Chef Nick Castelberg Brings Us Authentic Food at the George Ranch Historical Park

Located close to Brazos Bend State Park and a mere 30 miles from downtown Houston, George Ranch Historical Park is a working ranch housing historic homes and buildings dating back to 1823.

Every Saturday this spring, try a spot at the table for a historic lunch. Rotating weekly, resident chef Nick Castelberg developed menus for each of seven different historic locations based on foods common for their venue and era. For instance, lunch at the 1930s George Farm includes home-cured meats like corned beef and pastrami, along with a Czech potato salad and green beans heavy with fatback and onions. At the Davis Mansion, a Victorian lunch brings a touch of England and circles around roast beef complete with English country gravy, Yorkshire pudding and treacle dessert, whereas the Sharecropper lunch is rooted firmly in the South with foods like deep-fried catfish, fried gizzards, greens with ham hocks, dirty rice, cracklin’ bread and buttermilk pie.

If you feel you need to work up an appetite for lunch: A good hike on the trails at Brazos Bend can help make you feel you earned it!

Some other options in the Historic Food program offered at George Ranch Historic Park include chuck wagon breakfast cooked over an open fire while learning about cooking in a Dutch oven (the first Saturday of every month) and hearthside cooking lessons in a 1830s log cabin (based on availability, for groups of 8–12 people). Contact georgeranch.org for more information, ticket prices and available dates.