Texas Floyd's American Pie

Ah! Hi, y'all! This is me in Texas.

I wanted to come on a helicopter, or Learjet or something like that,

but no, we have to come by horse.

But they do tell me that Mel Brooks doesn't like them,

Clint Eastwood isn't all that keen on them, but what better way

to kick off a cookery programme than down-home on the range?

Come on, let's go!

Despite global critical acclaim for our programme,

the BBC still adopt a parsimonious attitude towards our budget.

I still have to beg, borrow or steal a kitchen to cook in.

So I sent one of my researchers out to find a typical Texan home, something modest, ordinary.

Well, he WAS a Texan so he thought this was ordinary. The chap who owns it is a multimillionaire.

What is Texas all about? Apaches, vigilantes, longhorn cattle,

Lone Ranger, politics to the right of Vlad the Impaler...

Also it's about chandeliers, dining tables and clothes. But I haven't changed my image a jot(!)

America hasn't affected me one bit. Note the pigskin jacket, the snakeskin boots, the medallion.

But it's only rock'n'roll. Anyway, let's do some business.

We're going to do what they all do in Texas - grill some steaks and have a little slurp.

But first, the ingredients for a Texan barbecue sauce -

butter, pepper, onions,

Worcestershire sauce, malt vinegar, lemon juice, Tabasco, sugar,

water, garlic and "catsup".

It's terribly simple, but it's very important, because Texans want their steaks tasting really good.

Because of the Mexican influence, they like things a bit spicy.

In with the "catsup", as they call it here.

As I said, America hasn't affected me in any way, y'all(!)

A dash of "Woostercesstershire" sauce. Stir that in.

I can see you at home wondering, "What has happened to dear Floyd?"

Ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and now wine vinegar?

But this is Texas and we're going for it.

A load of chopped onions in there.

No problems. A cup of lemon juice, freshly squeezed, of course.

A dash of Tabasco.

We could use this for stripping paint, I'll bet. A load of sugar. Put it in there.

And some garlic, like that.

A knob of butter.

Did I put the pepper in? I didn't. So then the pepper.

Say, half a teaspoonful.

Stir it round, whack it on the gas.

Do you know, that was a whole take, right from the top of the stairs?

Most programmes don't do that, even a lot of films can't do it.

Anyway, what I deserve is a little drink. Texans drink Margueritas.

Margueritas are demon little things and when you've been working as hard as me, you deserve one.

It's very simple. You pour as much triple sec as you feel like into...

Goodness me, it's Texas and they've got this mean little pourer on top!

Right. You pour triple sec into your little hand-blown jug.

And equal quantities of tequila, which is made from the agave plant.

I thought it came from cactus.

So equal quantities of that. This is looking good!

Yes, that smells quite good.

Then limes. Real limes, lovingly crushed so you have them like that.

Limes into there.

And then icicles and icicles, twice as nice as Ricicles...

A load of ice goes into that.

We've got an expert in the crew on these Margueritas.

She's the world champion drinker.

And she says there should be no sugar. Some people put in sugar.

But... Is this salt or sugar? That's the sugar. A bit of sugar.

Then, have you ever wondered, and here's a useful thing for your dinner parties,

how do they get salt round the top of the glass for a Marguerita?

They dip the glass into lime juice and then into some salt,

twiddle it round and it's full of salt - essential for a Marguerita.

The other essential thing is to taste it.

If it ain't good enough to cook with, it ain't good enough to drink.

Welcome to Texas!

# I feel tears welling up from deep inside

# Like my heart's got a big break

# And a stab of loneliness sharp and painful

# That I might never shake

# You might say that you were taking it hard

# When you wrote me off with a call

# You might wager that I'll hide my sorrow

# I might lay right down and bawl

# Now the race is on and here comes pride up the back stretch

# Heartache's goin'... #

"I don't want your lonely mansion, I just want the love you promised beneath the haloed moon."

So the song goes. Until now, my only experience of Texas came in a bottle.

I thought of millionaires and gold-plated Cadillacs.

But since oil prices fell, Texas looks a bit ragged. OK, it's easy to criticise.

Nevertheless, the countryside is quite barren.

These shacks are all that remain of somebody's dreams

here in God's Little Acre.

Steinbeck purists will know I've just shifted a few states.

# Now the race is on and here comes pride up the back stretch... #

There's tremendous pride in this state. Texans think of it as another country.

