A descendant of one of the pioneering boarding house families, Wanda Landrey searched the Big Thicket to find survivors of the boarding house era and to collect their stories and recipes. Wanda Landrey causes me to remember a special day, long ago, when I ate sweet potato pie at the Bragg Hotel in the Big Thicket. This book makes me hungry, not just for the boarding house dishes Wanda describes, but also for a time in Texas culture that is gone forever.
Many photos add to the narrative. . . .
From a unique black hotel in Trinity with embroidered napkins and crystal, to an antebellum health resort that featured wild game, to the ordinary Harvey House restaurants in railroad depots, Landrey touched on a Big Thicket life few persons know existed. Either way, Boardin' in the Thicket is a fascinating collection of characters, customs, historical tidbits and recipes for down-home country cooking. Ducks and geese were counted in the millions. . . . The woods were filled with delicacies like nuts and wild fruit. The commerce that crisscrossed the region created a network of boarding houses, with a unique cooking style that took advantage of the bounty of the land.