Authentic Mexican?

I would love to be more knowledgeable about ‘real’ Mexican cuisine. I understand that what is commonly claimed as ‘Mexican’ cuisine outside of Mexico itself is more accurately described as ‘Tex-Mex.’ I also must confess confusion about the definition of ‘fusion cuisine.’ Who coined that phrase, anyway? Some cuisines have been fused for so long that they can surely claim an authenticity all of their own - Anglo-Indian and Pennsyvania Dutch, for example - and Tex-Mex too, perhaps?

I am equally confused about the definition of ‘authenticity’ too, as regular readers will know. Regular readers will also probably note that I have used a couple of particular examples previously, but without shame at repeating myself, I would like to know why tomatoes (a New World food, not known in Europe until the early sixteenth century) are considered an indispensible ingredient in ‘authentic’ Italian food, or potatoes (also from the New World) are essential to Irish stew.

I have no trouble actually living with paradoxes, dichotomies or a myriad other inconsistencies however, and can state without (much) fear of contradiction that the following ‘Mexican’ recipes are hardly authentic – the first on account of the inclusion of the very English ingredient of Worcestershire sauce, the second because of its liberal topping of cheese. The recipes come from Fifty choice recipes for Spanish and Mexican dishes (1905)

Mexican Chili Stew.
Four medium-sized potatoes, four large tomatoes, one good-sized onion. Cut all in small pieces; two pounds of lean beef cut in dice. Put beef in pot with two tablespoonfuls of heated butter and the onion, and stew half hour; then add rest of vegetables with one quart of hot water, one tablespoonful of chili powder and three of Worcestershire sauce; salt and pepper to taste with one clove of garlic; cook on slow fire until thoroughly done.

Mexican Round Steak.
BAKE in oven for half hour a two-pound slice of the tender side of round steak, in half -pint of water, basting often; season with salt and pepper; take from oven, cover top of meat with finely chopped onion; cook again for fifteen minutes, then add a covering of tomatoes, cut fine. Cook a quarter of an hour, then cover with grated cheese; put back in oven until cheese melts. This must be cooked in moderate oven. The meat will be very tender, and have a delicious gravy.

Quotation for the Day.
If I moved away, I would definitely miss the Mexican food. Every region has its own Mexican food, and they're very chauvinistic - they believe their food is the real Mexican food.
Russ Parson.

Mexican Bread.

In advance of Cinco de Mayo, I thought I would look at descriptions and opinions of Mexico - especially the food - from outsiders.

I give you an article from Putnam’s Monthly, Volume III, 1854, written by (or from the perspective of, it is not clear which) a visitor in 1846 - at the beginning of the war with the United States.


The writer notes that “Life has its varieties even in San Antonio. The fandango of last night is followed by the funeral of this morning;—thus sorrow treads on the heels of joy, and checkers with black and white, the universal picture of human life.” He then puts aside the metaphor of the fandango, and goes on to describe the actual event, and the making of “Mexican bread” – and the use of the latter as payment for the entertainment by American “visitors.” It is written in the tone usual for such conquerors and colonists – a tone which it minds us to remember is still used in modern times in such situations.

The selection includes our recipe for the day – tortillas from scratch.

“"Fandango " is the term given in the dictionaries for a "lively Spanish dance," but is here applied to nocturnal gatherings for dances, ''lively" enough, certainly, but possessing very few of the qualities of the "poetry of motion." The women who attend these assemblies are seen, with their rebozos drawn closely over the face, serving for bonnets, which they never wear, wending their way early in the evening, by tho light of their own cigarretas, and puffing most industriously, to the place of rendezvous. These are of a class not definable, as in Mexican female society here, there appeared to be little distinction between vice and virtue, and the chaste matron or maiden (if there be such), and the leprous prostitute, seemed to be on terms of social equality. The young girl not yet indoctrinated in the ways of vice, finds ready instructors at these gatherings, where she soon loses the modesty of feeling and purity of heart, innate in the sex, and by degrees falls at last into that pit from which there is no recovery. Fandangoes, as conducted here, are mere schools of corruption and immorality for the destruction of the younger attendants, soul and body; in which the alphabet of vice and the rudiments of prostitution are acquired with fatal facility. Yet there is positively nothing more attractive in them, than the discordant tones produced by the untutored hand of a village blacksmith, upon fibres of untanned catgut. The males were drawn entirely from the Americans; the few Mexicans who were prowling round the outside of the building, seemed to surrender without a struggle or a regret, their wives, sisters, and daughters to hopeless pollution and degradation. In the dance, the females are ranged in a right line on one side of the room, and the males opposite their respective partners; then to the sounds of unearthly music, they proceed to go through with the most laborious antics and gyrations; motions fore and aft and up and down, vulgar if not voluptuous; and having succeeded in working themselves up to the proper point of perspiration—thereby generating a species of perfumery less delicious than the "gales of Araby"—the dance ceases, and each man conducts his partner to a refreshment table, where he purchases a dime's worth of cake or tortillas, which she receives in her handkerchief or hands, and proceeds to deposit under a bench, or with a friend, for safe keeping, so that it may not encumber her performances in the next dance. This pile accumulates during the evening, if she is tolerable good-looking, to a mass large enough to feed a small family of Mexicans, until the next fandango. The dance is thus considered a business transaction, conducted on the cash system.

