Authentic Mexican food?

Cafe Society
1

I love Mexico and Mexican cuisine, but this lady

says that

Growing up Mexican American just 150 miles from the border, I thought I understood my ancestral cuisine. A tortilla was a fluffy, flour disc that your abuela (grandmother) warmed over the stove and slathered with butter and honey. Queso was a brick of neon-coloured Velveeta cheese your mom melted in a pot with a can of green chillies and served with Tostito chips during the Dallas Cowboys game. And tamales were a spicy blend of pork, masa and Crisco shortening that your tias (aunties) smeared over corn husks and steamed for Christmas dinner.

and opines that

Now, I have no problem with Tex-Mex food (and I am aware of the supposed argument over what constitutes real Tex-Mex food:

)
but what I want to know is, in the opinion of our distinguished Mexican and/or Texan readers, is it possible that the aforementioned author’s family matriarchs were merely bad in the kitchen rather than in any way authentic?

2

in a way she describes my white bread born in michigan grandma

she went from everything handmade on the farm as a kid to frozen and canned convenience foods after the war when she had her own kids she loved it for the most part now she did cook from scratch occasionally for us grandkids

other than my grandma tho most of the trained cooks in the family were the men (thanks to the military and grandma )

3

“Authentic” is whatever you want it to be.

In food, often it’s about capturing some arbitrary state of “pureness” of cultural identity of a specific time and place. And, it’s only possible to define authenticity by suppressing any concurrent expressions of culture (or cooking) that challenge the narrative of a one true way to do a thing.

Don’t get me wrong; like any other privileged cultural consumer, I love me some “authentic” experiences. But the concept of authenticity doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny.

4

I’m no authority, but I have done a little reading, and it seems to me that we really have a couple things in play, as well as 3 or more styles of “Mexican” cooking.

First, Mexico is a big, diverse place, and it used to be even bigger. All of the southwestern US used to be part of Mexico- California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and part of Colorado. Parts of that were more integrated than others- San Antonio, for example has been a city since 1718, and El Paso has been around slightly longer (~1680) and Laredo slightly less (1755). On the Mexican side, most of the border cities are of similar age. So a Mexican presence in Texas has been there since the very beginning.

It’s not unreasonable to think that there might be 3 basic styles of Mexican cooking where Texas is concerned. First, there’s “Mexican” cooking- i.e. the stuff they have traditionally made in Mexico, specifically the parts adjacent to Texas. Then there’s Texas Mexican- this is the food made by Mexicans and Mexican Americans living in Texas, and is mostly an outgrowth of the Northern Mexican cuisine from nearby Mexico, with some local dishes and inventions. And finally there’s Tex-Mex, which is a fusion cuisine of Texas Mexican combined with Anglo ingredients and adjusted for Anglo tastes.

There aren’t clear lines between any of these though. Chili (con carne) is actually Texas Mexican, in that as best as anyone can tell, derives from a spicy stew that the original Canary Islander settlers of San Antonio brought with them in the eighteenth century, and has been refined/adapted over the centuries. So clearly not “Mexican”, in that it’s unknown in Mexico proper and even looked down on there, but it also predates Tex-Mex as well, being one of the dishes that started it. However, it came to prominence as a component of Tex-Mex. Fajitas are another Texas Mexican dish- Mexican and Mexican-American ranch hands in South Texas were given parts of the cattle that were slaughtered as part of their pay, and they’d grill it over wood coals with a simple marinade/rub, and eat it as tacos. So again, Texas-Mexican. But it was adapted and popularized as a Tex-Mex dish with a few modifications.

Some dishes are straight Mexican- stuff like mole poblano or pescado Veracruz are very Mexican, as are things like cochinita pibil.

And Tex-Mex is basically those Texas Mexican and a few straight Mexican dishes that are tweaked for American tastes and ingredients. Something like a cheese enchilada with chili gravy and orange cheese is straight Tex-Mex. A Mexican enchilada might be similar, but use slightly different ingredients such as a sauce made of dried chiles and a sprinkle of cotija cheese on top.

Some dishes overlap all three- things like carne guisada, tamales, guacamole, barbacoa, etc…

So authenticity is what you make it I figure. Nobody can really point at it and yell “Non-authentic!” because there’s so much overlap and culinary syncretism that’s gone on. Think about it this way… how absurd would it be for some French guy to piss all over Creole or Cajun cuisine because it’s not “authentic” French? Of course it’s not- it’s its own style. Just like Texas Mexican and Tex Mex are their own styles.

FWIW… I made Adan Medrano’s carne guisada last night for dinner from his “Truly Texas Mexican” cookbook- it’s fantastic! And it’s pretty much the exact same dish as you’ll get in any Mexican restaurant here in Texas as well.

Now as for whether or not that author’s family cooks were bad or not… I vote for yes. I mean, think of all the horror stories we’ve all heard about Americans cooking American food. But properly prepared versions of American classics are very tasty and good food. There’s no reason to believe that Mexican-Americans are immune to being poor cooks, or having a very limited repertoire. We’ve already seen that Texas Mexican and Tex-Mex are both delicious when done well.

5

ive heard tacos weren’t even known in Mexico until the 30s/40s when Mexico had a swell of middle eastern immigrants mainly from lebanon and they started making a local version shawarma which evolved into mexican street tacos (and possibly burritos) and then texas added the lettuce tomatos and cheese …

6

No. Tacos predate the Spanish.

