The Tex-Mex Rules
Mar 06 '01
The Bottom Line Tex-Mex is just like any other love affair-- either follow the most basic rules or suffer the consequences.
Ask anyone lucky enough to be from Texas (or smart enough to move here) and they'll tell you that one of the most wonderfully blessed things about living in Texas is Tex-Mex cooking. Neither entirely Texan nor entirely Mexican in its history, Tex-Mex is one of those "whole greater than the sum" sorts of affairs, the inexplicably beautiful offspring of a happy cross-cultural marriage. For me, Tex-Mex is a platter of bliss with a side order of guacamole. It's a hug wrapped in a tortilla and covered with gravy. It's happiness diced up into bite-sized pieces and layered over corn chips with jalapenos and cheese. Whenever I leave the Lone Star State for a trip, a big pile of Tex-Mex is the last meal I want before I Ieave and the first meal I want upon my return. The great Guy Clark, another Texan head over heels in love with this food, expressed similar views in song:
Oooh, my momma-- Ain't that Texas cookin' something?
Oooh, my momma-- It'll stop yer belly and backbone from bumpin'
Oooh, my momma-- ain't that Texas cookin' good?
Oooh, my momma-- I'd eat it every day if I could.*
My earliest memories as a child involve trips to local Tex-Mex eateries. Over the long-running course of this epicurean love affair, I've developed a few simple rules that I think would be of use by anyone still caught up in the initial rush of emotions of a love affair for Tex-Mex. Some of these rules are my own invention (or discovery), while others have been handed down as part of the great oral tradition that forms the basis for any significant world culture. Some people might take exception to one, some or even all of my rules, but then, some people might be wrong.
=== The Tex-Mex Rules ===
Cheese is Yellow, Gravy is Brown
There are lots of "Mexican" food places proudly turning out beautiful and tasty creations heaped high with white jack cheese or mounds of snow-white queso blanco or even an artsy-fartsy sprinkling of goat cheese 'round the plate. While these places very often serve wonderful food, it ain't real Tex-Mex. Real Tex-Mex-- the kind that has been popular in this great state for more than 50 years-- prominently features yellow cheese and a strange concoction called "chili gravy." Now you need to understand: chili gravy ain't really chili, and it ain't really gravy, and anyone that professes to understand what it is or how it's made is either a damned liar or (worse) a damned know-it-all yankee. Rather than sprainin' your brain tryin' to figure out what chili gravy is or how it came to be, why not just accept the fact that what it is is GOOD. Chili gravy is best-- or, at least, "most at home"-- poured over an order of beef or cheese enchiladas and then half-buried under shredded yellow cheese. And don't try and confuse the issue with mention of chicken enchiladas, 'cuz chicken enchiladas are a whole 'nuther critter. Chicken enchiladas work just fine gussied up with tart green tomatillo sauce or sour creamy Suiza sauce or sometimes tomatoey Ranchera sauce. But the real genius of chili gravy-- it's metaphysical raison d'etre if you're one of those high-fallutin' pinky-in-the-air types who likes to "parlez-vous" at every opportunity-- is to serve as the basis for one of God's Great Gifts to Texans-- "Goop". Hell, the reason that so many Texans order enchiladas in the first place is just to wind up with a plate of rice, refried beans, chili gravy and cheese after the enchiladas are cleared away. Any one of the four subcomponents to goop is yummy-licious in and of itself, but swirl them all together and you've now engaged in a bit of alchemy so profoundly perfect that the trivial act of transmuting lead into gold seems little more than a cheap parlor stunt by comparison. At a restaurant called Los Norteņos in Bryan, Texas, you can actually order a plate of goop right off the menu, sans enchiladas. This item (the "Brent Averman Special," for anyone sincerely curious) exemplifies the sort of forward thinking that has kept that fine establishment busy and popular for some 30-plus years.
Restaurants Sell Food-- Not Clothing
This one is sure to wrankle a few folks (especially in the Austin area where it seems almost every restaurant is an afterthought attached to a souvenir stand, but then, if God had a-meant for us to care what Austin People think, He'd not have dropped them there in the first place). Many gringo-centric trend-a-holic Tex-Mex eateries all over the state now sport souvenir stands at the door, offering a variety of tastefully tacky t-shirts and stickers and golf club covers and chihuahua sweaters and such for purchase by their clientele. Now, call me crazy, but I always figured that the reason I was going to a restaurant was to EAT, dangit. Confronting me with haberdashery as I enter and leave a restaurant seems as odd as handing me a menu when I go into a dressing room to try on a new pair of pants. The way I see it, if I want an article of clothing to remind me of my Tex-Mex meal, I'll just not wipe off the cheesy gravy when it dribbles onto my shirt. Viola! I gots me a free sooo-veneer!
