What is Mexican Food?

What is Mexican food?  I am no longer so sure of the answer.  I know that when I am in Mexico, I am eating Mexican food.  When I lived in New Mexico, I ate New Mexican food.  But what is the food that I am eating in New York?  Many of the restaurants aren’t even owned by Mexicans.  Take, for example, Metro Taco.  This restaurant is in Forest Hills, and it is owned by a person who grew up in Forest Hills and only had a few trips, at most, to Mexico.  He grew up enjoying Mexican food, and he established a restaurant in Forest Hills called Metro Taco. He felt that this part of Forest Hills was lacking a good Mexican restaurant.

Maybe it is my mistake to think that I was eating at a Mexican restaurant.  It specialized in tacos, but I’m not sure that these tacos were Mexican. Although the restaurant had good food, and it also catered to vegetarians and vegans, I did not think of it as being an authentic Mexican restaurant. Only one of the cooks was from Mexico. The others were from Central America.  I believe they were from Honduras and Guatemala.  One of the signature items on the menu was a Nacho Tower. I never had one before, even in Mexico or in the United States.  My wife said that it may be a specialty of Guatemala. I’m not sure that she is right. But I am used to going to a Mexican restaurant and being offered nachos with salsa. To me the salsa is the most important ingredient, as it is one of the ways that I judge a good Mexican restaurant. Metro Taco did not have any homemade salsa on the table, but it did have a bottle of Valentina Salsa Picante. 

The tacos were very good.  They were served on blue corn tortillas.  They were also very artfully presented.  They even had gluten free tacos and tacos with seitan.  For the most part, they were quite delicious. I just didn’t think that they were from Mexico.  I guess that it was New American Mexican food.  There were also papas bravas on the menu.  I may be wrong, but I thought they were from Spain.  But what do I know?  Maybe I just need an education on the new types of Mexican food.  But, to tell you the truth, I would much rather go to a small Mexican restaurant like Los Compadres on Liberty Avenue in Ozone Park where most of the people speak Spanish, the salsas are picante, and you can choose between green and red. When I finish a meal, I can tell the waitress, “panza llena (full stomach), and she will reply, “corazon contento (happy heart).”

Cultural Appropriation in Food

I don’t really remember when I had my first Mexican food. Maybe it was at a Taco Bell, but I’m not “sure. Clearly, Taco Bell is not authentic Mexican food. My first experiences of true Mexican food were probably in the 1970’s, when I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to attend graduate school. At that time, I was so unfamiliar with Spanish, that I didn’t even know how to pronounce students’ last names. Imagine you having a teaching assistant for Introductory Psychology who pronounced you last name as “Pa Dilla” instead of “Padiya/Padilla”.

But it didn’t take me long to become acquainted with Mexican food. It was the rage in Albuquerque, and we knew that there were many different qualities to the food. Being a poor student, we went the cheapest restaurants. Regardless of the quality, most of the restaurants were owned by people of Mexican heritage. The cheapest Mexican food was at an All-You-Can-Eat Restaurant on the way out of town on Central Avenue. It may have been called Panchos, and it was all we could afford. Whenever we wanted more food, we raised a Mexican flag on a flagpole that was on our tables. The food was mediocre, but we just needed to eat, and we accepted the food for what it was. You could stiill get Chile Rellenos and Enchilladas, which were my favorites. Honestly, I really don’t know who prepared the food. But, unfortunately, it fit the stereotype of cheap Mexican food.

There were also restaurants like Baca’s and Pete Duran’s, which we knew to be high-end Mexican food. It was only when treated to a meal, or during celebrations, that we were able to eat their food. Pete Duran’s made the best Huevos Ranchos that I have ever had, and there is no doubt that this is a Mexican-owned and mainatined restaurant. So, at some level, I had a sense of cultural aspects of Mexican food in New Mexico. But, from then on, I would always avoid Taco Bell, and, when possible, appreciate the highest quality of Mexican food.

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

  • Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
  • Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

  • Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
  • What topics do you think you’ll write about?
  • Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
  • If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

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