From the right has come the canard that the cuisine is unhealthy and alien, a stereotype dating to the days of the Mexican-American War, when urban legend had it that animals wouldn’t eat the corpses of fallen Mexican soldiers due to the high chile content in the decaying flesh. Noah Smithwick, an observer of the aftermath of the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, claimed “the cattle got to chewing the bones [of Mexican soldiers], which so affected the milk that residents in the vicinity had to dig trenches and bury them.”
Uhm, Bull Shiite. Mexican Food is actually delicious and nutritious so I don’t know what you are talking about here. In regards to keeping the chile they make for themselves so as not to torch a gringo’s toungue, I actually ask for their stuff. You can’t make it hot enough for me. Hell, I eat Habaneros raw. Think I’ll do that now.
Similar knocks against Mexican food can be heard to this day in the lurid tourist tales of “Montezuma’s Revenge” and in the many food-based ethnic slurs still in circulation: beaner, greaser, pepper belly, taco bender, roach coach, and so many more. “Aside from diet,” the acclaimed borderlands scholar Américo Paredes wrote in 1978, “no other aspect of Mexican culture seems to have caught the fancy of the Anglo coiner of derogatory terms for Mexicans.”
Well, the terms are of endearment, then again, I am in California.
On Friday I am going to have usual bowl of Menudo from my favorite “Mexican Restaurant”.
I may even stop on the way home here in a bit and pick up some Sangre’.
And I had Tamales I bought from the gal(a loncheras) who shows up in our local Safeway the other night. They are so good!
As for Quesadillas, when I was growing up we made them all the time. I never knew they had a name until I went to a restaurant in my 20’s and friends ordered them.
“But when culinary anthropologists like Bayless and Diana Kennedy make a big show out of protecting “authentic’ Mexican food from the onslaught of commercialized glop, they are being both paternalistic and ahistorical. “
Baloney, Bayless explains ingredients and where they came from. Like Pineapple. It’s not a Hawaiian fruit but a Mexican fruit. Same with Tomatoes and several other foods that a friend who teaches Mexican and Mayan history at the University of Washington informed me of.
And Del Taco....BLOWS!
The other night I went and saw Millionaire Quartet, a story a famed evening when Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins sang together for the one and only time. Terrific show.
Afterwards we went to Mexcal, a restaurant known for its Oaxcan cuisine. I had some chipoline(grasshoppers). They are sauteed in lemon and garlic. So Good!
For dinner I had the Grilled Sea Bass over a Spinach, grilled corn, bits of bacon and cherry tomatoes. You would find something like this in a few restaurants in Puerto Aventura or even a Lobster burrito with whatever type of mole’ they made. Yummm!
But the best places for Mexican food are holes in the wall and the place where I will eat the menudo must have a name I just don’t know it and I have been going there for about 10 years.
You cannot duplicate wheat bread with any kind of corn flour, but you can make things that are just as delicious, and hot every single time.
MY recipe for a few corn fritters is 1/4 cup of masa, 1/8 cup of gluten free Bisquick (to which I add another teaspoon of baking powder), and 1/8 cup of any kind of gluten free pancake mix ~ sometimes I double the recipe and add a can of corn.
You can add peppers if you want.
The way you cook these is get a skillet. Put in the oil. Pour in enough batter to cover the bottom. Cook it about 3 minutes on a side ~ or the same way you would any pancake.
Set it aside to solidify.
Takes about 10 minutes!
I've been cutting these cakes into quadrants. The other day I took a corn pancake, put some cream cheese on a quadrant, then put on some more cream cheese and another quadrant. And so on until I had a stack. Then poured on some sugar free gluten free maple flavored syrup, and some fresh mixed chopped fruit.
That was a diabetics night cap ~ half hour later it put me to sleep. Must remember to use more insulin next time!
I've done pretty much the same thing with a thinner batter that gives me wraps. Cook up some shrimp. Spice them with some scotch bonnets ~ be careful as you chop 'em up. These puppies can numb your hand, and your eyeballs! Put the spiced shrimp on half the pancake. Flop the other side over it ~ should look like a cheaply made omlette. Now, take it out of the skillet and put it on a paper plate (so it doesn't cool down so fast). Pour on some fresh homemade salsa.
Eat!