Tex-Mex - Food of the Manteca Gods
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Forget the Alamo.
San Antonio
is about Mexican food. Specifically: Tex-Mex. More specifically: the indulgent bliss of the #3 lunch plate special for $4.99 – two cheese enchiladas, one beef taco, refried beans, rice, two flour tortillas and iced tea. Chips and salsa come free.
When friends come to visit San Antonio, the proud epicenter of Tex-Mex food, it is usually their wish and certainly my duty to introduce them to the local flavors. I promptly direct them away from the River Walk and into one of the older neighborhoods of San Antonio, where the best restaurants are – the ones that serve handmade tortillas with that perfect fluffiness-dusted-with-flour texture. Though it took a beating over the years from the haute-cuisine establishment, Tex-Mex is finally coming into its own as a world-renowned 'cuisine' – which even devotees have a hard time calling it for the elitist ring of the word. It began to get a little respect when people like Robb Walsh began writing celebratory cookbooks about Tex-Mex for its simple, comforting qualities and historical context.
[To clarify: Mexican cuisine, sometimes called 'classic' or 'interior,' is composed of regional specialties featuring rich, spicy, sauce-based dishes like mole, chile relleno or pescado veracruzana, with corn (never flour) tortillas. Cal-Mex is represented by the burrito and lots of vegetables and seafood, particularly fish tacos. Tex-Mex uses four basic ingredients – meat (usually beef or chicken), pinto beans, rice and tortillas (flour or corn) – in various combinations; it is flavored with cumin but is not spicy-hot until you add salsa or raw jalapeños.] The Greatest Hits of Tex-Mex Cuisine:
* Note on breakfast tacos:
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Being a South Texas
native, I've always taken the local food for granted – at times loving it, at times being sick to death of it. I even went through a brief defection phase when I proclaimed Cal-Mex to be superior to its less-cosmopolitan sibling. I've since made room in my heart for both, placing them on equal footing with each other and with their illustrious parent, el arte culinario de México.
