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.

 

A hodgepodge Saturday

 

 

My herb garden, varnished and ready to go.
We have the liner, pebbles for drainage, and dirt, plus
four small plants. I had a vision of winter lettuce, but apparently
there is no such thing. I'll plant seeds in anticipation of
early spring lettuce. 

Bricklayers, I have learned, are quiet—until they are noisy. Yesterday they quietly laid brick all day on the new guesthouse/cabana that neighbors are building, with my blessing, directly behind my cottage. There was one incident at noon when it sounded like they were banging on a kettle drum—I thought maybe they were mixing mortar, but what do I know about what bricklayers do? Otherwise, it was quiet, even though the neighbor warned me there might be construction noise. My one request was: no loud music in the afternoons when I like to sleep.

This morning, being Saturday I was sure they would not work. So wrong. They began hammering and pounding at seven-thirty. What do bricklayers do that requires hammering? Anyway, it’s been fun to watch that wall of green insulation with wires protruding everywhere turn into a smooth brick wall.

These are good neighbors. They came to me for an easement or whatever it’s called before they ever started this project, and they have been careful to keep me informed and be sure I didn’t have any problems with what was going on. Philip Newburn, the architect who designed my cottage, designed this structure too, and he put the windows facing my cottage high up so that they provide light in the new cabana but do not invade my privacy. I call that Texas neighborliness.

I once had a friend who claimed she could be perfectly content watching paint dry. That is so not me, so I had to move on beyond watching them lay brick. Still, it is Saturday, and I fiddled and piddled more than usual, once again drawn into posts about what I am now calling Abbott’s Law—may it go down in history as an example of evil in government.

But I did manage to read the last two chapters of Irene in Danger, checking for typos. And I had fun, as I did yesterday, putting together recipes for the back of the book. So far I have gougères (little cheese-y puff pastries), gibelotte (a rabbit stew—not to worry, I have other suggestions), salade niçoise, Henny’s Mom’s ranch beans, and Henny’s Mom’s potato salad. A nice mix of French and Texas, representative of the food to be served at the wedding of Henny and Patrick—that is, if they ever get to hold that wedding. Wait! Did I just give away a bit of the plot?

Emails kept me involved for a while, especially an exchange with Carol about my updated Handbook of Texas entry on the Waggoner Ranch. Carol is my friend who is an archivist, research librarian, and a walking encyclopedia of Texas history. I was delighted to be able to tell her a few things about the Waggoner family homes that she didn’t know. The Most Land, the Best Cattle: The Waggoners of Texas launches October 1. I need to be doing more advance publicity and checking on what the publisher is doing.

And tonight, Jean and I had our regular Saturday night supper. We usually choose Saturday because the Burtons have other plans, but it has become a running joke that she finds them at home, their plans having changed or cancelled. Almost happened again today when the pool party they thought they were going to was cancelled. But tonight, they are at the seasoner opener for TCU football. TCU is playing DuQuesne, and Jean and I had to look it up to see where the school is located—Pittsburgh, PA. Jean was guessing East Coast, while I thought Davenport, Iowa. Nine minutes into the first quarter TCU was ahead 7-0; too early to predict much.

On tonight’s menu was blonde puttanesca. Puttanesca is commonly known as the whore’s spaghetti. Usually a red sauce, it has the strong flavors of onion, garlic, anchovies, red pepper, and capers—the ladies of the night made it from what they had on hand. I avoid it because it is too spicy, but I thought this blonde version, with tuna, would be good. It was, but it was a bit fishy—a combination of the anchovy and capers. Lemon cut it a bit, but I probably won’t try it again. Jean happily went home with a serving for her lunch tomorrow.

And I’m ready to spend the evening reading. Sleep well and have happy dreams, my friends.

 

Escaping into Helen Corbitt’s life

Helen Corbitt

Sometimes writing is a great way to escape. I had nary a thought about pandemics or protests today as I wrote a short piece about Helen Corbitt. She is known as the doyenne of food service at Neiman Marcus. You have to be of a certain age to remember her. She was at Neiman’s when I moved to Texas in the early 1960s, but I was young and green, and Neiman’s was way beyond my budget. Besides I hadn’t yet developed my fascination with all things culinary. Today she is one of my heroes.

Born in upper New York and educated at Skidmore College, Corbitt worked as a hospital dietitian in Newark and New York in the late 1920s. But she was bored. A job hunt was unfruitful until she got an offer from the University of Texas at Austin. Her initial response was, “Who the hell wants to go to Texas?”

She went, taught quantity cooking and restaurant management and ran the University Tea Room, a laboratory school for her students and probably where she developed some of her signature recipes, such as chicken bouillon and popovers with strawberry butter. Eat lunch at Neiman’s today, and you will be served a complimentary demitasse of bouillon and the popover with butter.

The Houston Country Club hired her away from UT, but she didn’t unpack her bags. Homesick, she only wanted to earn enough to go back east. But six months later, she unpacked. She loved cooking fine food for appreciative members of the club. When the club met financial difficulties in wartime, she moved to Joske’s department store—only job she was ever fired from. She and management disagreed.

Back to Austin, where she managed food service at the Driskell, but in 1955 she finally accepted Stanley Marcus’ offer—he’d been calling her for eight years. Like Marcus, she believed in pleasing the most discriminating customer. But she was a spitfire. Marcus liked to wander unannounced into various departments in his store. When he entered the kitchen, she demanded, “Stanley, did I invite you here? No? Please leave and come back when I do.” She once fired her entire crew, only to desperately retrieve them when she realized she had customers to feed. And  when Maria Callas was late for a reservation for thirty people, she made them all stand at the back of the line.

Corbitt retired from Neiman’s in 1955 and went on to a career teaching, lecturing, and writing. She was the author of several cookbooks. The first, Helen Corbitt’s Cookbook, was an enormous success. If you can find a vintage copy today, it’s a treasure—full of sixties food and things we miss today, like jellied salads. Helen Corbitt Cooks for Looks came about because her doctor advised her to lose weight. One of her most interesting projects was to teach a class for select Dallas businessmen. They met in her apartment, kept notebooks, and relished the class. She always said she proved that Texas men wanted more than steak and potatoes.

Corbitt had several signature dishes. Among them, chicken salad with white grapes and Texas caviar. She invented the latter when she had only been in Texas two weeks and was told to prepare a convention banquet using only Texas products. After uttering a profanity, she produced a superb meal. Texas caviar is black-eyed peas in a dressing of garlic, onion, oil, and vinegar. You’ve probably eaten it. Ladybird Johnson particularly loved her flower pot cakes.

Helen Corbitt transformed the way Texans looked at food. Her complaints when she got here were that salads were dull and over-dressed and vegetables where overcooked. She waged what she called the al dente wars, fighting for crisp, fresh vegetables. Her influence is long-lasting, and yet she is unfortunately overlooked in the long list of American chefs. Search out her books, read about this sassy woman, and try to have as much fun as I did today.