Sabor Autentico: What Is and Isn't Tex-MexMar 06 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line The rural, earthy, beef-and-beans food of South Texas and Nuevo Leon: take it as it is, un-foo-foo-ed, and it's a thing of beauty and a joy forever
Cuisine alleged to be Tex-Mex – dishes that wrap themselves in that honored name the way tamales are wrapped in corn shucks – has become (always a dread risk) popular. It will surprise no conservatives that popularity has led to decadence, degradation, and dumbing-down. It is high time that Tex-Mex were rescued from the blows to its reputation that have followed upon mass imitation. Accepteth no substitutes should be our watchword. The distinguished gentleman from Austin (Austin being Austin, perhaps the only gentleman in the entire hippie-fied town, bar my cousin David Shaw, Esq.), our own Curtis Edmonds, has with his usual courtesy and grace authored a primer to Tex-Mex for Yankees and such small deer.* Curtis, of the goodness of his heart, is a missionary, calling sinners to repentance and bringing the gospel of chiles and masa harina to them that dwelleth in darkness. For my part, I am here to stir up the lax and the Laodicean, to preach to the choir and hold a revival for the backsliders. In the words of Charlie Barsotti's portly little cartoon cowboys, 'Right's right: that stuff ain't Tex-Mex.' Tex-Mex ain't – well, Lord, a whole list of things. Taco Bell and similar outlets do not serve Tex-Mex. National chains serve a debased form of it. Californians, notorious for all sorts and conditions of perversity, in the kitchen as elsewhere, wouldn't recognize real Tex-Mex if it bit 'em in the hindquarters. Most of what passes for Tex-Mex these days, ain't. Tex-Mex is, in anthropological terms, a 'contact' and 'criollo' cuisine, emanating from the intersection of cultures and birthed and cradled in the Rio Grande Valley, the Nueces Strip and the brasada, and Old San Antonio. I will say at once that its expansion into Houston and Dallas, much less the rest of the continent, is of recent vintage. It is only within my own lifetime that, demographically, there has come to be any appreciable Hispanic presence in Houston (and there still is not in Deep East Texas): as an elderly godmother of mine notes, it seems only yesterday that the Houston scene, even when shot in full color, was strictly Black and white. The East Texas culture of hen-ham-and-hominy, part of the whole Southern culinary dynamic, is not the Anglo component, the 'Tex' of Tex-Mex. Instead, it is the cattle culture of the ranch, of the short-grass prairies, that melded with Mexican traditions from Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas to create Tex-Mex. It's the culinary equivalent of norteno, tejano, and conjunto music. And it bears as little relation to the cuisine of the Interior, with its delicacy and its European influences, as chicken-fried steak does to Chateaubriand. Sit a chilango from DF down to a plate of refrieds and enchiladas and watch the look of horror and snobbery that crosses his face: this heavy, rural, Texas-corrupted cuisine is ... my God ... this is peasant food. Sure is. What of it? The fundamentals of Tex-Mex are the three staves of life for the vaquero and his half-acknowledged godsons the cowboy and the Ranger: beef, beans, and corn. Again in musical terms, on this theme there are but few variations. Chicken or pork, or more remotely fish or shrimp, may substitute for beef in some dishes; flour tortillas may replace corn; sauces, gravies, salsas, and cheeses exist as grace notes. But fundamentally, Tex-Mex as such is the heavy, gloriously unsophisticated food of the rancho de ganado, inland and unaffected by coastal lightness, cuisine 'del Norte' rather than of the Interior and the Distrito Federale. The building blocks of Tex-Mex are chili, chiles, cheese, the cheaper cuts of beef, small, pungent onions papered in the red and yellow of the Spanish flag (sweet onions, 1019s for instance, and chi-chi shallots and such, have no place here), cumin, cilantro, tart tomato, tomatillos, masa harina (cornmeal), beans, and rice. Chili is one of those marvelous simple, elemental, all-important, and fundamental concepts that has been elaborated out of all recognition: rather like justice, or objective reality, or 'being' (ens) in Aquinas. Lean closer and I will whisper to you an horrific, soul-shattering secret: there are