7

You are referencing a specific type of taco meat filling: Al Pastor, not tacos themselves.

8

It was more the use of fake food like Velveeta that shocked me than any inauthenticity, but then again the author does not say anywhere (that I saw) that her relatives were actually any good or even competent cooks. Hell, I myself got both beans and artichoke hearts out of cans this week so I cannot deny there is a time and a place for convenience foods in the home.

9

When I think of “authentic Mexican food”, San Diego-style is what comes to mind for me. Big thick burritos on slightly charred tortillas stuffed with just meat, sauce, and maybe some cheese, optionally served on a plate smothered with cheese and enchilada sauce. Shredded beef tacos on corn tortillas that are fried with the meat inside them, then stuffed with lettuce and cheddar cheese. Beef taquitos (usually called “rolled tacos”) served in orders or three or five, topped with cheddar, guacamole, and maybe a sprinkle of cotija. Enchiladas of shredded beef mixed with stewed onions and bell pepper. Carne asada fries. Fish (or fried shrimp) tacos on corn tortillas with coleslaw. Tomatoless, lime-and-chili-based runny hot sauce that comes in a squeeze bottle that sometimes gets jammed when a pepper seed gets lodged in the nozzle. So on.

It’s completely different than Tex-Mex, or what gets considered authentic in the rest of the country, or the food you’d get just over the border in Tijuana, or even the Mexican food in other parts of California - LA-style and San Francisco-style are completely different animals.

With any cuisine that’s spread as far and wide as Mexican food has (and in different waves at various points in time), “authentic” is going to vary greatly from place to place, much like how Japan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom have all developed their own versions of “curry” that bear only the slightest resemblance to the stuff they eat in India.

10

Just bad. Anybody claiming Velveeta ia “authentic” anything has lost me right there. I’m not even sure I’d call it authentic American cuisine. The Mexicans of the pre-revolutionary era didn’'t have velveeta. That’s like saying authentic Hawaiian coooking has Spam. :slight_smile:

11

I don’t buy this line of thinking at all. Pre-Columbian Exchange Italy didn’t use tomatoes, the Thais didn’t have peppers, etc. How far back are you going to go in your quest for “authentic?” Pick me up a couple of pounds of ground mastodon while you’re there, will you?

12

I don’t think 1928 is “pre-columbian” or the era of mastodons. If you’re going to include processed food-like substances that were created relatively recently as “authentic” Mexican or anyone’s cuisine, then the term has no meaning. The debate is over. If my abuela makes spaghetti and lutefisk with a side of egg rolls in her cocina, that must be authentic Mexican cooking, ipso facto

13

Is nobody else amused that the article is from the BBC? I doubt that there is authentic Mexican food in the UK mainly due to the lack of proper ingredients.

14

There is Mexican Cuisine. It’s easy to recognize and identify as different from other cuisines. To say any dish is ‘authentic’ has little meaning for most cuisine. We might consider the use of ingredients from other cuisines as making a dish inauthentic, but even then who is to say what type of cheese must be used in any Mexican food. After all, the same dish will vary regionally based on the popularity of locally produced cheese or other custom, and that applies to all the other ingredients as well. So if Velveeta is the cheese available does it matter if all the other ingredients fall within the constraints commonly associated with the dish? Maybe it’s not the most authentic version of the dish, but what recipe for what dish can meet that standard?

15

In my experience when you eat ‘Mexican food’ in Mexico and South America it’s mostly meat and vegetables. Little to no cheese or other dairy products. Tortillas are usually made from corn instead of flour. This is what I think of as authentic Mexican food.

It’s good but if given a choice I’ll take the dish with cheese every time.

16

There are approximately a zillion Mexican restaurant reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor that feature the reviewer saying “I’m from California (or Texas, or Mexico) and I know authentic Mexican food”.

Sure you do.

I’m reminded of Calvin Trillin. In one of his books he describes being at a neighborhood gathering where people were sharing various food dishes. He was sampling someone’s homemade gazpacho and explaining at length how it differed from authentic gazpacho - until he realized that the major difference was that it tasted better.

17

I dislike the use of the term “authentic.” Especially when what someone means is “traditional.” But these days the terms are so fluid they may as well be meaningless.

Trillin is a gold mine for quotes about food. His general approach is “Does it taste good? Yes? Screw everything else!”

18

What’s “relatively recently” though? Tex-Mex is a specific cuisine that evolved sometime starting in the late 19th century, and is basically Texas Mexican/Northern Mexican cuisine adapted for Anglo tastes and using more commonly found American ingredients, such as processed “American” cheese.

It’s not inauthentic; it’s its own style of Mexican food. Just like Texas Mexican is different than Oaxacan food, which is different than Yucatecan food, and so on. In Texas, there’s considerable overlap between Tex-Mex and Texas Mexican- availability of ingredients, the influence of Tex-Mex restaurants, and plenty of other stuff have influenced that.

But I still think that like you say, if your Abuela makes, it’s ipso facto Mexican food.

19

That’s also a slippery slope because around here, half the cooks in a Chinese restaurant are likely to be Mexican. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

20

Hawaiians love Spam. This makes Spam an authentic part of Hawaiian cooking. Hawaii is extremely multicultural. Unless we include only Polynesians, there is no ‘authentic’ cuisine.