Tortillas constitute the ordinary Mexican bread. They are of corn, and as thin as pancakes, which in appearance (only) they resemble. The grain is first soaked in ley [lye], until it becomes soft and loses the outer covering; it is then thoroughly washed in water, and made ready for the mill. This consists of a flat stone, the upper surface slightly concave, and a cylindrical crusher of the same material. A woman places the corn thus prepared beside her, and with the stones before her, she crushes about a handful at a time, when it becomes pulpy and soft. It is then turned into a trough, and after a little additional manipulation, is ready for the oven. Apropos of this operation, one of our countrymen was in a sort of cake shop belonging to a native, where the woman was making pies. There being no chairs, he was about to make use of the bed as a substitute, when the woman, under an unaccountable excitement, earnestly begged him to desist. As her language was wholly unintelligible, she was compelled at last to reveal the cause of her uneasiness and opposition, by exhibiting a layer of pies which she had snugly stowed away between the sheets, preparatory to transferring them to the oven.”

Quotation for the Day.
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson.

But is it really Mexican?

Today, in case you are living in a space totally void of food column news and didn’t know, is Cinco de Mayo (‘Fifth of May’) – the anniversary of the day in 1862 when a little Mexican army defeated a French army twice its size. And don’t we all love it when the underdog wins?

There is no dearth of food suggestions for the day - the great mass of American food columnists, cooking magazines and foodie Internet sites have been flooding cyberspace for a week with Mexican food ideas. So, not to be left out, I thought I would offer you some insights into historic concepts (from outsiders) of ‘Mexican’ food.

I trolled the historic cookbooks of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that had pretensions to ‘international’ coverage, and came up with very little. Such recipes that I did find seemed to scream out their lack of authenticity – but who am I to judge? I am hardly an expert on Mexican cuisine, so please dont shoot me.

I cannot resist the following recipe – on the basis of its name alone it must be included. It is from
One Hundred & One Mexican Dishes, by May E. Southworth, (San Francisco,1906) - a book totally lacking in preface or author credentials.

Mañana-Land.
Fry in a tablespoonful of olive-oil a large slice of onion and eight chopped green peppers; to this add a cupful of uncooked rice and stir constantly until the rice is nicely browned; then put in a half-can of tomatoes and fill up the skillet with rich soup stock and cook slowly, without stirring, for an hour.

My second choice, to my totally Mexican-food ignorant mind, smacks of some authenticity on account of its complexity. I eagerly await comments from those of you knowledgeable about such things.

Chicken Tamales.
This recipe will require a “Metata,” which can be purchased at any Spanish store.Boil in water with half cup of lime, two quarts of yellow, dried com. When wellcooked, wash thoroughly, then grind on the “Metata” three times, until very fine. Boiltwo medium-sized chickens until quite tender; cool and cut in small pieces. Mix with corn enough of the water in which the chickens were cooked to make a soft dough, and add two small cups of lard; season with salt and knead well. Then take three red chilli peppers, remove seeds and roast in oven for a few minutes; take out, place in tepid water, then grind on the “Metata” several times, with two cloves of garlic. In a saucepan put tablespoonful of lard; when hot drop in one chopped onion and [one?] tablespoonful of flour; let cook a minute, then add the chili, then cut the chicken, one cupful each of seeded raisins and stoned olives, and salt and pepper to taste; let come to boil, take from stove and cool.
Have some dry com husks, well soaked for several hours in cold water; shake them well and spread a thin layer of the dough on the half of each leaf; then put a spoonful of the stew on the prepared leaf, and cover with the prepared leaves; tie the ends with strings made of the leaves. When the tamales are finished, place them in a large pot with a little boiling water, and boil gently for one hour. Any other meat can be used.
Fifty choice recipes for Spanish and Mexican dishes (1905)

Quotation for the Day.

I think the great Mexican cuisine is dying because there are fast foods now competing, because there are supermarkets, and supermarkets can't afford to keep in stock a lot of these very perishable products that are used for fine Mexican cooking. Women are working and real Mexican cooking requires enormous amounts of time.
Alma Guillermoproprieto.