TeXMex food preferences: cilantro, beans, corn/flour (Austin, Anna: transplants, camps)

[Danbo1957]

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

Don't take my word for it.

Don't worry, I won't.

I lived through the growth of the last 60 years. What I am specifically referencing is the massive immigration from other states fleeing the Rust Belt looking for jobs, many of which were in the oil business, which boomed during and after the "Opec Oil Crisis". Also, 1973 saw the creation of Southwest Airlines, the founding of Texas Monthly magazine, and the legalization of Liquor by the Drink. With all of that, white immigrant food tastes developed and changed "Tex-Mex"; a term by the way, we never used until the 1980's-- before, just "Mexican food".

Matt's El Rancho seems boring and quaint, offering food from another era. Exactly.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by Danbo1957

Don't worry, I won't.

I lived through the growth of the last 60 years. What I am specifically referencing is the massive immigration from other states fleeing the Rust Belt looking for jobs, many of which were in the oil business, which boomed during and after the "Opec Oil Crisis". Also, 1973 saw the creation of Southwest Airlines, the founding of Texas Monthly magazine, and the legalization of Liquor by the Drink. With all of that, white immigrant food tastes developed and changed "Tex-Mex"; a term by the way, we never used until the 1980's-- before, just "Mexican food".

Matt's El Rancho seems boring and quaint, offering food from another era. Exactly.

Actually, it was June, 1972, that they had their inaugural flight, and there was a lot of history, most of it in the courts (the Big Boys didn't like the upstart sharing their skies and airports).



And liquor by the drink became legal in 1971.


I thought I remembered, so I looked it up - TexMex was used in print (to refer to food - earlier it was used to refer to a railroad and then people of mixed ancestry) at least as early as 1963.



But you're right about when Texas Monthly first started publishing.



I lived through all of that, too, by the way.

[madrone2k]

Ah, the SW Airlines of the early 70s ... with the "stewardesses" in their short "hot pants", handing out "love bites" (peanuts). And with their motto (for Houston-Dallas routes), which was something like "your Love is our Hobby" (referring to the 2 cities airports they used).

As for pre-1980 Tex-Mex, the best (in my opinion) two representatives of that I can recall was Restaurante Nuevo Leon on East 6th and also -earlier- a place on FM 620 near Mansfield Dam that had a similar style of early-20th Century Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas with beef chili gravy and yellow cheese. I still crave those, but I shouldn't eat them anymore at my age. At that time, I had eaten plenty of Tex-Mex in the 60s, but never had seen cilantro, or enchiladas suizas, tomatillo sauce, or even fajitas. (The latter of which is/was referred to in 80s Mexico as arracheras, rather than the word we use that some Mexicans associated with female undergarments.)

[RoamingTX]

Originally Posted by madrone2k

Ah, the SW Airlines of the early 70s ... with the "stewardesses" in their short "hot pants", handing out "love bites" (peanuts). And with their motto (for Houston-Dallas routes), which was something like "your Love is our Hobby" (referring to the 2 cities airports they used).

As for pre-1980 Tex-Mex, the best (in my opinion) two representatives of that I can recall was Restaurante Nuevo Leon on East 6th and also -earlier- a place on FM 620 near Mansfield Dam that had a similar style of early-20th Century Tex-Mex cheese enchiladas with beef chili gravy and yellow cheese. I still crave those, but I shouldn't eat them anymore at my age. At that time, I had eaten plenty of Tex-Mex in the 60s, but never had seen cilantro, or enchiladas suizas, tomatillo sauce, or even fajitas. (The latter of which is/was referred to in 80s Mexico as arracheras, rather than the word we use that some Mexicans associated with female undergarments.)

All good. Except the last sentence. “Calzones” or calzoncillos is the food turned into underwear.

[KathrynAragon]

Aside note on cilantro:

I had never tasted it till about 1995, in Dallas at some dive on Greenville Avenue. I immediately loved it. I began seeing it in more and more dishes from that point on.

Anyway, a few years ago I got my DNA tested at 23andme. Come to find out, I am missing whatever gene makes people dislike dark beer (love it), some other supposedly bitter things (can't recall them off the top of my head) and cilantro. Cilantro was specifically mentioned! So there's genetic truth regarding whether or not we like cilantro, among other things. Some people can and will taste a note that others simply can't and don't taste.

Question for the cilantro lovers - do you also like dark beer?

Another aside note - my husband likes cilantro but doesn't like dark beer for whatever that's worth.

[TexasHorseLady]

I was first to cilantro in the late 1960's/early 1970's, in the kitchen of some friends. They used lots and lots of it, andhe learned about it growing up from his grandmother (she of the three-day chicken mole recipe - first you roast the peanuts, and on from there). She brought her recipes here with her from Mexico long ago (don't know exactly, but it was before his mother was born, and his mother is in her 90's). Didn't care for it at first, but it grew on me. I don't know the details about my tastebuds, but I do know that in the test that they do (or did) in high school biology regarding taste buds, I fell in the 25% category, which explained why I don't care for most of the "social" foods (cheese, beers, etc.).

[cBach]

I love these stories folks, keep them going!

This predates when I arrived and I find it fascinating...

[madrone2k]

Originally Posted by RoamingTX

All good. Except the last sentence. “Calzones” or calzoncillos is the food turned into underwear.

That is also true. Check the lyrics to the Mexican folkloric song "Alla en el Rancho Grande, which starts like this:

"Allá en el rancho grande,
allá donde vivía,
había una rancherita,
que alegre me decía;
que alegre me decía:
Te voy a hacer tus calzones
como los que usa el ranchero
te los comienzo de lana
te los acabo de cuero."

Meaning, the little rancho the singer has starts out providing well, but that doesn't continue. Metaphorically, it provides him with underwear that are begun to be made with wool, but wind up being finished with leather. (I.e., things get tough in the end :-) As far as the word being applied to food, I haven't seen it in Mexican cuisine, but I'm aware of the Italian calzone, which I suppose comes from an Italian word with similar meaning.

However, "fajita" is the diminutive of "faja", which in some places is used to denote "corset" or "girdle". (Similar to how we sometimes call that cut of beef "skirt steak".) I once asked a couple of guys from Monterrey if they liked fajitas and they looked at me strange, for that reason :-) They used the word "arracheras", as did friends from the US side of the border who grew up speaking Spanish and English.

[madrone2k]

Another anecdote that is interesting (to me, at least) ... a good friend of mine grew up in Northern Mexico in the 50s and 60s. He never saw tomatillo sauce during that time. However, upon moving to Mexico City in the 70s, he was friends with a family who had a couple of cooks who were from Oaxaca (Zapotec women). They introduced him to tomatillo sauce, which often was served with every meal. He still raves about how tasty were their ham sandwiches that included the sauce inside.

[ATX Wahine]

I grew up in SF eating lots of Asian food, particularly Thai, that had lots of cilantro in it. I didn’t see it becoming a focus ingredient in Mexican food though til the late 80’s - early 90’s. I love it to death. My al pastor tacos are basically cilantro tacos with a pinch of pork and onions.

The Mexican restaurant we used to eat at back in the 70’s was run out of the family's home in the Mission Dist. The bathroom for patrons had a shower in it that was obviously still used daily. lol. I lived on their guacamole and Penafiel back in those days. Good times.