These people aren't in fancy dress.

Cowboy boots and Stetsons are worn with honour,

like a knight's sword, only to be taken off at home.

# I guess it looks like heartache and the winner loses all. #

To recap on the sauce, it's tomato ketchup, Worcester sauce,

lemon juice, a drop of water, garlic, onions, butter,

Tabasco sauce and a bit of pepper. bubbling away nicely.

The sort of thing Americans like on their steaks.

The other thing Americans like, is a thought for the day.

I was wandering around the kitchen, and I found it -

February 11, 1989, it says, "O great Father, never let me judge another man

"until I have walked in his moccasins for two weeks."

It's an Indian prayer. It's to think about, isn't it? Anyway. Steaks.

This is a cookery programme after all, not the morning prayer. There is a Texas steak.

It probably only weighs about 16, 20 ounces, something like that.

They like them big round here.

It just goes - whack! - onto the grill. One...

..two...

..and three.

You will have read, those of you who are interested,

the problems in the paper about American beef.

they inject it with steroids and all kinds of things.

There's all kinds of battles going on, agricultural wars and stuff.

Texas would like to point out, through me, that they're not part of that.

They do not do these funny things to their beef, and their beef, they reckon, is pretty good.

And wouldn't the Ministry of Agriculture in America pay heed to them.

That's my little political lecture for the day.

Over we go. There.

If only I could get some stars on those stripes, I'd have a real American steak!

Well, I suppose it should be ladies first, but a man wearing a hat at the table has a certain authority.

Larry and Shelly Beard lost their shirts in the 1987 property crash.

But, unlike Britain, bankruptcy here carries no stigma.

You just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start again.

It's always too soon to give up.

You can be flat on your back. But, hey, you know... >

Thomas Edison tried 900 something times to get electricity.

He said he never had failures, just processes of elimination.

And I didn't feel like... I had a good wife who supported me.

I had depression like anybody else.

But there is a certain Texas pride that says, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Let's just see what we can do. We did it once. We can do it again.

We may fail but, hey, we can do it.

Anybody that's down can get up. Just try. Keep it up.

-How's the sauce, Larry?

-Excellent. If my wife doesn't drown it in ketchup, well, then it's good.

I'm not nearly as picky as she, but this is excellent.

I want a copy of this.

I don't know what your speciality is, but it's obviously very good.

We're big beef eaters down here

and we're real particular about our steaks, and these are good.

Like you said, we like things spicy because of the Mexican influence.

I especially like things spicy.

I'm a hot sauce connoisseur, aren't I?

-Say that to me again! It was wonderful!

-She's a hot woman!

-Say it in that lovely accent.

-I am a hot sauce connoisseur.

-COCK CROWS

-I'll drink to that!

So far in this series I haven't mentioned the great American breakfast.

The finest connoisseur of this American phenomenon is the truck driver.

I can't help being reminded of that wonderful poem by WH Auden, the one that goes,

This is the night mail Crossing the border

Bringing the cheque And the postal order

Letters for the rich Letters for the poor

The shop at the corner The girl next door.

Eggs over easy, toast on the side Or sunny side up and ready to slide

An order of bacon And a cup of decaf

Chicken fried steak And an order of hash

Pancakes and fruit Griddled or fried

Don't forget the bacon Well-cooked on the side.

Or words to that effect.

I have a wheat toast coming out with this order.

Everything here, it seems, is cooked on the griddle,

a brilliant invention which is sadly misused, I think, in England,

limiting itself as it does to hamburgers and fried eggs.

As President Truman once said, "The truck stops here."

The guidebook says, "When you come to Lockhart for the first time

"you are struck by the pride taken in preserving its heritage."

But try to get a drink here...!

Not that I need one, and it's just as well, because it's a dry town.

But not long ago Saturday night meant drunk cowboys,

a bit like the BBC Club, in fact.

And now - architecture.

The architects of the Old West carried catalogues of European-style town halls.

It's a great shame that practice has died out.

This is more the sort of Texas I've been looking for.

You could make any kind of film here from James Dean, Rebel Without A Cause,

right through to the Dukes Of Hazzard, just by changing the vehicles.

-CAR HORN

-Pick-up trucks, the whole bit.

Anyway, the hub of this place is a barbecue.

After all, this IS meant to be a cookery programme.

