Tex-Mex
Regional American cuisine blending Texas and Mexican culinary traditions.
Tex-Mex, also known as New Tejano or simply Tejano cuisine, is an American regional cooking style born from the food traditions of Tejano people, who drew inspiration from Mexican cuisine. Originating in border states like Texas and other parts of the American Southwest, it has since spread nationwide. It falls under the broader category of Southwestern cuisine.
Quick Facts
- Year fajita popularized
- 1973
Facts from the source article.
Common dishes
Tex-Mex cooking shares some ground with Mexican cuisine, but it also adds ingredients rarely used in Mexico, like cumin, which came to Texas with Spanish immigrants from the Canary Islands. The style leans heavily on shredded cheese, beans, chicken, beef, pork, chili peppers, spices, and flour tortillas. Some dishes, such as the fajita bowl, skip the tortilla entirely. Cheese is far more central here than in most Mexican food, especially in queso, served with tortilla chips or spooned over enchiladas, tamales, or burritos. Nachos were invented in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, but took off in Texas before spreading nationwide. In the 1950s, Tex-Mex meant combination platters with American cheese, few margaritas, and pecan-based desserts.
History
Tex-Mex originated with Tejanos as a mix of native Mexican and Spanish foods when Texas was part of New Spain and later Mexico, sometimes called Old Tejano cuisine. The ranching culture of South Texas and Northern Mexico spans both sides of the border, where beef, grilled food, and tortillas have been common for over a century. Foods like cabrito, barbacoa de cabeza, and carne seca are also shared. In the 20th century, as American goods became cheap, Tex-Mex adopted Cheddar, jack, and pimento cheeses. Cooking styles on both sides of the border were similar until after the U.S. Civil War, when railroads brought American ingredients and appliances. Around the 1970s, dishes changed; Ninfa's popularized the fajita in 1973. A 1968 Los Angeles Times feature noted that a combination of Old World cooking, Southern cuisine, and Tex-Mex came from the Texas Hill Country. Paris's first Tex-Mex restaurant opened in March 1983; business was slow until the 1986 film Betty Blue, featuring tequila shots and chili con carne, sparked demand. Tex-Mex became widely introduced in Nordic countries and the United Kingdom in the early 1990s through brands like Old El Paso and Santa Maria, quickly becoming a staple meal in the Nordics, with local variations such as using gouda cheese or stuffed pita breads. Tex-Mex had been sold on a limited scale in Stavanger, Norway since the late 1960s.
Terminology
The term "TexMex" originally referred to the Texas Mexican Railway, established in 1875. By the 1920s, newspapers used the hyphenated "Tex-Mex" to label Texans of Mexican heritage. Diana Kennedy's 1972 cookbook, The Cuisines of Mexico, clarified how Americanized Mexican food differed from authentic Mexican cuisine. The phrase entered common American speech during the late 1960s through the 1980s, with the Los Angeles Times using it more frequently from the 1970s. Chef Adán Medrano, who grew up in San Antonio, argues that "Texas Mexican" is a more accurate name, describing it as the native cooking of South Texas that existed before the Rio Grande became a border.
Influential chefs
Felix Tijerina, born in 1905, began as a busboy at the Original Mexican Restaurant in Houston in 1922, opened his own Mexican Inn in 1929, and after World War II launched the Felix Mexican Restaurant chain. His mildly-spiced, reasonably priced dishes catered to an Anglo audience; his spaghetti con chile special exemplifies how he Americanized traditional Mexican food. Tijerina joined the local council of LULAC in 1935 and served as its national president from 1956 to 1960. He died in 1965, but his chain continued until 2008. Josef Centeno, who grew up in San Antonio, became familiar with Tex-Mex through his Tejano family's cooking. He opened Bäco Mercat in 2011, which succeeded with a multicultural menu, and his Tex-Mex restaurant Amácita opened in July 2019. Centeno wrote two cookbooks: Baco: Vivid Recipes from the Heart of Los Angeles (2017) and Amá: a Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen (2019). The New Yorker listed Amá as one of the best cookbooks of 2019, and the Los Angeles Times named Orsa & Winston 'Restaurant of the Year' in 2020.
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