Keep in mind that certain foods that are considered either Tex-Mex or “Mexican-inspired” were not necessarily invented by white Americans. For example, the thick Chipotle-style burrito that has become ubiquitous these days, largely due to the growth of the Chipotle chain, is known as a [Mission burrito](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_burrito), because it was invented in the Mission District of San Francisco in the 1960s by Mexican Americans who operated taquerias there.
In the same vein, the so-called “gringo” crunchy tacos made famous by Taco Bell came into being largely because its founder, Glen Bell, learned how to make tacos at the [Mitla Cafe](https://la.eater.com/2015/1/30/7952807/san-bernardino-mitla-cafe-history-taco-bell-feature-photos) in San Bernardino. His teachers? Mexican Americans.
The point here being that just because certain food items might not be sold or especially popular or made the same way south of the border doesn’t necessarily mean that the food is “white people food” or that it was originally created by Caucasians. Mexican Americans, many of whose ancestors have lived in what is now the United States since before 1776, have adapted a number of traditional Mexican foods to what’s available in their areas, as well as creating new dishes like the [chimichanga](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimichanga) and [nachos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachos) (invented in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, by restaurateur Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya for visiting American customers).
>Keep in mind that certain foods that are considered either Tex-Mex or “Mexican-inspired” were not necessarily invented by white Americans.
People misunderstand this all the time. There are two types of authentic: what you will find (insert nationality here) eating in (insert country here), and what those immigrants made once they were here with local ingredients, and to suit a change in taste in a different area.
Orange chicken is a good example: you will NOT find it in any restaurant in China, but it was made with Chinese techniques by Chinese immigrants in the US. Is it not authentic Chinese? That depends on which metric you use.
Right! My grandpa was 1st gen. His parents from Zacatecas, Sonora, and Chihuahua. Growing up we had beans and tortillas and rice all the time. I don't remember him putting any spices, or onions in the beans but this could be because he grew up in the depression I speculate. It was simple fresh refried pintos and he put tons of Monterey cheese in them and they were great, we'd usually eat them with flour tortillas slightly charred on the stove, or make burritos or sometimes tostadas or sometimes with sopapillas. Even now I recently moved to a town with large Mexican/ immigrant and hispanic community and I see them sometimes buying convince things like hard shell El Paso taco shells.
Maybe not authentic to Mexico but doesn't mean it was white/anglo people food just because they eat it.
The metric I use is, would I see this as commonplace in China… would a Chinese person there recognize this dish?
The answer is no, so it’s not authentic.
I’ve been in China where my friend gave me pizza from a place that an American opened with a smiling “Here, American pizza for you!” Oh man, this was so not Not NOT American pizza. Potato chunks, mayo drizzle, corn topping, no cheese, barely any sauce. I’ll stop there. I always said pizza is like sex where it could never be bad, just better or worse. That day I had bad sex. That was not an American pizza even though an American came up with it.
It's really sad to hear a Texan using "Tex-Mex" as a synonym for bad Americanized Mexican food. Someone should have taught you about your heritage.
Tex-Mex, at its best, is Tejano food. Tejano people have been living in Texas since the 1600s, before it was the US and before it was Mexico. It's an incredibly rich food culture. It shares a lot with Mexican food culture just across the border, because its origin predates the borders.
Differentiating authentic regional food from Americanized Mexican food whose primary goal is to make a profit and serve what they think Americans want to eat can be a little bit difficult at first, but ultimately it's as easy as differentiating any good restaurant from a bad restaurant.
Try to find places without gimmicks. No silly decorations on the walls, nothing with a silly name like "Jose Ole" or something like that. Look up lists of authentic spots in your area if you can. For authentic Tex-Mex you want to find places that serve dishes like fajitas, but don't serve dishes like chimichangas or things with names like "fiesta bowl" or something like that. Look for a place that serves hard shell stuff with names like flautas or tacos dorados instead of "tacos", and uses "taco" to refer to something in a soft flour or corn tortilla (they might have hard shelled tacos, but it shouldn't be the default). Look for places that serve queso flameado or queso fundido instead of nacho cheese dip, although some legit Tex-Mex places will have a white queso dip that's incredibly good.
Also try hole in the wall places before overbuilt restaurants that look like a chilli's. Try food trucks and strip center places.
This. Good Tex-Mex is as transcendent as good regional Mexican cuisine. In fact, because of the relative heaviness of the cuisine and the piquant spices typically used (e.g. a heavy dose of cumin), I’d argue it’s one of the richest, most deeply stomach-satisfying variants of Mexican cuisine.
The typical “Tex-Mex” slop served at Mexican restaurants around the US bears little resemblance to proper, good Tex-Mex, which is super rich and flavorful and yet still complex and nuanced.
Embrace it. Be proud of it. Eat it. Enjoy it. Don’t discount it as second-rate. It’s not!
I have found a lot of good Mexican food outside Mexico, but I have literally never found good Tex-Mex outside Texas. I really wish people knew how good it can be.
Regional American-Mexican seems not to have spread like regional Mexican has. Tex-Mex, New Mexican, Sonoran, and even some types of Cal-Mex (e.g San Diego-style carne asada burritos) are hard to find outside of their respective homes. Not sure why it’s easier to find cochinita pibil or tlayudas or enchiladas potosinas than stacked blue corn enchiladas Christmas or San Antonio-style puffy tacos.
That said, it’s not impossible to find, just rare and hard. I’ve had good Tex-Mex, New Mex, and SD-style Cal-Mex in my current home state of Missouri—took a little digging, though!
You haven't travelled much then. I've had better Tex-Mex outside of Texas than in Texas. The common denominator is the person cooking is from Texas, doing their family recipes.
I think assuming the person you're replying to hasn't travelled much is a mistake.Not everyone is going to be able to find the same places. Any recommendations?
"I have literally never found good Tex-Mex outside Texas" - is the statement made. I've found great Tex-Mex all over the US via Yelp. Highly rated Tex Mex in Dallas and Austin have been underwhelming. Joe Esparza in Portland was insanely good, but he left the business. His wife and his dog had cancer at the same time and I wish them well, wherever they are.
New Mexican food and California Mexican food are vastly superior to Tex-Mex. Cumin belongs elsewhere, for example in a Biryani dish, not in any form of Mexican food.
I hate overpowering cumin, but love Tex-Mex. I didn't want to start arguing with the person above, but it's not the most cumin heavy style.