I'm not going to cook yet, because when I told my chum Barry about this place, he put down his pint,

and wrote this commentary. Barry?

Thank you. The word "barbecue" comes from a Haitian word "barbacoa",

meaning a framework of sticks set on posts, used for sleeping on or roasting a carcass.

The term has widened to embrace the entertainment at which animals are roasted whole.

In Lockhart they reckon to do it bigger and better and spicier than anywhere in the world.

Lawyers, accountants, surgeons and salesmen

flock to the pyres. If it can be smoked, it is.

Barbecue here is a serious business.

10,000 Texas sausages of pure pork are smoked every day.

The smell of the smoke and the roar of the fire

helps people forget the fat content.

I don't know if they have heart attacks here, but they're not afraid.

Strange, isn't it, for such a diet-conscious nation.

Anyway, here's me in the works Cadillac en route for Austin.

Of course, the car blew up because SOMEONE forgot to put water in the radiator.

Anyway, "First, take your taco."

A taco is just a tortilla with a little bit of filling inside.

A little salsa. Maybe this nice coloured salsa...

-And you got yourself a nice taco.

-That is a taco? Right.

-It's hot, watch out.

-It's hot, but it's lovely.

Isn't it like the Mandarin pancakes when you shred off the duck and put it into a pancake?

Or it's like Indian chapatis.

These wonderful sauces which Luis makes - he calls them salsas -

all come from purees and oils

of these different peppers, onions, chillies, dried chillies,

and this curious tomato.

But he won't tell me the secret ingredients of them.

-So what is an enchilada?

-Everything goes in it. It's like a taco.

We got chicken here, but it can have beef or...anything goes.

The way we eat it is like this.

-You use like a spoon or a fork.

-Right.

-And you have your taco.

That's an enchilada. You just take a corn tortilla,

you dip it in a chilli marinade,

and then you quickly fry it in the pan, roll it and stuff it,

-like Italian cannelloni. There's another influence.

-I'm sure it is.

-In Mexico they probably have some other influence.

-That's right.

From Japan and other countries.

Or you can get some tortilla chips and dip them in spicy sauce.

After seven Margaritas and seven seconds of research into Mexican food, I'm an expert.

Particularly with chicken fajitas - little chicken fillets, dipped into a smashing red chilli sauce,

and popped onto the grill. I'll do three or four of those and explain as we go along.

One...two...three...four.

Right, while these sizzle away, we'll spin round the ingredients.

The essential thing is this sauce, which is made from oregano, garlic, dried chillies, pepper and salt,

a little olive oil and water, all whizzed up in the liquidiser.

The garnish, like for a Chinese stir-fry, are spring onions and raw onions

and this long, thin, slightly spicy pepper,

which is grilled on a bit of oil so it looks like that.

We'll turn these over. They're coming along at a rate of knots.

Then we put our spring onions on, which we dip into a bit of oil.

They sit on there and sizzle away. A bit of this sizzles away on a cooler part of the thing.

And, of course - Clive, where are you? - you eat those with tacos.

Go and see how you make tortillas!

When I told Barry, the world-famous wildlife film producer,

about the Mexican restaurant, he was so impressed

he wanted to read a piece from my new BBC book, Floyd's American Pie. Barry?

The dough is divided into balls, and flattened to make pancakes,

and cooked for the briefest of moments on either side on a griddle.

Once you have your tortillas, you can deep-fry them to make nachos -

-crispy corn chips for scooping up salsas...

-Barry, that's wonderful.

That's what we're going to do now.

A couple of moments have passed, the tortillas have been made,

the chicken is cooked, the onions and peppers are done,

and there is a taste of Mexico!

-GROWLING

-Hello, nice doggy.

For my final Mexican cooking sketch, I borrowed a pleasant ranch house.

After getting told off for smoking, I started frying potatoes in oil.

The other things I need for this Tex-Mex dish are - spring onions, peppers, tomatoes, onions,

the aforementioned potatoes, some beef - but because this is Texas...

Mexicans wouldn't use fillet steak but this is Texas,

so they use fillet steak in their beef stew!

This is cilantro, which we call coriander.

The first thing I do is chop up the onion, to get this whole thing going...

Then the pepper.

Which is all going fine...

I have to tell you, and you might look deep into my eyes

and see that they're a bit bloodshot...

