalk is the past president of the Austin Saengerrunde. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin.
Mary Margaret Pack (Houston)
MM Pack is a food writer/historian and 5th generation Texan who grew up on the Gulf Coast eating shrimp, blue crabs, and rice and gravy. She’s a graduate of Rice University, the University of Texas, and the California Culinary Academy, and she is a former librarian and technical writer. She focuses on foods that have shaped Texas culture and contributes to various publications and food-related anthologies.
Monica Perales (Houston)
Monica holds a Ph.D. in history from Stanford University. She is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Houston and the Director of the UH Center for Public History, where she is co-director of the Gulf Coast Food Project. Her research and teaching focuses on Mexican American, borderlands, Texas and food history. She also holds a bachelor’s degree and a master's degree from The University of Texas at El Paso.
José Ralat (Dallas)
José R. Ralat is the taco editor at Texas Monthly. He has written for the Dallas Observer, Texas Highways, D Magazine, Eater, among other media outlets. Find his online home at www.thetacotrail.com.
Jeff Savell (College Station)
Jeff is Professor at Texas A&M University in the meat science section where he holds the holds the E. M. “Manny” Rosenthal Chair in Animal Science. He received his bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. in Animal Science from Texas A&M University.
Rebecca Sharpless (Fort Worth)
Becca teaches women's history and food history at Texas Christian University. She is currently completing a book manuscript, Grain and Fire: A History of Southern Baking. Her previous books include studies of Texas farm women and of cooks who were domestic workers in the South. Becca is a seventh-generation Texan, and she received her PhD from Emory University.
Robert Strickland (Dallas)
Robert Strickland is a Dallas-Fort Worth-based editorial and fine art photographer. Over the last ten years, he’s worked with various publications and organizations to help document the people, places and processes that help shape our meals. He's a graduate of the Art Institute of Dallas, where he studied both graphic and web design.
Jessica Desham Timmons (Houston)
Jess DeSham Timmons is the Chef/Partner of Cherry Block Craft Butcher and Kitchen and Owner/Chef of Camellia Monday Consulting. She attended the Culinary Arts program at the Art Institute of Houston, and her career in the restaurant industry has spanned over two decades as the former Corporate Operations Manager at Landry's, Inc., President of The Republic Country Club, and Partner at Caboose BBQ. Jess and her husband Johnny have two young men, Cooper and Carson, that are avid competitors on the baseball field. When you don’t find her in a restaurant, she’s likely on the bleachers somewhere along the Gulf Coast.
Roy Vũ (Dallas)
Roy Vũ is a history professor at North Lake College in Irving, Texas. He earned his Ph.D. (2006) in history at the University of Houston. His recent works include Feasted Landscapes: Sustainability in American Topics, 2nd Edition; “Turbulent Seas” in Sugar and Rice Magazine, Issue 2; and “Natives of a Ghost Country: The Vietnamese in Houston and Their Construction of a Postwar Community” in Asian Americans in Dixie: Race and Migration in the South. He is working on a book titled Farm-to-Freedom: Vietnamese Americans and Their Home Gardens.