WHEN I arrived in Texas as a college freshman in 1980, there were a great many things I knew nothing about. Among them were Tony Lama boots, espadrilles and Tex-Mex food. I remain clueless about the Lone Star State\u2019s indigenous footwear, but I continue to search for the perfect enchilada.<\/p>\n
Somehow, I blame Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac. Mr. Buckingham and I have never discussed the essence of Tex-Mex. We have never spoken at all. His road manager, however, gave me and each of my three buddies $20 and a ticket to a Fleetwood Mac concert so he could cut the line at Herrera\u2019s, then a 30-seat cafe on its way to becoming a Dallas institution. <\/p>\n
When you\u2019re 18 at a B.Y.O.B. place with a cooler full of beer, being paid to wait is not a problem. Once we sat down, I understood why Mr. Buckingham shelled out $80 to get at the $5 combination platter. What I tasted for the first time was extraordinary: Cheese, meat and chili gravy all swirled together, encased in tortillas and buttressed by rice and refried beans.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been hooked ever since, which has become a curse. It\u2019s hard to be a Tex-Mex aficionado when you don\u2019t live in Texas.<\/p>\n
I have come across the authentic article in such likely places as Phoenix, as well as such unlikely ones as Wilmington, Del. My current home, New York City? Let\u2019s just say it remains con-queso challenged.<\/p>\n
So recently I returned to the great state of Texas to get lost in my very own tamale triangle: San Antonio, Houston and Dallas. When I learned that the government of Mexico flew in the owners of 50 Mexican restaurants in the United States and Canada this summer to teach them what\u2019s authentic and what\u2019s not, the expedition picked up some gravity.<\/p>\n
Among food snobs, the Mexican vs. Tex-Mex argument has been raging for decades. It is a wrongheaded debate, according to Robb Walsh, who wrote \u201cThe Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Photos and Recipes\u201d (Broadway, 2004).<\/p>\n
\u201cTex-Mex isn\u2019t Mexican food,\u201d said Mr. Walsh. \u201cIt is an American regional cuisine. So why do we have to apologize to Mexico for it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Walsh said the late food writer Waverley Root got it right when he described Tex-Mex as \u201cnative foreign food.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is native, for it does not exist elsewhere; it was born on this soil,\u201d Root wrote in \u201cEating in America: A History\u201d(William Morrow & Co., 1976), with Richard de Rochemont. \u201cBut it is foreign in that its inspiration came from an alien cuisine.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the book was published, of course, Tex-Mex moved into the mainstream, and that was where the trouble started. Between microwaved burritos in convenience stores and nacho platters served with two-for-one margaritas in casual chains across the land, Tex-Mex got itself a bad reputation. <\/p>\n
The history of Tex-Mex begins with the \u201cchili queens\u201d of San Antonio, who in the late 1800s transformed the plazas of the city into destinations for everyone from soldiers to tourists in silk hats to Mexican bootblacks, all seeking generous portions of chili and beans, with a tortilla on the side \u2014 for a dime.<\/p>\n
It is hard to pin down experts and restaurateurs as to what happened to Mexican food when it crossed the border. The best explanation is perhaps the most inelegant: it got cheesier, chili-er and meatier.<\/p>\n
\u201cCal-Mex is long on burritos and sour cream,\u201d Mr. Walsh said. \u201cIn New Mexico, it\u2019s all about green chilies, and in Arizona they are proud to have invented chimichangas \u2014 deep-fried burritos. The embodiment of Tex-Mex is a cheese enchilada with gravy.\u201d<\/p>\n
While superior Tex-Mex food may be specific to Texas, it is hardly restricted to one region or city. In 10 years as a Texas resident, I learned that there is no such thing as a best Tex-Mex restaurant in any given city. Instead, there are favorites recommended by locals. This is because the restaurants are family run, and the true Tex-Mex aficionado is usually a good neighbor who supports more than one family. <\/p>\n
San Antonio is arguably the cuisine\u2019s Paris, the place where dozens of top-notch restaurants have built on the foundation of the chili queens, but have not been afraid of injecting their own artistry. No place embodies this better than El Mirador, which since 1967 has been owned and operated by the Trevino family.<\/p>\n
Each morning Maria Trevino, 97, is in the kitchen as the fresh fruits and vegetables are delivered to the restaurant, an ivy-covered stucco building at the edge of downtown. Her handwritten recipes, kept in a large book, have been handed down for generations in her family in Guanajuato, Mexico, or the family of her late husband Julian, who was from Salinas Victoria.<\/p>\n
Do\u00f1a Mari, as she is known to the patrons she\u2019s been serving for nearly four decades, watches over the preparations of all of El Mirador\u2019s sauces. None is made more painstakingly than the mole, which is prepared only once a week. It takes a whole day to get the right blend of ground chili peppers and nuts \u2014 among them almonds and pecans \u2014 to go with the cacao, sugar and cinnamon. <\/p>\n
You can taste that effort when the mole is presented over a plate of enchiladas. It gives the cheese a sweet, chocolate flavor and teases the smokiness out of the beef and chicken.<\/p>\n