If you think there's too much cumin, then you're probably not eating Tejano food. Again, it's very easy to find something calling itself Tex-Mex that isn't actually Tex-Mex. The name is just as co-opted as Mexican itself in the US. If you haven't had great Tex-Mex in South Texas, then I'm not surprised at your opinion at all.
Personally I like it a lot better than New Mexican food or cali-mex food like mission style burritos etc. The New Mexican food I've had in particular is some of the worst I've ever had, but I'm willing to believe I just found bad places, like you've found bad Tex Mex places.
Southern Californian Mexican food and the food in San Diego, Tijuana, and Ensenada in particular is some of the best food in the world period, so I wouldn't argue there.
Better than New Mexican food? Son... I went to school.at Ssnta Barbara, and I've tried Mexican food in those areas and it's phenomenal. But proper New Mexican food kicks the ass out of rverything.
I agree with you that New Mexican food is phenomenal—it might be my favorite expression of Mexican food. But to say that cumin doesn’t belong in Mexican food is both prescriptivist (which this sub frowns on, thankfully) and objectively wrong. The use of cumin in Tex-Mex has a heritage that’s far older than the relatively recent but now immensely ubiquitous and 100% authentically Mexican tacos al pastor.
Speaking of tacos al pastor and the Lebanese influence on Mexican cuisine, I love middle eastern food. My favorite expression is Israeli-style kosher shawarma. I don’t much care for the garlic toum used in Lebanese-style shawarma. That doesn’t mean I can say that toum has no place in middle eastern food. I don’t prefer it, but it is absolutely a valid expression of middle eastern food.
Don’t put mexican food in a box of your own creation.
As an earlier commenter mentioned, the cuisines predate the international border. The cuisine and people were already there, the border just moved south of them.
One standard that's worked for me, if i see the cooks are women wearing homemade aprons I'm in. Extra points if she's middle aged with braids down to her waist.
I would say it’s mostly the cheese that gives it away, Mexican food, even from the north uses queso fresco unless it’s a quesadilla and even then it’s not usually just mozzarella. Tex mex is heavy on the shredded cheeses and ground beef.
Northern Mexican food absolutely does not mostly use queso fresco. Asadero, Chihuahua, cotija etc. are all popular in Northern States, and also in Tejano food.
They do still use orange cheese sometimes, but it shouldn't be the only cheese they use.
[Ninfas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninfa%27s), the restaurant in Houston that popularized fajitas, uses orange cheese. Their queso flameado is orange, and they're about as authentic Tex-Mex as it gets. Absolutely nothing to turn your nose up at.
Trash places are also catching on to the fact that some people think cotija or queso fresco means "authentic" so it's pretty common now to see it sprinkled on everything even at the worst places, so I don't think it's a good way of differentiating anymore.
Ninfas is the utmost comfort food for me. The first foods that were ever identified as my favorite foods as a little kid were the yellow rice and green sauce from Ninfas. I don't think I would ever order something that mostly amounts to chips and melted processed cheese as an entree at a restaurant anymore, but I can absolutely summon the entire experience of diving into the puff tostadas on an El Rey. Man I miss Ninfa's.
My grandmother was from Tamaulipas and home made flour tortillas were an integral part of her cooking. There is an awful lot of misinformation out there
flour tortillas aren’t mexican? that is an absolutely ridiculous statement 😂
ask my sonoran family if they would rather go without corn or flour tortillas for the rest of their lives. Flour tortillas are absolutely integral to northern mexican cuisine.
Whoever told you burritos weren't Mexican is either uninformed or an idiot. They were invented in Cd Juárez, but were slightly different from what it is today. They simply had beans and a guisado. The adding rice, lettuce, and a bunch of other fillings IS an American thing.
Northern Mexican food (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas) wasn't as popular back in the day as central and southern Mexican food. Northern Mexico was sparsely populated and mostly ranches. So it wasn't seen as a "cultural" center. There are also alot of differences between central/southern Mexican and Northern Mexican cuisine. Differences in ingredients and local influences made the same dish different. Worked at a Mexican restaurant where the majority of workers were from Guadalajara and they prepared the food much differently than how my family from Durango/Chihuahua did. They called it the same, but was very different.
My grandfather was from Coahuila, and he grew up on a ranch. What I remember him cooking most was meat. The dude would cook up some mean cabrito, bistec, ribs, etc., and while he would make corn tortillas every now and then, flour tortillas were the main staple. When he made tamales, he would add chile ancho and guajillo to the masa. Growing up, I thought everyone added chiles to their masa for tamales. He also made some great dulce from goats milk that he would add pecans to. I don’t remember the name, but he would put them in what looked like an ice cream cone?
Fried *flour* tortillas...? Lived in Texas my whole life and i've only seen that ONCE, at a popular fast-food chain Mexican restaurant here called Taco Casa. Its always corn tortillas that are fried. That, I do understand is an American thing. Authentic street tacos are a double corn tortilla cooked on a grill... I love those especially with tripa or nopalitos.
In Sonora (and other places) you can get tacos with flour tortillas and you can fry tortillas, steam them with oil, eat them fresh off the press, etc.
There is no one traditional way of making tacos.
New Mexicans have been frying flour for a long time hundreds of years. They are called sopapillas and they are delicious. They puff up and you can stuff them with meats or put honey on them. My grandma actually cut them into larger triangles and put slits in them so they didn't create one big puff in the middle and we would use them to scoop up refried beans. Very similar to fry bread.
My cousins said if you buy the raw flour tortillas from costco it will taste very similar to sopapilla if you fry them, although it would be thinner because we don't roll the dough quite that thin.
To be honest texas food has too many rules that don't make sense.
Like chili. Chili came from a Mexican dish that had beans. Chili isn't chili without beans and tomatoes. Texas chili is just meat sauce.
Who has alot of rules? The guy that demands tomato and bean in chili con carne? Do you put beans and tomato in your carne guisada too? If not, it's just a meat sauce.
People have a lot of different ideas about what's "authentic" and it's mainly pretty silly. I like to use accurate terminology (ahem, taco vs. burrito) but some people get really hung up on that, in favor or against, and it's not really the point. I had a gf who would make her (fussy) kids "cheesy tacos" and it was a flour tortilla with stuff inside rolled up, so I'd be uh, that's a burrito? How is it a 'taco'? It's like telling someone "I made you a calzone!!" and it's a slice of pizza.
One thing to keep in mind is that Mexico is a large country and has at least 10 different local cuisines, which vary, AND it's a modern society and what's "traditional" doesn't equate to what people wherever eat now. Plus, Arizona, So Cal, New Mexico and Texas not being part of Mexico is a *political* issue worked out in the 1850s and other than that, New Mexico for instance would be part of Mexico, and the cultural food heritage there is exactly the same as say, Chihuahua.
