Seeing as how this blog is called the Bible and culture, sometimes we focus more on the culture side of things. And with this recent ministry trip to Katy Texas we ran smack dab into all sorts of Texas culture, in particular its food culture, and if you haven’t sampled Texas food culture, then you have lived a deprived existence, I am sorry to say. In particular, if you have not sampled Bluebell (named after the flower) ice cream or barbecue brisket, you have not yet encountered the finest Texas has to offer. O.K., so its not quite the same as seeing a Rembrandt, but heck, you can’t eat a Rembrandt. Texans take seriously the fulfilling of Isaiah55.2b as the King James would have it— ‘delight thyself in fatness…’. And whether its meat fat or butter fat, it sure tastes good in Texas. God bless Texas. So, on my one afternoon off, this past Monday I requested that we visit Bluebell Creamery which is an hour and a bit north of Houston. They make ice cream the old fashioned way. It’s a mom and pop operation and there are only three plants in the whole U.S. that make it. The original one is the one we went to visit, to sample their butter pecan and Dutch chocolate ice cream, amongst other flavors. Yes, we took the tour and saw how 60,000 cows have to work hard every day to produce enough milk to produce the amount of ice cream this one company puts out in a given day. All I can say is, if eating ice cream in Lent is sin, there are a huge bunch of sinners in Texas. And the other food emporium we visited was several barbecue joints. Now Texas barbecue joints are noted for their spartan attire, and exotic critters on display. For example, you will see in this post a woolly mammoth, a big brown bear, and my personal favorite, a bison with a saddle on it. Oh yeah, I forgot the antler Christmas tree. If that ain’t Christian culture, I don’t know what is. So while you are eating your jalapeno cheese bread and brisket, and sausage and cole slaw and potato salad, and wolfing down sweet tea and then some pecan pie, you get to view other creatures standing around who are just as stuffed as you are when you finish. Texans don’t do anything by halves, so you need to be careful what size Barbecue plate you order, or for that matter what sized ice cream cone you order. The latter requires more caution most of the year in Houston cause if you walk outside with the cone, you will hardly make it to the car before the whole thing melts on your hand. And that is a horrible waste of perfectly good Bluebell Ice Cream.
I would advise all good Christians at some point to go to Texas and sample its divine cuisine and outsized food emporiums. Along the way you might even meet some of God’s creatures you have never seen before. As the man says, you are what you eat, so when you visit an outsized food emporium, be prepared to become an outsized human being. I am proud to say that after this trip, there is more of me for my wife to love 🙂
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