Well, we have been hitting the USA very hard.

Not only hard work and change of temperatures,

but also things like Jim Beam and tequila sunrises and daiquiris,

all part of the American Dream.

And we must experience the American Dream right to the hilt!

So I can't look as if I've stepped into a 20th Century Fox studio.

OK, back to the pot, Clive. Onions and peppers into there.

While they sizzle away, I'm going to hack up some beef over here.

You can stay on that or you can come over to my beef here.

Let's assume this is for about four people.

It's terribly extravagant to use fillet steak in what's essentially a stew,

but it isn't actually, for Americans, all that expensive.

Right. Stir those round.

All those have to brown and get sealed in the normal way.

Peppers, onions and beef... Then I have to add a couple of tomatoes, already blanched and peeled.

We don't want the nasty peel in it. Chop those down...

I'm also very pleased to tell you, the house I've borrowed today

is one that actually has really sharp knives, it's got blenders and liquidisers...

It's the first really good kitchen I've been to in America, so I'm really happy.

That's why I'm being fairly serious. Right. They simmer for a moment.

Something you always have to have on cookery programmes is the slightest of slurps.

And what could be better than a tequila sunrise? So while that's bubbling away, let's make one.

First I must get some ice going. This will make a terrible noise.

It'll upset the sound man. He doesn't even like the pan sizzling.

That was a really interesting shot.

The director will be bored and ask why I took so long crushing ice.

So I put some crushed ice into the bottom of our glass,

then we are going to add some superb tequila,

like that, and we'll stir into that some orange juice...

We could do with some more ice in there, in my humble opinion.

How do you get ice out of these things? Put the ice into that...

And then, here's the tricky bit - you merely float the grenadine...

I HAVEN'T floated it, but these things happen.

Tequila sunrises are red, blood-red, and orange-yellow...

It's upside-down. It doesn't matter at all.

It tastes ever so good! Right. Back, then, to this.

We've now got our beef, peppers, and onions frying nicely away.

We've got these fried potatoes. It's important that they're brown.

I think it's an appropriate moment for a little seasoning. A little bit of pepper...

A little drop of the imperial beef stock,

which I'll confess I didn't reduce from bones.

I went to the supermarket and bought a tin of consomme,

cos we don't reduce things here.

So that goes in. A little bit of the old fresh tomato sauce...

And now bubble that up for... I dunno, what would you think?

I reckon about 20 minutes. The sauce will be reduced, the beef will be unctuous,

I'll have drunken the tequila sunrise, and the Indians will be on the warpath once again!

To quote the Blues Brothers, they play two kinds of music here - country and western.

# It ain't fancy but it's country

# Wear your jeans and cowboy hats

# Just 'cross that old river

# Cos that's where it's at

# It was born on the south side of Austin... #

I go through hell for you lot!

Witness, not a tremble in the hand...

And STILL the damn stuff goes right down the side!

All right, it's an Australian sunset. What really matters is my dish.

The sauces have reduced - the tomato sauce and beef stock.

It's left the potatoes, the meat, the tomatoes, onions and peppers

beautiful and unctuously marinated in all that stuff.

And that is a little Mex-Tex dish. You'd be pleased to serve that. I'd be certainly pleased to eat it!

For a second opinion, why don't I get my hostess over here? Debbie!

Stop taking pictures! Just because it's your house... Come here.

It says on her lapel, "Never try to teach a cow to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the cow."

See if you like that and I'll drink the tequila.

-It looks yummy!

-See if it's OK.

-I'm starving too.

-I saved myself for you.

-Now, there's a thought...!

This is Valentine's Day too!

It's a bit hot.

-Mmm! That is so tasty!

-Is it nice?

Did that all simmer and all the juices did that?

All the juices have been absorbed into the vegetables and the beef.

-It's quite good fun, isn't it?

-The cilantro really adds to it.

-Delicious.

-In fact, I'll add a bit more of that.

That really makes it interesting. It's delicious.

# Just make mine Country That's all I'll ever know

# It was born on the south side of Austin

# Broken Spoke was its name

# It'll always be a winner It's headed for fame

# So if you like waltzes and polkas and two-steps, Cotton Eye Joes

# Deep in the heart of Texas There's a place that you should go

# Yes, deep in the heart of Texas There's a place that you should go. #

Oh, yeah! All RIGHT! Thanks, y'all!