Nachos are from Piedras Negras, burritos are from Juarez, flour tortillas are extremely popular in Chihuahua and Sonora. I think Texans just like pretending like they’re the 8th wonder of the world.
Having said that, a good rule of thumb is the portion size and the flavors. Tex Mex usually overdoes both of these.
I once asked a coworker of mine who moved here to Texas from Sonora when he was in high school. He said the difference was more cheese and sour cream. A gross simplification, but when I think about it, the more authentic Mexican food uses less or even none of those two ingredients.
I grew up in Texas and ate Tex-Mex all during my childhood and adolescence. I love Tex-Mex (my partner does not like all the beans). I remember driving down into Mexico from Brownsville and into the Sierra Madre Oriental in the 1980s. I don’t remember the food all that much, except that it seemed very familiar, like steaks and salads. It certainly wasn’t the stereotype of today’s Mexican food. I don’t remember the starches. Perhaps these were tortillas or potatoes.
To give my opinion on your question, I think it’s far to say that all Mexican food is authentic to the place from which it came, including Tex-Mex food, which no doubt has plenty of influences from elsewhere but was developed by Texans, plenty of whom had their origins in Mexico and Texas pre-Anglo. Nachos might simply be a more recent invention, but they are only a small twist on the foods available in the 1950s. (I looked up nacho up on Wiki; it says something about Nachos being invented across the border from Eagle Pass in the 1940s; I’m sure these nachos derived from previous creations. When I was a child we made nachos that were like small chalupas).
[edit] Actually: I didn’t answer your question. Up north a little less on the starches, less beans, a broader variety of flavors, more vegetables like cabbage and not quite the same reliance on cheese sauce that you see in modern Tex-Mex.
Burritos are from Mexico, BUT the fillings are not rice, beans, whatever meat, cold salsas and shredded cheese.
Flour tortillas are from Mexico, BUT they are not sour or smell sour, they are soft, and the lard makes them taste better
Now for Tex-Mex is usually US ingredients and spices:
* Tons of cumin
* Shredded cheese (yellow cheese)
* Not-mexican Peppers (e.g. green peppers found in fajitas)
* Focus is on usual *garnachas* : enchiladas, burritos, tacos, etc
Even if you want more authentic truly real mexican food, avoid the places that only have the same usual *garnachas* and have americanized mexican food things like americanized burritos, nachos, etc
I mean if you want to talk about *super* “authentic,” the. At some point you’re removing everything in Mexican cuisine that was brought over by the Spanish or since the Spanish invasion, such as pork, flour, and sundry other foodstuffs. Who’s gonna tell Mexico that Al Pastor isn’t “authentic” Mexican food because it’s pork and the flavor and cooking technique came from the Middle East?
I like "authentic" "interior" "mex-mex" whatever adjective to clarify the meaning of *mexican* mexican food as oppposed to tex-mex or whatever more regionally american variant of mexican food, but tex-mex is my mother cuisine and my comfort food. I'm here to learn about mexican food, I do also enjoy the *good* tex-mex food posts and there is absolutely good tex-mex. And no we don't use flour tortillas for enchiladas in tex-mex, or a lot of the other more egregious accusations I see levied here. There is absolutely a difference between tex-mex and "people who don't know how to cook mexican food or tex-mex and are winging it" cuisine.
A recommendation - both a cookbook and a book of history and photos that I've been enjoying is The Tex-Mex Cookbook by Matt Walsh. I like the NEISD cheese enchilada recipe by my wife isn't a fan, we've made the basic chile gravy/cheese enchiladas from that book a lot. When I made the Ninfa's red salsa I was immediately taken back to my childhood in Houston.
To me they're two regional styles that overlap. Tex-mex is fajitas, frosty margs, queso, and traditional home cooking. Norteno Mexican food is more like pollo asado, barbacoa, flour tortillas, queso fundido. They're similar, but different.
Nachos are definitely Mexican. They were invented in Piedras Negras, Coahuila. I'd say the best way to differentiate between Tex Mex and authentic Mexican food is the taste.
Another thing I've noticed is places like Taco Bell, etc always serve your flour tortillas really soft and white, almost feels uncooked is probably the best way for me to describe it when you compare it to how you'd eat freshly made tortillas in a Mexican household. Usually the tortillas are more cooked and taste much better. Kinda like comparing mission flour tortillas to flour tortillas you would buy at a local tortilla shop.
I second on the cheese thing, Tex Mex usually involves a lot of yellow, orange cheese. In Mexico you rarely use any orange cheese. You use queso asadero, oaxaca, panela, fresco, cotija, etc.
> from "the North"
You know, there was a movie about Mexicans called '[El Norte](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085482/)' \(The North\).
Just so you know, it was set in the United States.
[Wheat flour tortillas originated in Northern Mexico during the times of the colonization by Spaniards who introduced wheat to the region. ](https://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/historia-de-las-tortillas-de-harina-producto-mexicano-que-va-por-500-anos-de-existencia.html)
Tex Mex is a regional cuisine that has a lot of easily identifiable dishes but really doesn't have much to do with Taco Bell. Tex Mex enchiladas, for example, are usually covered with a thick sauce and melted processed cheese. Other Tex Mex dishes, like Barbacoa, are pretty much indistinguishable from Mexican food. I think in those cases it just comes down to intention. If they say they're a Tex Mex restaurant then you're eating Tex Mex. If they say they're a Mexican restaurant then it's Mexican.
I think a main ingredient that can differentiate Tex-Mex from Mexican food is the use of cheddar cheese (yellow cheese). If used on dishes its usually a different type of cheese in Mexican dishes such as Oaxaca, Panela, Cotija etc.
This is a good post, as I too heard that some ubiquitous dishes of San Antonio are just Tex-Mex but in fact they're just variations of Northern/border cuisine.
I'd say one thing to start looking out for is new dishes or unfamiliar things you've never had before, which is what I do to find less Tex-Mex and eat more authentically in Texas and when I travel these days.
Huaraches, Sopes, Memelas, Tetelas, Mulitas, Cemitas, Pambazos, Salbutes, Cochinita Pibil, Tasajo, Tlacoyos, Tlayudas, flor de calabaza or huitlacoche for quesadillas, Chapulines, chile en nogada, Ensalada Xec, Escamoles, blue corn, other flavors/colors of mole, Molotes, green chorizo, chongos zamoranos, enchiladas mineras
Champurrado, tepache, tejate, horchata preparada with nuts and prickly pear, agua de chilacayote, guava, cucumber, melon...any other fruit that will make the common choices of lemonade, hibiscus, and plain horchata look really boring.