The Trevinos regard the Tex-Mex label as a slur, something more appropriate for the food served at Taco Bell. They also shrug off the notion that their life\u2019s work sometimes is treated like the Rodney Dangerfield of cuisines. <\/p>\n
On Saturday afternoons, they get their due respect when, just like in the days of the chili queens, a cross section of San Antonio waits in line for El Mirador\u2019s famous soups, which hew closely to the traditional soups across the border. Within hours, three days of work disappears. By itself, the sopa Azteca \u2014 a spicy tomato broth filled with chicken, spinach, avocado, peppers, potatoes, cheese and tortilla strips \u2014 requires seven chickens and 12 pounds of tomatoes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we were in France and someone came and watched what went on in our kitchen and then tasted our food, we would be considered a highfalutin restaurant,\u201d said Diana Trevino, who with her husband, Julian, Maria\u2019s son, now operates El Mirador.<\/p>\n
So what is the essence of Tex-Mex? I drove 200 miles east on Interstate 10 to Houston to try to answer that question. <\/p>\n
San Antonio lays a legitimate claim to high-end Tex-Mex (if there is such a thing) and Dallas leans Anglo with its fajitas and frozen margaritas. But in Houston, Texas\u2019s largest city, the cuisine is part of the fabric of everyday life. Perhaps that is because more than 37 percent of Houston\u2019s residents are Hispanic, according to United States census figures from 2000.<\/p>\n
\u201cI discover a new Tex-Mex gem every week,\u201d said Mr. Walsh, who is the restaurant critic for the Houston Press.<\/p>\n
Neon signs flicker above pastel storefronts promising excellent Mexican food in virtually every block of the city. The trick is to figure out which places will deliver on that promise. <\/p>\n
Here are a few guidelines: 1. It has to be family-owned. 2. A ramshackle space with added-on rooms is a positive. The most successful Tex-Mex restaurants started small and expanded due to popular demand. 3. It\u2019s best if the patrons in the dining room look like the face of democracy. You want a mix of gringos and Hispanic customers; professionals and laborers.<\/p>\n
Joe Gonzalez who, with his wife, Alma, opened El Jardin in 1975, offers a fourth tip: take careful measure of the chips and salsa.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first thing that hits the table,\u201d Mr. Gonzalez said. \u201cAre the chips and salsa homemade, or does it taste like they\u2019re from a bag and a jar? Right there you know if you\u2019re in for the real thing, or they\u2019re trying to save money.\u201d<\/p>\n
El Jardin\u2019s chips are warm, crisp and greaseless. Its salsa is fresh and chunky and does not slide off the chip. The dining room has walls painted in pale blues and yellows. El Jardin has expanded over the years, adding more straight-back straw-seated chairs; it now seats 80. <\/p>\n
Lawyers in shirt sleeves, who make the 10-minute drive from downtown, and engineers from the nearby construction giant KBR eat side by side with dusty construction workers. The Coronas are ice cold, the ambient chatter bilingual.<\/p>\n
Steaming combination platters of beef tacos and guacamole-topped chicken flautas cover the tables. For $5.55, the No. 16 was paralyzing \u2014 three pork tamales steamed in cornhusks dripped with gravy and cheese. You want to take a nap after lunch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe essence of Tex-Mex?\u201d Mr. Gonzalez asked. \u201cI don\u2019t know for certain. I\u2019d like to think it is comfort food prepared like we make at home when we\u2019re feeding our families. And it\u2019s inexpensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is easy to feel like a Texan after three days of tacos, tamales, chiles rellenos and enchiladas, especially when Willie Nelson and Toby Keith are on the radio belting out a red-blooded anthem with the righteous chorus of \u201cWhiskey for my men\/beer for my horses.\u201d<\/p>\n
By that time, I was pulling into Dallas for my return to Herrera\u2019s, where this obsession with Tex-Mex began. Not surprisingly, it has outgrown its original site and in 1989 moved across Maple Avenue to a space that seats 175 people.<\/p>\n
Herrera\u2019s still doesn\u2019t have a liquor license. Instead of a cooler, I had a couple of Negro Modelos in a brown paper bag. There were no rock stars on hand. There was a pair of police officers, some college students, and more than a few young families.<\/p>\n
Larry and Nora Ontiveros now own Herrera\u2019s. Thirty-six years ago, Larry\u2019s grandmother, Amelie Herrera, opened it with $200, her own pots and pans and the free labor of her extended family.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was from right here in Dallas,\u201d said Nora, 52. \u201cWe\u2019re Mexican-Americans. It was her recipes, and it is our own style of cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n
I ordered what I have ordered there for 27 years: an enchilada plate, one cheese, one chicken, one beef, and a hard taco on the side. I poured the salsa over all of it, and dredged the rice through the refried beans.<\/p>\n
I should have brought three beers. I had to nurse the second one so it would last through my finishing ritual: I scoop the last drop of red sauce, every bean and grain of rice with the tortilla chips until my plate is white.<\/p>\n
Neither the government of Mexico nor the high priests of that country\u2019s cuisine are going to get an apology from me. In the Lone Star state, Tex-Mex is as authentic as any food can be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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