Browse
Six sections, twenty-two entries
Every entry is reachable from here and from the printed index at the top of each page.
01
Tejano Kitchens
Mexican families in Texas, and the food they made.
- 01.1Who cooked itTex-Mex is Tejano cooking — food made by Mexican families in Texas — and the name arrived long after the food did.
- 01.2The border kitchenA kitchen working with what northern Mexico and south Texas both had, which is why it looks like neither one alone.
- 01.3What authentic means hereThe markers read as compromise are the actual regional markers, which makes the usual authenticity test the wrong instrument.
- 01.4The word Tex-MexWhere the compound came from, what it first described, and when it attached itself to the food.
02
The Chili Queens
Open-air stands and the city that ran them off.
- 02.1The Chili QueensWomen selling chili from open-air stands in San Antonio's plazas by lamplight for decades, and the sanitation rules that finally closed them down.
- 02.2The plaza standHow a stand actually worked: the pot, the trestle, the lamp and the crockery.
- 02.3What closed themHealth ordinances, screened enclosures and the slow removal of a street trade.
03
The Pantry
The markers outsiders read as compromise.
- 03.1CuminComino as a genuinely regional marker, arriving with Canary Islander settlers, and why its dominance here is historical rather than sloppy.
- 03.2Yellow cheeseA processed cheese that melts without breaking — chosen for behaviour, not as a substitute for something better.
- 03.3WheatThe flour tortilla as a northern-Mexican wheat tradition, not an American shortcut, and what wheat did to the size of things.
- 03.4Lard and fatWhy lard behaves differently in a dough and in a roux, and what changes when it is swapped out.
- 03.5Dried chilesAncho, guajillo and pasilla by flavour rather than heat, and what toasting and soaking actually do.
04
The Comal
Dry heat, corn and wheat.
- 04.1Corn, lime, masaNixtamalisation: cooking corn in an alkaline solution changes its structure, its nutrition and whether it will hold together at all.
- 04.2Fresh masa and masa harinaWhat is lost in drying, and where the difference shows on the plate.
- 04.3The blisteringDry heat, steam trapped inside the dough, and the puff that tells you the griddle is at the right temperature.
- 04.4The flour tortillaRest, gluten and rolling — why the dough has to sit before it will stretch.
05
The Plate
The dishes themselves.
- 05.1Chili con carneMeat and chile with no beans in the original, thickened by the chile itself, and how the bowl travelled out of Texas.
- 05.2Chili gravyA roux-thickened gravy that no Mexican regional kitchen makes, and the plate of enchiladas built around it.
- 05.3The puffy tacoRaw masa dropped into hot fat so it inflates, then folded before it sets.
- 05.4FajitasSkirt steak that was once part of a butcher's pay, and what marinade and grain direction do to it.
06
San Antonio
Where most of it happened.