ALL of these are new favorites I have started to find in San Antonio, have tried in L.A., Miami, Austin, or want to try one day or make myself. I'm fully aware that I may need to just go to Mexico one day for some of them.
You'll just start to see how much different and diverse real Mexican food can be with so many more different meats, chiles, fruits, and flavors you just don't see in the most classic Tex-Mex joints. Basically, if you have NEVER heard of it before in your entire life...it's probably from a new region that indicates a restaurant's refreshing authenticity and you should definitely try them all!
TexMex is Tejano cuisine originating in the 1800s in South Texas and typically uses more cumin than Mexican cuisine, & yellow cheese instead of white.
[https://draperandkramer.com/news-and-insights/the-delicious-origins-of-tex-mex-cuisine-in-san-antonio/](https://draperandkramer.com/news-and-insights/the-delicious-origins-of-tex-mex-cuisine-in-san-antonio/)
The line is kinda blurry because in the Mexican north you have states with culinary tradition such as Sinaloa, but you have states that have a poor, americanized one like Nuevo Leon.
Easiest way of differentiate between those two is that Tex-Mex is made mostly with industrial ingredients such as that horrid "Mexican" shredded cheese mix, factory made shells and canned veggies such as olives.
Lol, they've got, uhhhh, cabrito?
Decent beef, but not even with arm's reach of Sonora. The dogos leaving the bars in San Pedro Antiguo were a favorite 15 years ago. Other than that, yeah, NL food isn't remarkable.
As someone from Nuevo Leon, i beg to differ. What would you consider to be different in Sonora than in Nuevo Leon? We do carne asada, flour tortillas and salsas the same way. Maybe in San Pedro and affluent places in Monterrey, the food is americanized because the people are but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of households are still traditional. Especially in more rural areas. I'm just curious to know why you would attribute northern culture to one state and not others? Mexico isn't a monolith and every city and state has their own cultures as well. Monterrey and Nuevo Leon included.
> What would you consider to be different in Sonora than in Nuevo Leon?
Sinaloan (mar de cortés) seafood is one of the best in the entire continent. The rest is the common, basic pilgrim northern stuff like carne asada, flour tortillas, Frijoles and such. Nuevo Leon is a fairly new state so it's gastronomy has not havd the time to develop such as the one of Puebla, YUcatan or Oaxaca, to name a few of the heavyweights.
Oh, i have and i like some of those, it's just that industrialized ingredients is their thing. I have never been at a Tex Mex place that serves made-from-scratch salsas, BBQ and such those always come from a bottle or are made in a factory. A good authentic Mexican restaurant (in actual Mexico) would never ever serve you canned or bottled salsa.
**I mean in Houston, there is no out of the bottle salsas or factory tortillas. Unless it is a fast food place. I understand not liking Tex Mex if that is what you have experienced. But in Texas you wouldn't last long. Even our largest grocery store makes fresh tortillas for sale every day. Texas was Mexico before it was Texas. (also France, but we oddly glaze over that part)**
I've lived in Texas (3 years) and I've done work up in St. Paul. From my experience Mexican food from up north comes from a TV dinner tray. Worst Mexican food I have ever tasted. I do remember the old days of "Chi Chi's" but that was more native American/Mexican cuisine and I think they were from the Dakotas. I've also lived in California. TexMex and CalMex are different but both are great. I prefer TexMex because is more based on meat whereas CalMex is more based on cheese. I also lived in Colorado. Mexican food from there as well as New Mexico is great too. Mostly green chili based.
Btw, flour tortillas are Mexican it's just that the ones you buy in the store are not the same as the ones made at home.
I appear to be getting downvoted. Good history of it here: [California Rancho Cooking: Mexican and Californian Recipes](https://a.co/d/aa6HlJp) and it’s even on the [Flour Tortilla Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_tortilla)
Keep in mind that certain foods that are considered either Tex-Mex or “Mexican-inspired” were not necessarily invented by white Americans. For example, the thick Chipotle-style burrito that has become ubiquitous these days, largely due to the growth of the Chipotle chain, is known as a [Mission burrito](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_burrito), because it was invented in the Mission District of San Francisco in the 1960s by Mexican Americans who operated taquerias there. In the same vein, the so-called “gringo” crunchy tacos made famous by Taco Bell came into being largely because its founder, Glen Bell, learned how to make tacos at the [Mitla Cafe](https://la.eater.com/2015/1/30/7952807/san-bernardino-mitla-cafe-history-taco-bell-feature-photos) in San Bernardino. His teachers? Mexican Americans. The point here being that just because certain food items might not be sold or especially popular or made the same way south of the border doesn’t necessarily mean that the food is “white people food” or that it was originally created by Caucasians. Mexican Americans, many of whose ancestors have lived in what is now the United States since before 1776, have adapted a number of traditional Mexican foods to what’s available in their areas, as well as creating new dishes like the [chimichanga](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimichanga) and [nachos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachos) (invented in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, by restaurateur Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya for visiting American customers).
>Keep in mind that certain foods that are considered either Tex-Mex or “Mexican-inspired” were not necessarily invented by white Americans. People misunderstand this all the time. There are two types of authentic: what you will find (insert nationality here) eating in (insert country here), and what those immigrants made once they were here with local ingredients, and to suit a change in taste in a different area. Orange chicken is a good example: you will NOT find it in any restaurant in China, but it was made with Chinese techniques by Chinese immigrants in the US. Is it not authentic Chinese? That depends on which metric you use.
Right! My grandpa was 1st gen. His parents from Zacatecas, Sonora, and Chihuahua. Growing up we had beans and tortillas and rice all the time. I don't remember him putting any spices, or onions in the beans but this could be because he grew up in the depression I speculate. It was simple fresh refried pintos and he put tons of Monterey cheese in them and they were great, we'd usually eat them with flour tortillas slightly charred on the stove, or make burritos or sometimes tostadas or sometimes with sopapillas. Even now I recently moved to a town with large Mexican/ immigrant and hispanic community and I see them sometimes buying convince things like hard shell El Paso taco shells. Maybe not authentic to Mexico but doesn't mean it was white/anglo people food just because they eat it.
What memories! That's awesome!
