Mexican

   What I think of as “Mexican food” being from Houston, Texas, is really Tex-Mex. Tex-Mex food in restaurants, from the time I was a little kid (1955 is as about as far back as I can remember) has been about the same as it is now. I'm sure that real Mexican food is similar, in that beans, corn, rice, peppers, tomatoes, onions, beef, pork, chicken, avocados, other meats and cheese, are used, but I had some Mexican friends tell me, “That's not Mexican food.”  Of course it makes me wonder what exactly “real” Mexican food is.
Many people think of Mexican food as being hot and spicy. More people in the USA  think that places like “Taco Bell” serve Mexican food, but I  wouldn't even call it Tex-Mex. It's a generic, mass produced, “Think out-side the bun”, fast food type place. 
When I was a teenager I went to one of the first Taco Bells in Houston, TX and got a bean burrito for $.19 and it was on, I could get a meal for $.19 (I could look around on the floor of my car and find $.19) with a flour tortilla wrapped around beans, cheese and hot sauce, it was so good,  I guess that Taco Bell isn't completely useless, but these days a bean burrito costs $.99 and the burritos aren't nearly as big now as those I remember from 1968.
Recently, I had someone tell me that they didn't like Mexican food. Maybe the first time she tried “Mexican food”  it was really hot and it burned her mouth and so decided that she didn't like any Mexican food. She's a dietitian and it could be that “Mexican food” in general, is all 'round bad for everybody, I didn't ask why. I guess that a Texan (like me) trying a potato pirogi, which is a polish pasta thingy, served in the north, filled with potatoes, (Kind of double whammy starchy thing)  and is a really boring food, I would say, being from Texas “I don't like Northern food.”  But that wouldn't be true. I like pasta and I like potatoes, I guess I just like some foods better than others. She is from Wisconsin. I don't know what regional food they like there other than cheese. . .There's a lot of cheese in Wisconsin but there's a lot of cheese in Mexican food.
Of course there is pizza. Pizza is traditionally kind of a “northern food”, and as far as I can figure and the kind of pizza I like, is as spicy as any Mexican food. What's not to like? I only eat pizza rarely. I love pizza, but if I eat it too often it just becomes every day food rather than a rare treat.
I have a friend from New Jersey, Lewis. that claims to really like Mexican food. He really likes “caldo” which, as far as I know, translates to “soup”. Any caldo that I've tried in a Mexican restaurant was just pretty much standard vegetable beef soup. He's a pizza purist and eats pizza with cheese as the only topping. Lewis is kind of a pizza snob like I'm a Mexican food snob. (or a Tex-Mex snob) I'm not sure what is in a person's personality that allows personal indignation as to what type of toppings another person eats on his pizza or Mexican food, or anything for that matter.  I mean “California pizza” has got pineapples on it, “That's not real pizza!”.” They don't grow pineapples in California do they?”.”How do pineapples taste with pizza sauce. YUCK!”  I'm from Texas. Pizza isn't a regional “Texas” food, as far as I know, It's not traditionally from New Jersey either, although they may have a regional tradition as to the  way it's eaten, cheese only, “Fold that slice over like a real man!”
When I was a little kid, Mexican restaurants, again, as far as I remember, (I was only 6) only had corn tortillas and they were only served with butter, or maybe that was just the way my father ordered them. Tortillas are very simple foods, but the process in making tortillas seems to be really complicated. The ingredients included on the package are shelled corn, (how do you shell corn?) and slaked lime, (lime is used in mixing cement and paint) water and salt. I've never noticed “slaked lime” in the grocery store, I've noticed limes and lime juice, but I don't think that that's the kind of lime necessary for making tortillas. I have tried to make corn tortillas using a “gringo” recipe (“Hmmm, I'm going to make my own tortillas.”) out of a cookbook; masa harina, (corn flour) corn meal, boiling water, and salt, after making a huge mess that my that ended up with my wife saying, “If you try that again, I'll. . .” Needless to say they didn't come out very good. Anyway, at my house, the best tortillas (as far as I'm concerned) are bought at the grocery store in the tortilla section, Making tortillas is still a mystery to me. Tortilla chips are just tortillas cut up and deep fried, and in my opinion are best bought at the grocery store as well, unless you want a big oily mess, just for chips.
