Texas Mexican

Thank you, Adan Medrano for giving me better words to define the Texas border food I grew up eating - Texas Mexican.

Texas Mexican includes the border regions of Mexico and (loosely) southern Texas.  San Antonio is safely  inside with Austin and Houston roughly defining a border where Texas Mexican starts to fade and Tex Mex starts to take over.  The culture of the border, northern Mexico is often referred to as Norteño which describes the polka music we've all heard but also the cuisine.

Texas Mexican is the core cuisine of 60 million people, roughly the same on both sides.  And it is just a rich and diverse as cuisines that historically have garnered more respect from white men in aprons like French and Italian.

If the population of eaters isn't enough, then perhaps you'll be swayed by the rich history.   Corn tortillas, beans, avocados, peppers, and tamales are the foods of commoners, warriors and royalty from thousands of years ago - back when Europe was in the dark ages.

And many of the "respected" cuisines emerged much later with heavy new world influence.  Those potatoes in all those great French dishes?  New world.  The tomatoes in Italian food?  New world.  The jalapeños, spices and peanuts in Asian dishes, all from the new world.  Seasoning something with Paprika? - its from Mexico.  Swiss chocolate?  It is Mayan.

I would also argue that new world foods are more nutritious for the money than many common foods.  A couple of jalapeños matches or beats a cup of Kale in many nutritional areas and jalapeños cost just pennies.  I know what I'd rather eat.

The heavy reliance on lard and other fats and the dominance of meat and cheese on the plate characterize Tex Mex.  No disrespect.  I love Tex Mex too.  Tex Mex is unhealthy (and delicious) by design.  The old dishes of Texas Mexican from which Tex Mex is derived are not unhealthy.

An example of how cuisine evolves:

Peppers and corn tortillas - ancient

Peppers sprinkled with cheese and corn tortillas - perhaps 500 years old after the Spanish arrived

Peppers melted into a pan of Mexican style cheeses aka queso flameado and served with corn tortillas - more recent but still old.  It was probably a campfire food for Vaqueros.

Yellow cheese with some tomatoes and peppers in it and served with fried chips - firmly Tex Mex and recent.

Lately, I've been focusing my cooking on better tortillas, making great beans with meat or fat to add flavor (rather than dominating), roasting my peppers (instead of frying them) and generally pushing forward the fresh bounty of the new world with avocados, tomatoes, cilantro,  and meat and cheese adding extra flavor.

Time for me to start learning to cook with squash.