For one of the world’s great cuisines, Mexican food is strangely hard to find outside North America. I’d think that the combination of vegetable proteins, flatbreads, spicy sauces and bold flavors would be more popular worldwide, but you’re hardpressed to find even food court level Mexican some places.
Case in point, even Taco Bell is nigh impossible to find in Asia and India. (( I did find a Taco Bell in Singapore, which used the soy sauce and ginger cooked chicken that is more commonly used in Hainese chicken rice for the taco meat. not bad but not the fix I was looking for. And no refried beans! How can you have Mexican-flavored junk food like Taco Bell without beans?)
Especially when you compare Indian and Pakistani food to Mexican, that doesn’t make sense. Think about it, take a meal of chicken tacos with salsa, tomatoes and lettuce, some arroz de sopa (or “Spanish rice”) and refried beans. Lots of cumin, tomatoes, simple, bold, earthy flavors. That’s almost identical to a curried chicken dish like a Balti with naan, dal and Jalfrezi rice.
Even in Latin America outside of Mexico, Mexican food can be hard to find. In Lima, for example, we have 2 "Mexican"restaurants. I’ve asked people why it’s not more popular and they can’t really give me a clear answer. Folks here like spicy, bold flavors, they enjoy rice cooked with sauce and they have lots of similar dishes, but it just hasn’t taken off as a cuisine.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy finding out what each country I visit has to offer and I’ve had some amazing meals, but Mexican is my comfort food and I’m curious why it doesn’t seem to have taken the world by storm like some others have. Any ideas?
I’ve eaten at Mexican restaurants in Ireland, the UK, India, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and even China (Peter’s Tex Mex Grill - gave me really bad food poisoning).
It might not be on every street corner - and Taco Bell is not a good way to judge its popularity, IMO - but it’s there. It’s just that in many other countries it’s competing with other lovely spicy stuff that got there first.
A lot of places have Indian food. (England comes to mind.) Indian food can be spicy, filling, and cheap – just like Mexican food. If Indian food is already established, there’s really no need to introduce Mexican food. (Although I think it would be fun to open Johnny’s Cantina in London. )
In Latin America I would assume that local dishes are preferred, or close enough to Mexican that there’s no real need for Mexican food. One of my favourite places in L.A. was Versailles, a Cuban restaurant. I liked the roast pork with white rice, black beans and fried bananas. Certainly it’s different from Mexican food, but it’s still kind of similar.
I refuse to accept that Taco Bell is Mexican food in any way.
There are loads of Mexicans in the U.S. They brought their dishes with them and they got popular outside the Mexican community. How many Mexicans live in Pakistan? It will take a lot longer for the food to get popular in places where Mexicans don’t exist in large numbers.
Taco Bell is, at best, as I referenced it in the OP --“Mexican-flavored junk food.”
It’s not great, but when you need your gordita fix, it fills a niche.
Good points on the transient population, but I’d assert that it’s a world cusine now, and with a lot of expatriate Americans of every stripe, including current and former military, I’d expect to see more interest in it. I did have decent Mexican in, of all places, Bangkok at a dive shop/restaurant that a former navy dude started up. Lots of expatriates but also quite a few Thais enjoying what for them was a quite novel dining experience.
I’ve spent a little time in Nuremberg, Germany; not a huge city by any means, but I know of two Mexican restaurants and one Cuban. Not counting McDonald’s and its ilk, there were only three conpsicuously American restaurants.
And there was a decent little fast-food, store-front Mexican place in Prague. (Thanks, Tomcat.)
Maybe, but part of the problem that for perhaps the majority of Americans (or at least a sizable minority), Mexican food equals Taco Bell or Chi-Chis or something, which themselves aren’t that good. It’s really nearly impossible to get good Mexican food outside of the southwest and a few major cities (Chicago, NY, DC). For most people, it’s really just not something they eat very often.
Just a SWAG, but couldn’t part of the issue, at least for heavily Muslim parts of the world, be the prepondrance of pork & lard?
Personally, I prefer Santa Fe-style black beans to lard-filled refrieds, but that’s just me, and I imagine that the tortillas are still usually made with lard. Arroz con pollo and many of the fish dishes should be ok, though. Also, aren’t there a lot of cultures that view corn (maize) as not fit for human consumption?
I’d say there is a pretty big correlation (pretty much linear IMHO) between the amount of ethnic food in the country and the size of that population in the country. In Britain with a huge Asian population Curry and food from the indian sub-continent unbiquitous (and popular among non-Asians, myself included), in America with a huge Mexican population Mexican food is popular (and likewise popular amoung non-latinos). Same for other countries: Peru has a large Japanese population, so Japanese cusine is popular, Demark has a large Turkish population (at least the bit I stayed in) so Turkish Kebad joints are everywhere.