Tortilla chips vary in consistency in different restaurants. The “cool” Mexican restaurants make their chips really thin in order to boast that they have the thinnest chips, (I guess that slim people like thin chips in order to stay slim) but chips are for eating other foods and if a chip breaks off when trying to eat refried beans or chili con queso, it can leave you with real mess on your hands. Chips that are too thick can be as big a pain. If it seems like you're about to break your front teeth every time you take a bite of a chip, you know that there is something wrong, they're either over-cooked or too thick, or whatever. . .  The only way I can describe the perfect tortilla chip is “just right”. That's kinda' vague, I know but. . . 
The only place you could get flour tortillas when I was a kid was in the Mexican part of town. These days, at least in the southwest, you can get flour tortillas right next to the corn tortillas in the tortilla dept.
A “taco” is a traditional Mexican dish composed of a corn or flour tortilla folded or rolled around a filling. A taco can be made with a variety of fillings; anything that can be stuffed in a folded tortilla or rolled tortilla is a taco as far as I know. I've seen peanut butter and jelly in a tortilla, called a peanut butter and jelly taco. (mantequilla de maní y la jalea de tacos) Taco fillings are too numerous to name. Most people have a favorite taco. But if you don't like Mexican food, in general, there is a good chance you don't have any idea what a taco is or what your favorite taco is.
My father was a forth generation Houstonian, and when we went to a Mexican restaurant,  our favorite was a place called Felix Mexican Restaurant. At Felix, the instant you walked into the restaurant, it was like entering another world (again, this was the 50s and I was a little kid) with Mexican blankets, carvings and more, decorating the walls, tile flooring, and the smell was heavenly. The waiters, men, dressed neatly, with starched white uniform tops and little thin mustaches, The waitresses wore white skirts with red and green ruffles, they were always so polite and helpful.
It wasn't until the mid 70s or early 80s that Mexican food restaurants became  "designer type” places. I haven't lived in Houston for 8 years and and I'm sure that there are all kinds of new places to eat and the people there are making new traditions, and their memories and traditions will be their own.
I now live in Albuquerque NM and there aren't too many Mexican Restaurants. Here, most of the Mexican type restaurants are “New Mexican” restaurants. I'm wondering if the kind of food served here is New Mex-Mex, or possibly New Mexican says it all.  In Houston (as far as I know) the food was spiced with onions, cumin, garlic, red pepper, oregano, all kinds of stuff. (I guess) In New Mexico the only spice they seem to really need is New Mexican Chilis. (again, it's a guess) After ordering, they ask “Red or green?” (Red or green chilis)
When entering a New Mexican restaurant, rather than what I would consider a “Mexican” restaurant, you don't walk in and smell the cumin, garlic and other spices that you would going into a Mexican joint. Don't get me wrong, New Mexico green chilis are the bomb. I like “New Mexican” food as well. I just like my traditional Tex-Mex better.
The thing that really bugs me, is Fajitas. Fajitas are a Southwest Texas dish. Actually, they're are a cut of beef. When ordering Fajitas and the menu says “Fajitas, Chicken or Beef”. To me, that is silly because “fajitas” are like I said, a cut of beef.  I'd never had any fajitas until I was 30 or so. I would be sitting in a Mexican restaurant and see one of those sizzling plates of go by to another table and wonder “What the Heck is that?” “That looks and smells so GOOD!”
History gives credit to Mexican ranch workers living in West Texas (along the lower Rio Grand on the Texas-Mexico border) in the late 1930s or early 1940s for “fajitas”. It seems that when a steer was butchered, the workers were given skirt steak, the least desirable parts of the beef to eat, for partial payment of their wages. Because of this, the workers learned to make real good use of the tough cuts of beef known as skirt steak. (fajitas)
Skirt steak used to be sold really cheap in the supermarket because it was considered trash beef, (if there is such a thing, they used to grind most of it into hamburger) but in the last 10 or 20 years with the popularity of fajitas in restaurants, the price per pound is right up there with t-bones and rib-eyes. Of course if you are 20 – 30 years old, the price of skirt steak has always been about the same.
In Spanish,the word “fajitas” translates to "little belts". Chicken, when served as “fajitas” aren't “fajitas“ at all, at best they're chicken tacos or chicken cooked like they cook fajitas. They taste good, I'll admit, but the phrase “chicken fajitas” is a stretch of the imagination. I guess that if you're a restaurant owner you can call chicken tacos anything you want.
