Texas
Texas, land of barbecue and Tex-Mex: the Austin Food & Wine Festival, held in November in 2026, with tickets and dates read on the official site.
- 2food festivals
Food festivals in Texas
Andreas Praefcke, CC BYStreet foodUsually Sep, OctState Fair of Texas
Dallas’s 24-day fair at Fair Park, 25 September to 18 October in 2026: corny dogs, the Big Tex Choice Awards, coupons and the DART train. 2027 dates not yet published.DallasView
AdrienWikipedia, CC BY-SAWineNov 6 to 8Austin Food & Wine Festival
Austin’s food, wine, beer and spirits festival at Auditorium Shores, 6 to 8 November 2026: tickets from 185 dollars, for guests aged 21 and over.AustinViewCities and towns in Texas
Quintin Soloviev, CC BY
Matthew T Rader, CC BY-SAMap of Texas
Food festivals in Texas, month by month
Texas, in the south of the United States, is known for its barbecue, with beef brisket at the heart of the central Texas style, and for Tex-Mex cooking. The festivals in this guide are the State Fair of Texas, held at Fair Park in Dallas (from 25 September to 18 October in 2026), known for its corny dogs and fried food, and the Austin Food & Wine Festival, held in the state capital. The 2026 festival is in November.
The foods Texas has made official
The Texas Legislature has adopted a long list of state symbols, recorded by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Several are things to eat.
| Symbol | Food | Adopted |
|---|---|---|
| State dish | Chili | 1977 |
| State snack | Tortilla chips and salsa | 2003 |
| State pepper | Jalapeño | 1995 |
| State native pepper | Chiltepin | 1997 |
| State fruit | Texas red grapefruit | 1993 |
| State vegetable | Sweet onion | 1997 |
| State bread | Pan de campo | 2005 |
| State pie | Pecan pie | 2013 |
| State cobbler | Peach cobbler | 2013 |
The pecan has been the state tree since 1919 and was named the state health nut in 2001.
A fair as old as the 1880s
The State Fair of Texas traces its origin to the Dallas State Fair & Exposition, chartered as a private corporation on 30 January 1886 by a group of Dallas businessmen, on an 80-acre tract in East Dallas that lies within today's Fair Park. Attendance passed 300,000 in 1905 and one million in 1916. In 1930 a 46,000-seat stadium was built on the site of the racetrack, later renamed the Cotton Bowl, and in 1936 Fair Park hosted the Texas Centennial Exposition, which drew more than 6 million people in six months. Big Tex, the 52-foot cowboy figure that greets visitors, made his first appearance in the 1950s.
No fairs were held from 1942 to 1945, and the 1918 fair was cancelled when Fair Park became an army camp during the First World War.