You also of course get crossovers, the Burrito was invented by Mexicans in California, the Balti by Indians in Birmingham, and I went to a weird Japanese-Peruvian fusion place in Lima…
2: Too similar in “eating experience” to many established native or competing ethnic cuisines to be a unique or compelling dining experience in many areas.
I vote for it being too similar to “regular food” in much of the world; while in other places, simply too obscure.
Often, the specific ingredients may be much harder to come by than local equivalents that would make it un-Mexican. If you substitute cayenne for chiles, it almost becomes Cajun or Caribbean food. How much worse would it be in Asia?
I have often wondered this, myself. It’s hard to emphasize just how important Mexican food is to a Californian. Probably 80% of meals involve Mexican food. When I go abroad, that is what I miss. And it seems so simple- beans, cheese, flatbread, rice- every place like these things. Cumin and chilis and cilantro are near universal spices.
I’ve always figured the person who can bring Taco Bell to India would make fortunes. I went to one Mexican restaurant in Delhi once- I wished I hadn’t. In the land of 1.000 flat breads, the tortilla remains a mystery. Note: Baked beans are not okay in Mexican food and ketchup is not enchilada sauce.
One factor is that many places just don’t eat that wide of a variety of foods yet. Fifty years ago in America, Italian food was exotic and Chinese food was as weird as you could get. Most people were content to eat the same thing day in and day out. Much of the world’s middle-class doesn’t look all that different from 1950’s middle class. In India the “exotic” options were either South Indian or Chinese. It will take some time for people to develop wider palates.
Secondly, Mexico just isn’t that cool. I mean, it’s cool to us. But it doesn’t have much International cache. Chinese food is popular worldwide in part because it capitalizes on the whole far-east mystique. Everyone knows about China and has a set of stereotypes that a Chinese restaurant can fulfill- all those lanterns and chopsticks and stuff. But most of the world couldn’t place Mexico on the map, and even if they could they wouldn’t really care it much.
Finally, the few Mexican restaurants that do open up probably don’t impress many people. On the backpacker circuit it’s common for backpackers to teach small restaurant how to cook dishes from their country in exchange for free food. You can find a place now and then where some lone Californian, years ago, tried to teach them to cook Mexican food. Through the generations, the recipes they’ve left have been mangled beyond belief and what is left doesn’t suit the tastes of the locals or the tourists.
This seems to be a trait which affects Mexican restaurants more than it does others. In my home town, there’s endless Indian restaurants and takeaways, which are of a good and rising standard. There’s a couple of rubbish Italians, but several newer ones which are pretty good. There’s a fantastic noodle place. Yet the lone Mexican is stuck in a timewarp, seemingly oblivious to the fact that even provincial Brits are familiar with unusual and (gasp) spicy food. It still serves up boring bland brown rubbish. I’m amazed it hasn’t closed down a long time ago.
My wife and I dream of some day moving to Europe (either to the south of France or to Denmark) and opening up a Mexicali burrito restaurant, full of fresh avocadoes, salsa, and heavily spiced fillings. If it’s in France, we’ll start off by calling them bean crepes, just to get people used to the idea.
My sister, who lived in France for a year, has the perception that French folks tend not to like spicy (hot-spicy, that is) food. Is this accurate? If so, it might shoot down our dream.
Cite, please? It seems to me that “tortilla rolled up around an assortment of fillings” would be as old as the tortilla itself. I mean, it’s not like it’s a revolutionary idea to take a flexible food and roll it up: Kids independantly rediscover rolling up food every day.
As for Mexican food in India specifically, remember that many Indians won’t eat beef, and a significant number won’t eat any meat all. Granted, that still leaves a lot of bean-based dishes, but it rules out half the menu at a place like Taco Bell.
We do get a bit of so-called Mexican style food in Britain, but to be honest it seems a bit dull compared to the Indian/Chinese/Thai/etc food that is so popular here. Mexican is OK, but it seems to largely consist of various combinations of chilli beef, beans, cheese, and tortillas.
Cite, please? It seems to me that “tortilla rolled up around an assortment of fillings” would be as old as the tortilla itself. I mean, it’s not like it’s a revolutionary idea to take a flexible food and roll it up: Kids independantly rediscover rolling up food every day.
As for Mexican food in India specifically, remember that many Indians won’t eat beef, and a significant number won’t eat any meat all. Granted, that still leaves a lot of bean-based dishes, but it rules out half the menu at a place like Taco Bell.
Not really. Many–if not most–cuisines throughout Latin America aren’t anything near like Mexcian.
I do know that Mexican food is somewhat liked in Bogota, as well as mariachi music. Hell, in Barranquilla I’d take even Taco Bell over most of the local dishes.
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