Of course, rice and beans are the staple on any Mexican plate. “Spanish rice” is a stretch, but it's still good.  Spanish rice is, well, “Spanish” I'm not sure if Spanish rice speaks Spanish or if the recipe comes from Spain. Anyway, In the places that I ate in Mexico, the rice was just plain old white rice. Of course, when I was in Mexico, being an Americano, in a tourist trap, they were probably serving Tex-Mex because most of the patrons in the place were Americanos. It makes me wonder why they didn't serve Spanish rice, but I never ventured out and went to a Mex-Mex place to see if they served Spanish rice instead of plain old white rice.
Refried Beans are so good. Frijoles Refritos (refried beans) are traditionally prepared with pinto beans, but many other varieties of bean can be used, such as black or red beans. The raw beans are soaked overnight, slow cooked all day, drained of most of the liquid, and converted into a paste using a masher (such as a potato masher, or in its absence, a fork or the back of a large flat spoon). Some of the drained liquid, or chicken, or vegetable stock, may be added if the consistency is too dry. The paste is traditionally then fried in lard, typically, in a cast iron pot or skillet, and seasoned to taste with salt, pepper and spices. (For vegetarians, I guess lard can be substituted with shortening) Onion and garlic is sometimes sautéed in the oil before the beans are added.
The way I see it, the sum of a Mexican restaurant can be told in the enchiladas served.  Enchiladas are a most popular dish and can be bought from street vendors all over Mexico. Of course, when getting enchiladas on the street in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico (right across the border from Brownsville, Texas), it is told that you are as likely to get dog or cat, or any kind of vermin as beef, but, still enchiladas are popularly known as a "simple street food".     Enchilada is pronounced as "ehn-chee-lah-thah". The term "enchilada" simply means “dipped in chili". Mexican restaurants worldwide cater enchiladas with different kinds of filling; beef, cheese, chicken, pork, cabrito (goat) and spinach, etc., rolled in a corn tortilla.  Though, when I was a kid, there were basically, beef and cheese enchiladas. Here in New Mexico, no matter what the filling, the last thing asked  when having an enchilada order taken is "Red or green"? (chilis, or chili sauce) Also New Mexican enchiladas are as often as not, not rolled; the tortillas are spread in a baking dish, layered with the filling and cooked as a casserole. Personally, I think I that like rolled enchiladas better, but I have to admit they taste about the same. When we make enchiladas at home we make them in the easier, flat casserole style.
“Tamales” can be traced back to as early as 5000 BC. They were served as a nutritious and portable food for Aztec, Mayan, and Incan warriors. . .
I asked a friend  from South Texas If he knew how to make tamales, (he lived on the King Ranch so, whether he was from “south”, South Texas or “mid” South Texas is debatable, the King Ranch is a huge place)  he said, “Oh yeah, first you get a hog's head and you dig a big pit and fill it with rocks. (I could just imagine the hog's head just sitting over on the ground while the pit was being dug) Then you start a big fire in the pit and heat the rocks up almost red hot.  Then you put the hogs head In a burlap bag soaked with salted water, then put it in the pit with the hot rocks. Then you cover it up with dirt and forget about it for the rest of the day.” (he said all if that, just that fast) We were interrupted in our conversation then and never got back to “how to make tamales”, but for all I know, that was his part in the making of tamales. Anyway from the first of the discussion I was still wondering where to get a hog's head.
From what I understand, traditional tamales are made from the roasted head of a hog, then the meat is stripped from the skull and spiced, “however” and wrapped in masa harina, (corn flour prepared some how) then wrapped in corn shucks and stacked vertically in a tamale pot and cooked for a long time. That's just from what I know of a fairly simplistic recipe.
I met some ladies from El Salvador that made their tamales with all kinds of filings, such as ham and carrots and instead of corn shucks for the outer wrapping, they used banana leaves. They sold them door to door. 
I've never made any tamales, my mother was from Boston so there is no family tradition to fall back on. Having a recipe and trying to make a pot of tamales and then having the tamales turn out wrong would be, for me, an unbearable risk, what, with first the task of finding a hog's head and then, I'm told it's an all day task and I'd hate to waste a whole day on failure, I have eaten quite a number of tamales though and before I die I plan to eat at least a few more.
Here in New Mexico there are people that roam the streets with “Igloo Playmate” coolers that contain packages of 6 or 8 homemade tamales, for sale. I think that they're probably really good. Of course I wonder where they found the hog's head. I have never personally bought any, but my daughter, Lena, is very bold and has bought some. She brought some to me and whether by chance or not, I got very sick with what she called intestinal “Flu”, she got it too (She's 35, but sometimes I think that she has difficulty putting two and two together) anyway, I think it was food poisoning. (I lost a whole weekend) so for sure, I won't buy any kind of food from any people on the street.