actually people so lost to any sense of decency that they put beans in chili. (I hope you sent the children of tender years out of the room before we discussed that horror, lest they be warped for life). Chili does not contain beans. It is not made with ground meat: stewin' chunks of lean beef, that's the ticket. Beef, beer and water, chili powder (cayenne, red pepper, cumin, and in my case some secret herbs and spices wild horses ain't going to drag out of me), tomatoes, and onion. Period. (Jalapenos made be added afterwards, as a garnish.) Wrap that in a cornmeal paste, and you're on your way to a tamale. In a tortilla, and depending on what happens next, you're looking at a chimichanga, a burrito, or an enchilada. And more chili gets poured over these, as a gravy. Cheese in Tex-Mex is a matter for art and for craft, but never for Kraft. White and yellow Mexican cheeses (from Jalisco, by preference), including goat cheeses, give the requisite artery-clogging goodness, I mean gooey-ness, to the dish. Are there health concerns with Tex-Mex? Damn right there are: this is food for someone who'll sweat it off in the saddle, and when consumed in an urban world by sedentary types, well, hope you folks have Dr Denton Cooley's pager number handy. But of course the big risk is Dunlop's syndrome. ('What? Son, that's when yore belly done lopped over yore belt-buckle....') Then of course there's the subject of refrieds. We're talking, basically, a bean and lard souffle here, people. Charra beans, pintos, ranch-style, all are pretenders: Tex-Mex demands frijoles refritos. Not merely a side dish, refrieds are a component in nachos, enchiladas, and burritos, not to mention tostadas. They are indispensable, far more so than the carrot-English-pea-and-saffron 'Spanish rice' that is the traditional occupier of the left-hand third of every Tex-Mex lunch plate since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. Obviously, we're just scratching the surface of the wonderful phenomenon known as Tex-Mex: we haven't said word one about guacamole, pico de gallo (the Nueces Strip's answer to tabbouleh), or dessert (praline candy, Mexican chocolate with gritty cinnamon transubstantiating it into wonder, or flan, or sopapillas). We have not discussed the unexpected delicacy of green sauces and tomatillos, of enchiladas verde con pollo and chicken flautas, when beef takes a back seat. Nor have we discussed the fringes of the cuisine, where it begins to shade off into the true, the blushful cuisine of Old Mexico, with cabrito, ceviche, camarones, tongue.... But that is sort of the point. Tex-Mex is an Anglican-style via media, between the bland Protestantism of gringo grub and the incense-wreathed festivals of Mexico herself. And to paraphrase C. S. Lewis's warning to some Church of England clergy, the danger that threatens those following the middle path is that it is easy to lean too far to one side or another, and cease thereby to be oneself. Tex-Mex is explicitly not the cuisine of Mexico, a proud and separate tradition; nor by the same token is it norteamericano chow, food blanded-down to the gringo palate (the people who gave the world Wonder bread and Miracle Whip and Cream of Mushroom soup). No. The hallmarks of real, honest Tex-Mex are a fidelity to rural roots, the strict adherence to tradition, the uncompromising use of only those ingredients, fresh as can be, and in only those combinations hallowed by time, that are native to its South Texas and Border birthplace. It's a matter of roots. Epicene, deracinated pseudo-Tex-Mex is a stench in the nostrils of all decent people, and attempts to make it something it never was, whether by 'Americanizing' it to fit the delicate mayo-slathered palates of Yankees or by trying to currycomb it into something fit for a formal dinner in Lomas de Chapultepec or Jardines de Pedregal (or a high-cotton restaurant in the Zona Rosa), are as useless and insulting as putting a china poblana dress on an old muley Longhorn. By its roots – mestizo and Tejano, rural and earthy, hewing closely to beef and beans, cheese and salsa and tortillas – by its roots shall ye know it. And 'that is all on earth ye know, or need know,' as Joe Bob Keats was saying just t'other night down at Irma's.... _________________________________ * And in the interim, danged if ol' AggieBrett ain't gone and chipped in now, too.  |
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