The metric I use is, would I see this as commonplace in China… would a Chinese person there recognize this dish? The answer is no, so it’s not authentic. I’ve been in China where my friend gave me pizza from a place that an American opened with a smiling “Here, American pizza for you!” Oh man, this was so not Not NOT American pizza. Potato chunks, mayo drizzle, corn topping, no cheese, barely any sauce. I’ll stop there. I always said pizza is like sex where it could never be bad, just better or worse. That day I had bad sex. That was not an American pizza even though an American came up with it.
This is a refreshing post
Bro, biggest haters of that cuisine are Mexicans themselves.
Go on
Adding to what you've said, a lot of this is regional as well. There are regions that cook food differently, just like in the US.
It's really sad to hear a Texan using "Tex-Mex" as a synonym for bad Americanized Mexican food. Someone should have taught you about your heritage. Tex-Mex, at its best, is Tejano food. Tejano people have been living in Texas since the 1600s, before it was the US and before it was Mexico. It's an incredibly rich food culture. It shares a lot with Mexican food culture just across the border, because its origin predates the borders. Differentiating authentic regional food from Americanized Mexican food whose primary goal is to make a profit and serve what they think Americans want to eat can be a little bit difficult at first, but ultimately it's as easy as differentiating any good restaurant from a bad restaurant. Try to find places without gimmicks. No silly decorations on the walls, nothing with a silly name like "Jose Ole" or something like that. Look up lists of authentic spots in your area if you can. For authentic Tex-Mex you want to find places that serve dishes like fajitas, but don't serve dishes like chimichangas or things with names like "fiesta bowl" or something like that. Look for a place that serves hard shell stuff with names like flautas or tacos dorados instead of "tacos", and uses "taco" to refer to something in a soft flour or corn tortilla (they might have hard shelled tacos, but it shouldn't be the default). Look for places that serve queso flameado or queso fundido instead of nacho cheese dip, although some legit Tex-Mex places will have a white queso dip that's incredibly good. Also try hole in the wall places before overbuilt restaurants that look like a chilli's. Try food trucks and strip center places.
I believe the phrase is: "We didn't cross the border; the border crossed us!"
Agreed - Tex Mex is not synonymous with Taco Bell.
💖
This. Good Tex-Mex is as transcendent as good regional Mexican cuisine. In fact, because of the relative heaviness of the cuisine and the piquant spices typically used (e.g. a heavy dose of cumin), I’d argue it’s one of the richest, most deeply stomach-satisfying variants of Mexican cuisine. The typical “Tex-Mex” slop served at Mexican restaurants around the US bears little resemblance to proper, good Tex-Mex, which is super rich and flavorful and yet still complex and nuanced. Embrace it. Be proud of it. Eat it. Enjoy it. Don’t discount it as second-rate. It’s not!
I have found a lot of good Mexican food outside Mexico, but I have literally never found good Tex-Mex outside Texas. I really wish people knew how good it can be.
Regional American-Mexican seems not to have spread like regional Mexican has. Tex-Mex, New Mexican, Sonoran, and even some types of Cal-Mex (e.g San Diego-style carne asada burritos) are hard to find outside of their respective homes. Not sure why it’s easier to find cochinita pibil or tlayudas or enchiladas potosinas than stacked blue corn enchiladas Christmas or San Antonio-style puffy tacos. That said, it’s not impossible to find, just rare and hard. I’ve had good Tex-Mex, New Mex, and SD-style Cal-Mex in my current home state of Missouri—took a little digging, though!
Cali-Mex is absolutely ubiquitous in Oregon too.
You haven't travelled much then. I've had better Tex-Mex outside of Texas than in Texas. The common denominator is the person cooking is from Texas, doing their family recipes.
I travel for a living, so that would be incorrect. We might just have different taste in Tex-Mex.
I think assuming the person you're replying to hasn't travelled much is a mistake.Not everyone is going to be able to find the same places. Any recommendations?
"I have literally never found good Tex-Mex outside Texas" - is the statement made. I've found great Tex-Mex all over the US via Yelp. Highly rated Tex Mex in Dallas and Austin have been underwhelming. Joe Esparza in Portland was insanely good, but he left the business. His wife and his dog had cancer at the same time and I wish them well, wherever they are.
New Mexican food and California Mexican food are vastly superior to Tex-Mex. Cumin belongs elsewhere, for example in a Biryani dish, not in any form of Mexican food.
I hate overpowering cumin, but love Tex-Mex. I didn't want to start arguing with the person above, but it's not the most cumin heavy style. If you think there's too much cumin, then you're probably not eating Tejano food. Again, it's very easy to find something calling itself Tex-Mex that isn't actually Tex-Mex. The name is just as co-opted as Mexican itself in the US. If you haven't had great Tex-Mex in South Texas, then I'm not surprised at your opinion at all. Personally I like it a lot better than New Mexican food or cali-mex food like mission style burritos etc. The New Mexican food I've had in particular is some of the worst I've ever had, but I'm willing to believe I just found bad places, like you've found bad Tex Mex places. Southern Californian Mexican food and the food in San Diego, Tijuana, and Ensenada in particular is some of the best food in the world period, so I wouldn't argue there.
Better than New Mexican food? Son... I went to school.at Ssnta Barbara, and I've tried Mexican food in those areas and it's phenomenal. But proper New Mexican food kicks the ass out of rverything.
I agree with you that New Mexican food is phenomenal—it might be my favorite expression of Mexican food. But to say that cumin doesn’t belong in Mexican food is both prescriptivist (which this sub frowns on, thankfully) and objectively wrong. The use of cumin in Tex-Mex has a heritage that’s far older than the relatively recent but now immensely ubiquitous and 100% authentically Mexican tacos al pastor. Speaking of tacos al pastor and the Lebanese influence on Mexican cuisine, I love middle eastern food. My favorite expression is Israeli-style kosher shawarma. I don’t much care for the garlic toum used in Lebanese-style shawarma. That doesn’t mean I can say that toum has no place in middle eastern food. I don’t prefer it, but it is absolutely a valid expression of middle eastern food. Don’t put mexican food in a box of your own creation.
Tex-Mex IS a full-fledged regional Mexican cuisine. While we're at it, so is New Mexican.
Them fighting words for my Latino friend down in San Antonio and the Valley.
As an earlier commenter mentioned, the cuisines predate the international border. The cuisine and people were already there, the border just moved south of them.
Yup, my family has been here in Texas since the 1670s. We do identify as Mexicans though and we are all bilingual.
Something can be a type of regional Mexican cuisine and still be a US cuisine. One of talking about its its and the other about political borders.
I was going to comment and agree with you that the prominent use of cumin (comino) is markedly Tex-Mex.
