- all the Mexicans, Chicanos, and Tejanos living here cooking it
- proximity to growing areas for the signature ingredients
- we know what it's supposed to taste like
Yup. The farther afield you go, the more you will tend to cater your menu to the local population with little exposure to the source cuisine, and to economically viable ingredients. Maybe the result will still taste good, but someone expecting North American varieties of Mexican food (there are many, obviously, and "authentic" can mean a lot of different things) will be disappointed.
High number of Mexican immigrants => high supply of Mexican food => high quantity of Mexican food in circulation and more competition between Mexican food suppliers.
Variety. Mex-mex, tex-mex, coastal mex, New Mexico's red and green sauces,... Different flavors and techniques, somehow linked by the delicious variety of similar ingredients.
tex-mex
I will die on the hill that Tex-Mex is a valid and beautiful fusion cuisine, organic in the sense that it grew up around a blended community and locally available and preferred ingredients. The identifiable roots go back easily 160 years or more to the Chili Queens of San Antonio, and even the Enchilada platter with yellow cheese is going on a 100 by now. It's heavy and not particularly healthy, and should be eaten in moderation (please ignore my waistline), but Christ-on-a-cracker, some tamales smothered in chili con carne with a side of refried pinto beans, accompanied by fresh tortilla chips and a decently spicy salsa roja (complimentary of course!)... I am HERE FOR IT.
100%! I love the differences in the tacos you get in San Antonio or Austin or Dallas and even different parts of the city and whether it comes on a plate or rolled in aluminum foil. brisket or barbacoa or suadero and the places where you would swear someone's grandma is in the kitchen making tortillas. I can't stand a bland crunchy taco shell, but when someone fries a corn tortilla and it wraps around the taco ...that's the best! Theres a place near me that makes the best cheese enchiladas. It's a chicken place and I usually have to take it back because they always try to add chicken, but when they get it right it is so incredible that I could eat it everyday. Instead of a ranchero sauce or a chili con carne, they have this stewed pot of spiciness with tomatoes and onions and garlic and peppers and heroin I think. Oh, there's another place that does something they call enchiladas monarcas that i think involves a little bit of parmesan cheese.
In addition to the variety and blending with new food ingredients, the restaurants that stick around are the ones people like. They may be inspired by regional dishes, but over time they recycle succcessful dishes from other restaurants and adapt to the US palate.
Same as Chinese food, you can often order something that has the same name in different restaurants and it will be slightly different but the same concept because the restaurants are doing their own take on what already works for a large portion of the menu.
This is a positive thing because the familiarity is great, and each place doing their own take plus some unique dishes makes them both different and familiar.
Well, there's already perfect answers.
So, let me say that you ain't lived until you've had a ham and collard taco.
The place that makes it won't share their recipe (can't blame them because people have already tried to copy them). But, I've got some guesses.
I know there's collards, fine chopped. It's definitely braised. There's a smoked pork product involved, and it seems like it's probably smoked ham hock. Tastes right, texture is right, so there's only so many options.
I'm not as confident in the peppers used. They're dried peppers for sure, and think it's a blend of ancho, guajillo, and pasilla. But they're definitely starting from dried and cooking them at the same time as the collards. I'm just not able to tell for sure which ones, or their proportions.
There's chopped onions and minced garlic. Again, hard to tell how much.
They have a spice blend as well, and while you can tell it's there, I haven't gotten far into picking out what all is there, or how much. Oregano, cumin, and paprika seem to be the biggest factors, with black pepper being a lesser component. The cumin is light, the oregano and paprika stronger. But they sprinkle the spice blend on top after they dish out the collards.
They're served in your choice of corn or flour tortilla, or a hard taco shell.
What you get is a mouthful of this slightly hot, deeply rich and smoky goodness with pops of the seasoning blend that spread across your tongue as you chew.
The joint keeps hot sauce on the tables, and you can request a cup of it for takeout. I'm not sure if it's something they make, or buy in bulk, but it reminds me of cholula. A little more vinegary though. It also kinda reminds me of a vinegar barbeque sauce like you'll find at some pit smoked bbq joints, just thicker.
It runs heavier on the pork than traditional southern collards. Seems like it's about 20% pork rather than being a flavoring agent with just traces of the hock spread out
But I'm telling you, it's a must try. Not going to pin my location down by naming the place, but if you're ever up in the mountains here in the south, and you see a place that offers mexican soul food, you stop and go in. Not everything they have is great, some of it is outright bad tbh (you really don't want the over peppered mac n cheese that's covered in what seems to be chili powder), but those collard tacos are amazeballs
That sounds so good
It's nothing I ever would have thought of, but it's such a natural concept that I'm angry I didn't lol. Mind you, I do my own version now, what with the restaurant being a county away across some less than great roads.
But a nice corn tortilla is basically Mexican johnny cake, so it blends two cuisines perfectly
You might be the first person ever to suggest that the Mexican food in Ohio is good.
I personally don’t agree that Mexican food in the US is particularly good on average. Maybe in certain specific border regions. But even here in Northern CA where we have a large population with Mexican ancestry, it’s fairly mediocre compared to Mexico. And it was even worse in other parts of the country I’ve had it.
That said, Mexico is one of the top culinary countries in the world in my estimation, so perhaps American Mexican food is still fairly solid despite falling short of this very high bar.
Perhaps the OP comparison is not Mexican food in the USA vs. in Mexico, but rather Mexican food in the USA vs. other food styles inside the USA? In which case Mexican is damn tasty. 😋
mexicans
Bc it tastes good and somehow costs less than buying the ingredients separately?
