The Atlantic: What to Eat in the Texas Suburbs

View full article here 

 

In my daily life as an East Coast journalist, pretty much all I eat is lentils, salad, and lentil salads. The thing is, I recently returned to my homeland, Texas, for a reporting trip. Before you ask, hipster, I’m not from Austin, or even Houston. I’m from the gosh-dang suburbs of Dallas, where lentils and salads are less plentiful, and beef and cheese are ... more so.

Midway through it, I traveled to the small town of Wichita Falls, in central Texas, where my stomach microbes were further exposed to things they’ve never witnessed in their precious, coddled, organic Washington, D.C., lives. I’m talking ice cream that isn’t Halo Top and tap water from a La Quinta bathroom.

I have returned with, for now, a brief travelogue of things I ate. I had limited time, limited cash, and limited options. Some of my stops were quintessentially Texas; others were maybe a standard deviation more Texas than the average fast-food meal, yet might be accessible in your impersonal, master-planned suburban home. But they were all delicious, and I’m not dead, so I can only assume the same experience would hold for you.

I say this not as a health reporter, but as a friend: Here is what you should eat if you ever find yourself in North-Central Texas.

 Flying out of Dallas Love Field, the world’s best airport—Stop by Dickey’s Barbecue for some beef brisket (not pork, this isn’t North Carolina). They will give you a beer, but you have to drink it right there in front of them. (not walk all around the airport with it, this isn’t Europe).