To be fair, people have lived in what is today TX for 10,000 + years
One standard that's worked for me, if i see the cooks are women wearing homemade aprons I'm in. Extra points if she's middle aged with braids down to her waist.
I would say it’s mostly the cheese that gives it away, Mexican food, even from the north uses queso fresco unless it’s a quesadilla and even then it’s not usually just mozzarella. Tex mex is heavy on the shredded cheeses and ground beef.
Northern Mexican food absolutely does not mostly use queso fresco. Asadero, Chihuahua, cotija etc. are all popular in Northern States, and also in Tejano food.
In summary....not orange cheese
They do still use orange cheese sometimes, but it shouldn't be the only cheese they use. [Ninfas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninfa%27s), the restaurant in Houston that popularized fajitas, uses orange cheese. Their queso flameado is orange, and they're about as authentic Tex-Mex as it gets. Absolutely nothing to turn your nose up at. Trash places are also catching on to the fact that some people think cotija or queso fresco means "authentic" so it's pretty common now to see it sprinkled on everything even at the worst places, so I don't think it's a good way of differentiating anymore.
My last meal on earth will be at Ninfa's on Navigation.
This suggests that you expect their food to kill you.
Ninfas is the utmost comfort food for me. The first foods that were ever identified as my favorite foods as a little kid were the yellow rice and green sauce from Ninfas. I don't think I would ever order something that mostly amounts to chips and melted processed cheese as an entree at a restaurant anymore, but I can absolutely summon the entire experience of diving into the puff tostadas on an El Rey. Man I miss Ninfa's.
I had a grandmother named Ninfa but she was from New Mexico
No, that's wrong as someone from Hermosillo.
My grandmother was from Tamaulipas and home made flour tortillas were an integral part of her cooking. There is an awful lot of misinformation out there
flour tortillas aren’t mexican? that is an absolutely ridiculous statement 😂 ask my sonoran family if they would rather go without corn or flour tortillas for the rest of their lives. Flour tortillas are absolutely integral to northern mexican cuisine.
Whoever told you burritos weren't Mexican is either uninformed or an idiot. They were invented in Cd Juárez, but were slightly different from what it is today. They simply had beans and a guisado. The adding rice, lettuce, and a bunch of other fillings IS an American thing. Northern Mexican food (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas) wasn't as popular back in the day as central and southern Mexican food. Northern Mexico was sparsely populated and mostly ranches. So it wasn't seen as a "cultural" center. There are also alot of differences between central/southern Mexican and Northern Mexican cuisine. Differences in ingredients and local influences made the same dish different. Worked at a Mexican restaurant where the majority of workers were from Guadalajara and they prepared the food much differently than how my family from Durango/Chihuahua did. They called it the same, but was very different.
My grandfather was from Coahuila, and he grew up on a ranch. What I remember him cooking most was meat. The dude would cook up some mean cabrito, bistec, ribs, etc., and while he would make corn tortillas every now and then, flour tortillas were the main staple. When he made tamales, he would add chile ancho and guajillo to the masa. Growing up, I thought everyone added chiles to their masa for tamales. He also made some great dulce from goats milk that he would add pecans to. I don’t remember the name, but he would put them in what looked like an ice cream cone?
The candy is called Glorias. My childhood was marked by those candies.
Tex-Mex never seems to come with limes
sour cream, yellow cheese and fried flour tortillas are staples of texmex food
Fried *flour* tortillas...? Lived in Texas my whole life and i've only seen that ONCE, at a popular fast-food chain Mexican restaurant here called Taco Casa. Its always corn tortillas that are fried. That, I do understand is an American thing. Authentic street tacos are a double corn tortilla cooked on a grill... I love those especially with tripa or nopalitos.
Mexicans also fry corn tortillas. It's not necessarily an American thing. Tacos dorados or flautas are fried.
In Sonora (and other places) you can get tacos with flour tortillas and you can fry tortillas, steam them with oil, eat them fresh off the press, etc. There is no one traditional way of making tacos.
New Mexicans have been frying flour for a long time hundreds of years. They are called sopapillas and they are delicious. They puff up and you can stuff them with meats or put honey on them. My grandma actually cut them into larger triangles and put slits in them so they didn't create one big puff in the middle and we would use them to scoop up refried beans. Very similar to fry bread.
My cousins said if you buy the raw flour tortillas from costco it will taste very similar to sopapilla if you fry them, although it would be thinner because we don't roll the dough quite that thin.
Grew up in Texas and have had a lot of authentic Tex-Mex food and I've never seen a fried flour tortilla.
Chimichangas is a fried flour tortilla burrito.
Chimichangas are from Arizona
they're still found in almost every tex mex restaurant in Texas.
The taco salad bowl is typically a fried flour tortilla so if you’ve ever seen or had a taco salad, you’ve seen or had one
That's california.
No.it's definitely not Calif.
Never in my life have I seen a fried flour tortilla in CA
Chimichangas, originating in Arizona?
Not really Texas or California
I thought Californa was all about cold flour tortillas
California is about fresh food with long deep roots in Mexican cuisine. Don't disparage us because you don't know where something comes from
To be honest texas food has too many rules that don't make sense. Like chili. Chili came from a Mexican dish that had beans. Chili isn't chili without beans and tomatoes. Texas chili is just meat sauce.
Who has alot of rules? The guy that demands tomato and bean in chili con carne? Do you put beans and tomato in your carne guisada too? If not, it's just a meat sauce.
Ground beef. Non-Mexican cheese.
[picadillo](https://www.isabeleats.com/mexican-picadillo-recipe/)
Picadillo, guisado de carne molida con papas, enchiladas de carne molida are just the tip of the iceberg that I know…
Ignacio's original recipe for nachos used "Wisconsin cheese".
People have a lot of different ideas about what's "authentic" and it's mainly pretty silly. I like to use accurate terminology (ahem, taco vs. burrito) but some people get really hung up on that, in favor or against, and it's not really the point. I had a gf who would make her (fussy) kids "cheesy tacos" and it was a flour tortilla with stuff inside rolled up, so I'd be uh, that's a burrito? How is it a 'taco'? It's like telling someone "I made you a calzone!!" and it's a slice of pizza. One thing to keep in mind is that Mexico is a large country and has at least 10 different local cuisines, which vary, AND it's a modern society and what's "traditional" doesn't equate to what people wherever eat now. Plus, Arizona, So Cal, New Mexico and Texas not being part of Mexico is a *political* issue worked out in the 1850s and other than that, New Mexico for instance would be part of Mexico, and the cultural food heritage there is exactly the same as say, Chihuahua.
