Just to be clear. I have had Traditional Mexican food, and while it has it’s merits and I can see the influences, it is too damn healthy for my liking.
- Black beans – not refried with lard, or soaked in beer
- a lot of salad ingredients – tasteless water filled waste of time
- corn tortillas – apparently corn is a nuisance crop in Mexico too
- mole sauce – The dark kind that taste burned before it is even coooked.
- guajillo peppers – probably best to just leave them dried out to start the fire with.
- cotija cheese – white and pretty tasteless
- squash – This is just a wannabe cucumber and is just filler
- nopales – this is only for the end of times. Cactus are for looking good or making making prickly pear wine from. Not for eating until there is nothing else to eat.
All the ingredients seem just a little too high brow for this guy.
One advantage of being in TEXAS is that I have also had pleasure of eating the BEST BBQ IN THE WORLD. I didn’t say arguable. I am stating it as a FACT based on MY OPINION. But, when you have 18 hour smoked Brisket, who really cares about the sides. In fact I have found that the only thing can stand having with Brisket is a slice of nutritionally devoid soft as a baby’s butt white bread. The type you could smell for hours while playing the back 9 at Brakenridge golf course that backs up onto the bakery. The brand that you wrapped blue gingham printed on brown paper advertisements around your books with after the trip to the bakery in elementary school (that I never got to do!) Yes, I am still scarred that I missed out on that.
Sorry, back to the Brisket. The bread slice is really only a wrapper and absorbent layer around what should be oil still rendering out of the fat on an almost pure carbon external layer of what all cows should aspire to become (with the exception of the skirt steak). So green beans are meh, pinto beans are either watery or too damn sweet, and because we are in So Texas another thin disguise for the use of corn, is creamed corn. People’s fascination with this disgusting abomination is beyond me but I have seen it sold by the gallon. I also know a certain person who ate a quart of it with a spoon before moving on to the quart of potato salad next to it. Names will not be mentioned to protect the guilty, but very satisfied person(s).
Yes Quart and Gallon, those are the measurements used to procure these vast amounts of food. Back when the original Rudy’s BBQ was in the middle of no-where (Leon Springs) and not just down the street from my house, it seemed wise for them to sell their food in pounds of meat and buckets of sides. After all, you had to carry it back to where every you had traveled from, and for any to be left by the time out got there, you better start with a lot. Now on the other hand it seems to be overkill. But once again I digress.
Now I have mentioned the Mex and the Tex, I will attempt to show how they merged. Ok I have no idea, I’m sure it happened with a meeting between cultures in a way somewhat like Auggie Meyers was singing about with the Texas Tornados. I don’t know the specifics of how long ago or who was responsible. But, I do know that refried beans, enchiladas, flour tortillas, beef fajitas, chips and queso, jalapeños, and nachos are the absolute staple of these here parts. And it makes me proud to call the Texas Hill Country, Home.
I will continue to offer up my homage to Tex Mex in following articles. Stick Around for seconds…