It is said that the first "chili" mix was concocted around 1850 by Texan adventurers and cowboys as a staple for the hard times while on the trail, driving cattle. Needing hot grub, for the cattle drives, the trail cooks (who were probably Mexicans) came up with a sort of stew. They pounded dried beef, fat, pepper, salt, and the chile peppers together. This amounted to "brick chili" or "chili bricks" that could be boiled in pots along the trail.  
It is also said that some trail cooks planted pepper seeds, oregano, onions and tomatillos, in mesquite patches to protect them from foraging cattle, (mesquite trees have really long thorns) to use on future cattle drives. It is thought that the chile peppers used in the earliest dishes were probably “chilipiquíńo” (whatever that is. I think that “chilipiquíńo” translates to “little chilis”, which grow wild on the Texas plains.
There was also a group of Texans known as "Lavanderas," or "Washer-women," that followed around the 19th-century armies of Texas making a stew of goat meat and venison, sometimes horse, wild marjoram and chile peppers. I don't think that the concoction is very close to what we know as present day “chili”, not “Wolf Brand” anyway, but the memory is just another one of the legends surrounding the history of what we now call "chili" which is not Mexican food, but for the most part in the past it was made by Mexicans so. . .
Really, New Mexican food is just Tex-Mex food with fewer spices taken over by red or green chilis. Red or green chilis are grown here to an extreme and sold in 30 lb bags. Last year, the chilis were being sold for $7.98 to $9.98 per sack. This year they are being sold for $14.98 to $17.98 per 30 lb. bag, On the TV, they said that the reason (excuse) for the price hike was that the price of seed went up, but they forgot to mention that they get the seeds from themselves, so I guess what that means is that they are charging themselves extra. (Twice as much) No where else are New Mexico green chilis grown and this year they have a “bumper crop”, so I'd bet that the children of the chili farmers will soon be driving Super Duty trucks or maybe Porches or some kind of really expensive car to school this year, if they aren't already. “There's gold in them thar hills!” I'm sure that growing chilis is really hard work and the farmers should get every cent that they can get for the chilis, but to more than double the price from one year to the next, seems to be a little outrageous, even if they are charging themselves more for the seed and I for one don't believe that the price is really the main cost in the overhead.  Maybe they're trying to recap the loss from last year.
BUT! The lines to the chili cookers in front of the super market seem to be as long as any, in previous years, regardless of the marked up price. (it being a New Mexican tradition and I doubt that the people of the state would boycott the chilis anyway just because of price.) Because of diet restrictions due to a physical ailment, I can't eat many green chilis anyway. I did get a pound of mild green chilis ($.69 per lb) and plan to roast them myself, that way I can have a little green chili just to keep with the tradition. Oh well, can't be perfect. . . I'm just a Texan living in New Mexico anyway.
I am, to say the least, a “large” (I wear 3x) person and I love food in general, I don't get to eat Tex-Mex very much anymore because I am getting older and my ability to digest any spicy food is problematic, you know; Tex-Mex, New Mex-Mex, Italian, (Tex-Ital?), Middle Eastern food, BBQ, etc., but you gotta eat something and you might as well eat what you enjoy and enjoy what you eat. Food is the one great pleasures in life left to me, but I have to cool it with  the eating as well.
I guess my point in all of this rhetoric is that there are all kinds of Mexican food; cheese, beans, rice, beef, pork, chicken, avocados, chilis, corn, all kinds of spices, potatoes, and more, what else is left?  If you don't like Mexican food, what do you like?
jmz

 Authors note:
It occurs to me that I capitalized West Texas, South Texas, and would capitalize East Texas, Central Texas, The Valley, (The Rio Grande valley from Brownsville to about Lorado along the Rio Grande)North Texas and “The Panhandle”.
Texas is a real large state and when Texans refer to different regions of the state, they aren't just spouting directions, they are talking about actual places. In any other place this would probably be improper English. For instance, the national news or the Weather Channel refer to East Texas as eastern Texas. They refer to “The Panhandle” as northern Texas or the Texas panhandle, When in fact North Texas to a Texan is the area north of Dallas, northward to the Oklahoma border. Anyway, in Texas we speak Texan. No excuses. . . “Texas is Like a Whole Other Country. . .” or A Whole 'Nuther Country. . .  in Texan.