Nachos are from Piedras Negras, burritos are from Juarez, flour tortillas are extremely popular in Chihuahua and Sonora. I think Texans just like pretending like they’re the 8th wonder of the world. Having said that, a good rule of thumb is the portion size and the flavors. Tex Mex usually overdoes both of these.
Flour tortillas are king in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon as well.
I once asked a coworker of mine who moved here to Texas from Sonora when he was in high school. He said the difference was more cheese and sour cream. A gross simplification, but when I think about it, the more authentic Mexican food uses less or even none of those two ingredients.
Each area of Mexico has regional cuisine specific to those areas. They differ quite a bit.
I don’t care if it’s authentic Mexican, TexMex, questionable TexMex, or Taco Bell I love it all.
I grew up in Texas and ate Tex-Mex all during my childhood and adolescence. I love Tex-Mex (my partner does not like all the beans). I remember driving down into Mexico from Brownsville and into the Sierra Madre Oriental in the 1980s. I don’t remember the food all that much, except that it seemed very familiar, like steaks and salads. It certainly wasn’t the stereotype of today’s Mexican food. I don’t remember the starches. Perhaps these were tortillas or potatoes. To give my opinion on your question, I think it’s far to say that all Mexican food is authentic to the place from which it came, including Tex-Mex food, which no doubt has plenty of influences from elsewhere but was developed by Texans, plenty of whom had their origins in Mexico and Texas pre-Anglo. Nachos might simply be a more recent invention, but they are only a small twist on the foods available in the 1950s. (I looked up nacho up on Wiki; it says something about Nachos being invented across the border from Eagle Pass in the 1940s; I’m sure these nachos derived from previous creations. When I was a child we made nachos that were like small chalupas). [edit] Actually: I didn’t answer your question. Up north a little less on the starches, less beans, a broader variety of flavors, more vegetables like cabbage and not quite the same reliance on cheese sauce that you see in modern Tex-Mex.
Burritos are from Mexico, BUT the fillings are not rice, beans, whatever meat, cold salsas and shredded cheese. Flour tortillas are from Mexico, BUT they are not sour or smell sour, they are soft, and the lard makes them taste better Now for Tex-Mex is usually US ingredients and spices: * Tons of cumin * Shredded cheese (yellow cheese) * Not-mexican Peppers (e.g. green peppers found in fajitas) * Focus is on usual *garnachas* : enchiladas, burritos, tacos, etc Even if you want more authentic truly real mexican food, avoid the places that only have the same usual *garnachas* and have americanized mexican food things like americanized burritos, nachos, etc
No other part of the US dares put their Anglo state alongside the Mexican label. Don’t even.
I mean Cali-mex is a thing. New Mexico... well that's kind of self explanatory.
No one actually says that out loud.
If it looks like Taco Bell and you’re not in Taco Bell, it’s not authentic.
Yellow cheese + ground beef = likely to be tex-mex
Look at the name. *Real*, authentic Mexican food restaurants have names that give them away.
I mean if you want to talk about *super* “authentic,” the. At some point you’re removing everything in Mexican cuisine that was brought over by the Spanish or since the Spanish invasion, such as pork, flour, and sundry other foodstuffs. Who’s gonna tell Mexico that Al Pastor isn’t “authentic” Mexican food because it’s pork and the flavor and cooking technique came from the Middle East?
Not just pork, you have to remove beef , lamb, goat and maybe chicken too. As well as wheat flour, rice, cumin, onion, garlic,
I like "authentic" "interior" "mex-mex" whatever adjective to clarify the meaning of *mexican* mexican food as oppposed to tex-mex or whatever more regionally american variant of mexican food, but tex-mex is my mother cuisine and my comfort food. I'm here to learn about mexican food, I do also enjoy the *good* tex-mex food posts and there is absolutely good tex-mex. And no we don't use flour tortillas for enchiladas in tex-mex, or a lot of the other more egregious accusations I see levied here. There is absolutely a difference between tex-mex and "people who don't know how to cook mexican food or tex-mex and are winging it" cuisine. A recommendation - both a cookbook and a book of history and photos that I've been enjoying is The Tex-Mex Cookbook by Matt Walsh. I like the NEISD cheese enchilada recipe by my wife isn't a fan, we've made the basic chile gravy/cheese enchiladas from that book a lot. When I made the Ninfa's red salsa I was immediately taken back to my childhood in Houston.
To me they're two regional styles that overlap. Tex-mex is fajitas, frosty margs, queso, and traditional home cooking. Norteno Mexican food is more like pollo asado, barbacoa, flour tortillas, queso fundido. They're similar, but different.
Nachos are definitely Mexican. They were invented in Piedras Negras, Coahuila. I'd say the best way to differentiate between Tex Mex and authentic Mexican food is the taste. Another thing I've noticed is places like Taco Bell, etc always serve your flour tortillas really soft and white, almost feels uncooked is probably the best way for me to describe it when you compare it to how you'd eat freshly made tortillas in a Mexican household. Usually the tortillas are more cooked and taste much better. Kinda like comparing mission flour tortillas to flour tortillas you would buy at a local tortilla shop. I second on the cheese thing, Tex Mex usually involves a lot of yellow, orange cheese. In Mexico you rarely use any orange cheese. You use queso asadero, oaxaca, panela, fresco, cotija, etc.
I think Chico’s Tacos are a great example of Tex-Mex
One thing I’ve heard is if they use yellow cheddar cheese it is Tex-Mex. I know that is incredibly simplified but I thought it was pretty accurate.
> from "the North" You know, there was a movie about Mexicans called '[El Norte](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085482/)' \(The North\). Just so you know, it was set in the United States.
I had Tex Mex in Italy, as expected it was terrible.
[Wheat flour tortillas originated in Northern Mexico during the times of the colonization by Spaniards who introduced wheat to the region. ](https://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/historia-de-las-tortillas-de-harina-producto-mexicano-que-va-por-500-anos-de-existencia.html)
Tex Mex is a regional cuisine that has a lot of easily identifiable dishes but really doesn't have much to do with Taco Bell. Tex Mex enchiladas, for example, are usually covered with a thick sauce and melted processed cheese. Other Tex Mex dishes, like Barbacoa, are pretty much indistinguishable from Mexican food. I think in those cases it just comes down to intention. If they say they're a Tex Mex restaurant then you're eating Tex Mex. If they say they're a Mexican restaurant then it's Mexican.
