Helen Corbitt and what Texans ate

 

Helen Corbitt

Some of you may remember I’ve been off and on trying for three or four years to write a book about Helen Corbitt, legendary doyenne of food service at Neiman Marcus. My effort didn’t work for a variety of reasons, one among them few people thought my idea was as interesting as I did (hat tip to Travis Snyder of Texas Tech Press who did like the idea). My thesis was and is that she came at an interesting time in the history of food in the US.

A native of upstate New York and a trained dietician, Corbitt came to Texas in 1940 to teach at the University of Texas at Austin. She was dismayed to find, as Prudence McIntosh wrote for Texas Monthly, “no artichokes, no fresh raspberries, no herbs except decorative parsley, only beef (chicken-fried, barbecued, or well done), potatoes (fried or mashed and topped with a glop of cream gravy), and wedges of iceberg with sweet orange dressing. Fruit salad meant canned pears or pineapple with a dollop of mayonnaise and a grating of cheddar cheese. Canned asparagus was a remarked-upon delicacy, as were Le Sueur canned peas.^”

She moved on to the Houston Country Club, then a brief stint at Joske’s department store, and next the Driskill Hotel in Austin. Stanley Marcus began offering her a generous position at Neiman’s long before1955, when she finally accepted.

Meanwhile it was an era when forces were encouraging women to get out of the kitchen, to shortcut cooking, use prepared food and modern appliances, free themselves from the drudgery of the apron. Food critic Poppy Cannon published The Can-Opener Cookbook in 1951; Peg Bracken followed with The I Hate to Cook Cookbook in 1960. During the fifties, manufacturers were busy finding new consumers for prepared food since the military no longer needed as many MREs, and appliance manufacturers came up with appliances that practically prepared the entire meal. Futurists predicted housewives would soon be able to put an entire meal on the table in less than fifteen minutes.

Corbitt’s advice to housewives, however, was “Get back in the kitchen.” (She actually saved at least one marriage with that advice.) She believed in fresh ingredients, tasteful presentation, and careful combination of flavors. That chicken bouillon that is still served in the Zodiac? It took hours of cooking. Her signature dish, marinated black-eyed peas (also called Texas caviar) marinated at least two days before service. There was no instant food in her repertoire. One of her battles in her effort to teach Texans how to eat was the “al dente war”—she believed overcooking sapped vegetables of their flavor and health benefits. Everything from green beans to asparagus should be crisp. In a way, her cooking, rich with butter and cream, paved the way for James Beard and Julia Child.

Corbitt was a feisty, red-haired Irish woman with a temper. Stories abound about her tenure at Neiman’s, her friendships with everyone from President  Lyndon B. Johnson and his Lady Bird to the Prince of Wales, her occasional bursts of temper and outspoken moments.

Corbitt’s legacy lives on in her five cookbooks, which are still in print. Yet today I doubt even Dallas residents, except those of my generation, recognize her name. In her retirement, she traveled and lectured all over the South and Southwest, but she had almost no television presence, as Beard and Child did, and her reputation, while not limited to Texas, was pretty much regional.

I still think her story is interesting, and her accomplishments deserving of wider attention. Hmmm. The books is not going to fly, but I have submitted an article to a historical magazine (that the fifties is historical still boggles my mind). And I’ll keep thinking of ways to tell Corbitt’s story. No, I don’t see a novel in it.

Want to try a recipe? Google Helen Corbitt’s marinated black-eyed peas. If recipes tell you to add a lot of vegetables, move on. Her recipes has peas and onions.