NO WAITING for Tex-Mex
Just like there's no crying in baseball, there's no waiting for tables in Tex-Mex. This is a big one in my book, folks. There are a sufficient number of good/great Tex-Mex joints in Texas that there's no reason-- EVER-- to put your name on a waiting list. Period. There are several well-known Tex-Mex places here in Houston that routinely "boast" notoriously long waits for a table, and you can rest assured that you'll always find me not waiting at these places. Either seat me or watch my taillights turn into any of the half-dozen OTHER equally good Tex-Mex places within spittin' distance. Now, if you want to make a big night of it and you have your heart set on some certain recipe for fajitas and want to wait on some specific patio so some specific bartender can mix you some special margarita, that's fine. Just don't dare try to convince me that any one Tex-Mex place is sufficiently superior to any of a dozen others. I'll give you long enough to bus a table for me and my party, but don't expect me to wait more than a few minutes for a table. In my experience, the best Tex-Mex food is served in small dives that are seldom more than 50% occupied. If the place is bustin' at the seams, you can usually assume that there are folks (mostly danged furriners still unpackin' from the move from Florida or Ohio or California) showing up simply 'cuz they don't know no better.
Trust The Blue Collar Crowd
This one seems so obvious that I feel somewhat silly even mentioning it. If you're looking for a good roadside cafe on the open interstate, you simply follow the truckers, because if you see a backside parking lot full of idling Kenworths and Freightliners, you're pretty safe in assuming the place serves up some decent grub. Similarly, if you find a Tex-Mex place with a parking lot full of slightly dinged up trucks all sporting signage for lawn care and landscaping companies, you can trust the Tex-Mex being offered therein. Plumbing trucks, surveying crews, and policemen work about as well as positive indicators. The best Tex-Mex joints will always have some hard-working clock-punching men happily chomping away at crowded tables almost buried beneath plates of gravy and baskets of tortillas and steaming bowls of caldo. These men work hard for their money and have neither the time nor the inclination to concern themselves with non-essentials. Come mealtime they can't afford to fritter away one DIME on anything that doesn't translate directly into a warm happy feeling in their tummy, so they know where to find great food served quickly for as few bucks as possible. If you're looking for maximum Tex-Mex bang for your buck, find the places with work trucks and police cars out front and you can't go wrong.
If The Place Is Spotless, Just Keep Walkin'
Tex-Mex has always been cheap food for folks with appetites bigger than their portfolios, and if the fine folks in the kitchen can't afford to charge you much for your plate beans, rice, and tortillas, how can you fairly expect them to spend money on cutting-edge first-world cleaning technologies? As a general rule, if I walk into a Tex-Mex eatery and notice that the place could do with a spot or two of tidying up, generally I know I can count on finding some good food being served. Obviously there are limits and exceptions here-- if you notice buzzards picking at some sort of fallen critter on the back tables in the joint, you might do well to keep searching for another place to dine-- but if you're going to turn on your heels and head for the door the first time you notice a table not being cleared promptly, or if you're the sort that looks upon one or three corner-lurking cobwebs as equivalent to an anthrax outbreak, then you'll just have to accept the fact that you're going to miss out on many of the most authentic and satisfying Tex-Mex places in the world. Remember-- you're just there to eat; not perform open-chest surgery on your mother. Clean enough is good enough.
===
Trust me when I say there are lots of additional more specific rules that I could offer ("never trust a place that offers 'vegetarian fajitas'," f'rinstance), but the few basic tenets I've offered today will serve you well enough in most scenarios. And for gosh sake don't be a weenie-man and get all worked up that you're eating greasy calorie-laden food-- I can list off a lot more old Tex-Mex eateries than I can old cardiologists. In fact, that's very likely a finger-waggin' heart specialist moaning with pleasure at the table next to yours, loosening his belt and happily using a tortilla to buff the last vestiges of goop off his plate.
Remember-- life was made for livin', and any day that includes at least one plate of Tex-Mex greasy goodness is a day lived well enough. If you're lucky enough to live where proper Tex-Mex is available, don't question Providence. Just eat up, darlin'.
===
* from the song "Texas Cookin'," available on Guy Clark's wonderful Keepers CD (Sugar Hill Records, 1997)
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AggieBrett
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Member: Brett
Location: Katy, Texas (suburb west of Houston)
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I like gravel.
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