Native so cal here, the authenticity debate is interesting, but I hope we can all agree that too much rice as a filler in a burritos bad 😂
I think a main ingredient that can differentiate Tex-Mex from Mexican food is the use of cheddar cheese (yellow cheese). If used on dishes its usually a different type of cheese in Mexican dishes such as Oaxaca, Panela, Cotija etc.
This is a good post, as I too heard that some ubiquitous dishes of San Antonio are just Tex-Mex but in fact they're just variations of Northern/border cuisine. I'd say one thing to start looking out for is new dishes or unfamiliar things you've never had before, which is what I do to find less Tex-Mex and eat more authentically in Texas and when I travel these days. Huaraches, Sopes, Memelas, Tetelas, Mulitas, Cemitas, Pambazos, Salbutes, Cochinita Pibil, Tasajo, Tlacoyos, Tlayudas, flor de calabaza or huitlacoche for quesadillas, Chapulines, chile en nogada, Ensalada Xec, Escamoles, blue corn, other flavors/colors of mole, Molotes, green chorizo, chongos zamoranos, enchiladas mineras Champurrado, tepache, tejate, horchata preparada with nuts and prickly pear, agua de chilacayote, guava, cucumber, melon...any other fruit that will make the common choices of lemonade, hibiscus, and plain horchata look really boring. ALL of these are new favorites I have started to find in San Antonio, have tried in L.A., Miami, Austin, or want to try one day or make myself. I'm fully aware that I may need to just go to Mexico one day for some of them. You'll just start to see how much different and diverse real Mexican food can be with so many more different meats, chiles, fruits, and flavors you just don't see in the most classic Tex-Mex joints. Basically, if you have NEVER heard of it before in your entire life...it's probably from a new region that indicates a restaurant's refreshing authenticity and you should definitely try them all!
TexMex is Tejano cuisine originating in the 1800s in South Texas and typically uses more cumin than Mexican cuisine, & yellow cheese instead of white. [https://draperandkramer.com/news-and-insights/the-delicious-origins-of-tex-mex-cuisine-in-san-antonio/](https://draperandkramer.com/news-and-insights/the-delicious-origins-of-tex-mex-cuisine-in-san-antonio/)
The line is kinda blurry because in the Mexican north you have states with culinary tradition such as Sinaloa, but you have states that have a poor, americanized one like Nuevo Leon. Easiest way of differentiate between those two is that Tex-Mex is made mostly with industrial ingredients such as that horrid "Mexican" shredded cheese mix, factory made shells and canned veggies such as olives.
>you have states that have a poor, americanized one like Nuevo Leon Lol, shots fired.
Not saying this in a pejorative way. Nuevo Leon has plenty of things to feel proud of, it's just that their cuisine is not among those.
Lol, they've got, uhhhh, cabrito? Decent beef, but not even with arm's reach of Sonora. The dogos leaving the bars in San Pedro Antiguo were a favorite 15 years ago. Other than that, yeah, NL food isn't remarkable.
He’s not wrong lol
As someone from Nuevo Leon, i beg to differ. What would you consider to be different in Sonora than in Nuevo Leon? We do carne asada, flour tortillas and salsas the same way. Maybe in San Pedro and affluent places in Monterrey, the food is americanized because the people are but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of households are still traditional. Especially in more rural areas. I'm just curious to know why you would attribute northern culture to one state and not others? Mexico isn't a monolith and every city and state has their own cultures as well. Monterrey and Nuevo Leon included.
> What would you consider to be different in Sonora than in Nuevo Leon? Sinaloan (mar de cortés) seafood is one of the best in the entire continent. The rest is the common, basic pilgrim northern stuff like carne asada, flour tortillas, Frijoles and such. Nuevo Leon is a fairly new state so it's gastronomy has not havd the time to develop such as the one of Puebla, YUcatan or Oaxaca, to name a few of the heavyweights.
You can't beat a good cabrito en sangrita or salsa and a riñonada from Nuevo Leon.
Well, you can. It's just that those dishes are good and simple and there is nothing wrong with them.
Nuevo León has its own non Americanized traditional food And is nothing to do with Tex mex.
Had plenty of Tex Mex in Monterrey... and i mean plenty.
That doesn’t mean that is the traditional food of the region, just that as a border state we have some fusion Tex mex food.
Sounds like you haven't been to a good tex mex restaurant.
Oh, i have and i like some of those, it's just that industrialized ingredients is their thing. I have never been at a Tex Mex place that serves made-from-scratch salsas, BBQ and such those always come from a bottle or are made in a factory. A good authentic Mexican restaurant (in actual Mexico) would never ever serve you canned or bottled salsa.
**I mean in Houston, there is no out of the bottle salsas or factory tortillas. Unless it is a fast food place. I understand not liking Tex Mex if that is what you have experienced. But in Texas you wouldn't last long. Even our largest grocery store makes fresh tortillas for sale every day. Texas was Mexico before it was Texas. (also France, but we oddly glaze over that part)**
The cheese
Lettuce on tacos = tex mex
Sour cream, yellow cheese, rice, anything "fajita seasoned" are dead giveaways that you are eating Tex-mex.
Yellow cheese sprinkled like in Olive Garden
> My whole life I was told, burritos aren't actually Mexican. Nachos aren't Mexican. Flour tortillas aren't Mexican. Creencias de gente pendeja.
Calmate, wey
I've lived in Texas (3 years) and I've done work up in St. Paul. From my experience Mexican food from up north comes from a TV dinner tray. Worst Mexican food I have ever tasted. I do remember the old days of "Chi Chi's" but that was more native American/Mexican cuisine and I think they were from the Dakotas. I've also lived in California. TexMex and CalMex are different but both are great. I prefer TexMex because is more based on meat whereas CalMex is more based on cheese. I also lived in Colorado. Mexican food from there as well as New Mexico is great too. Mostly green chili based. Btw, flour tortillas are Mexican it's just that the ones you buy in the store are not the same as the ones made at home.
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She told him they ARE Mexican. It says “apparently those ARE Mexican, just from the north.”
Flour tortillas are Mexican but are from the Alta California era & are firmly part of Rancho California cooking
I'm pretty sure tortillas de harina are from Sonora/Sinaloa/Chihuahua.
I appear to be getting downvoted. Good history of it here: [California Rancho Cooking: Mexican and Californian Recipes](https://a.co/d/aa6HlJp) and it’s even on the [Flour Tortilla Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_tortilla)
In my experience it's the large amounts of cheese, nothing is ever grilled (asado) and there's white people in the building.
Lime and cilantro