March 13, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, Eva and Maite continue their exploration of the South Texas lands they grew up in. They share stories of hunting and digging for arrowheads and welcome chef and Texas food historian Adán Medrano to the show. Together they reflect on how the land can tell stories about the daily lives of the people who have lived on it, the animals that have inhabited it, and the changes it has undergone over time.
https://adanmedrano.com/cookbook-author-adan-medrano/
https://texasindigenousfood.org
https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Social-Conquest-of-Earth/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Eva Longoria and I am my Traon
and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll
talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So make yourself at home.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Even I am so excited about this episode because I
grew up on a ranch.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Yeah, I mean, this episode is made for you. I
want to know. I want to know more.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
I know, and when people think of northern Mexico and
South Texas, people think of ranches, right, they think of
Marco's cowboys. So today's episode is all about food on
the rancho.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This is how I grew up.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I thought everybody grew up like this, by the way,
I mean, I thought everybody grew up on a ranch.
We never used our kitchen inside. We had a stove
in an oven, but we always like the coffee was
made on the fire outside. Oh, my dad would have
the little percolator thingy. He would wake up and start
a fire outside. That was the first thing my dad
(01:10):
would do and he and he would put this you know,
rocks and this grill down and then the coffee would
be right there and it'd start percolating, and then my
mom would get up and she'd make Dorfellas and nokomal
just on the fire, on the flame, you know, with
her hand tossed test dogs, and then our breakfast sausage
we'd cook on the grill. Like everything was outside on
(01:34):
the girl.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Rain or shine, hotter or cold.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I was like, what's that.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I we never used our kitchen. I'm telling you, we
never used our kitchen.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
How cool.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
So this is your whole life, from when you were
born to when you you know, went off to.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
College, yeah, and beyond.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Like literally, if my dad, if I didn't move my
family to San Antonio now, they would still be cooking outside.
But I had to move him off the edge because
they were getting older. But no, I mean this is
how I grew up. I mean when I was in
school during the week, we would be you know, not
on the ranch, but this was this was daily life.
And it's so funny because there's things that you wouldn't
(02:13):
think you could cook on the grill like that, like coffee,
Like why would you Why wouldn't you just make coffee
in a coffee pot? Nope, had to be on that.
Oh I wish I still had it, and you know
it was old. Yeah, the enamel, stainless steel percolator sing
and it would just heat up when it heat it up,
and then you know, say big Thanksgiving. My dad would
(02:35):
go kill the turkey. Wow, and we would grill it
on the grill and I mean we would be spitting
out the little.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Pellets from the shotgun. Really, it was like pellet Yes, yes, girl,
that's hardcore.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
That's true truly. So when did your family get.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
To detect, says, because I had a very different experience.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Yeah, you and I had a very experienced spirit I yeah, experience.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
We moved to.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
We came to the Americas in sixteen o three and
my my thirteenth great grandfather.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
My great great great great great great great grandfather, was.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Eleven years old when he landed in Veracruz and they
eventually migrated north because the King of Spain was giving
land grants in the north of Novlo Espana.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So this was New Spain.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And to this day there's a map and it says
Longoia Road because that's the parcels they gave all the
brothers and sisters of the Longoia. So it was like
bed Longoria Lorenzo Longoria, whoever Longodca, Longoia, and there was
all they were all like side by side by side.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
And that was.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Before the eighteen hundreds. It was probably like at the
turn of the century of eighteen hundreds. Then the Mexican
American War happened and they didn't cross the border, the
bard across US, and so we were no longer New Spain.
That we were no longer Mexico, and then we were
Republic of Texas for a second, and then we were
(04:15):
United States of America and we still you know, still
have the land today, the same land grant from the
Spanish crown. And you had to prove there was a
big land grab at the time in South Texas, you know,
after the Mexican American War and after the Treaty of Invaluble,
a lot of stuff wasn't honored in that treaty, and
so there was a lot of land grabs that you know,
(04:37):
people just ripped up their Spanish crown proof of their land.
They're like, oh, too bad, and they would just move
the fences. And my grandfather tells me stories of like
early nineteen hundreds of you know, having to have armed
guards at the perimeter of the ranches because people would
come and move your fence. Oh my god, it's crazy. Yeah,
(05:00):
that's fascinating. Oh my gosh, that's so fascinating. So you
must miss it that life.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I do. I do.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
And like when we did when we did searching for
Mexico and we didn't we a leon, Oh my.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Girl, that's that was like I was Salsa.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I was like I was, I was, I was a
pig and ship right like I was just this is
I mean, the smell of lenya to me is so comforting.
And so I do miss it. And I wish Santi
could grow up that way because he loves being outside.
He loves animals, he loves you know, he'll grab a chicken,
he'll grab so when we're in Mexico, I try to
(05:41):
take him.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
We were in Monterrey and there was a ranch and
I was like I told that. I was like, maybe
we should buy a ranch. And he's like, are you crazy?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Like he's such a city any boy, he's so Mexico
city Chilabo bougie.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
He's like, what are we gonna do on a ranch?
I was like, We're gonna have chicken cookout outside. It's
going to be amazing. He's like, no, thank you, Oh
my god.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Completely different lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And there's so much history, so much history in South Texas.
What was yours? What was your history? Your trajectory?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Not Vancho.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
I mean my grandfather used to have a ranch in Tampico,
outside of Tampico in northern Mexico, Tamaulipas. But they saw
that ranch when I was little. But I remember going. Actually,
it's one of my earliest memories. I was like three
or four, and we were on a horse with my
and with my cousin and it was amazing. And then
my uncle and my grandfather they were hunting for ducks
(06:36):
and then I pointed to one and they shot it
and boom, the duck fell down dead. Yeah, And I
was like, oh my god, that doug just died because.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I pointed to it. And I was this little girl.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
And then a few hours later, we're having lunch and
it's the dead duck and I was just sitting there
just crying.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And to this day, I cannot dug. I cannot die.
But that's part of life. On the right, it is
if you hunt and you eat with you, and that's
that's life. That's how it is.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That's the thing is.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
It's different than like the big game hunters that go
to Africa and kill elephants like that. Wasn't not like
that's up. Like I said, it was like Thanksgiving, we
gotta go get the turkey. And then it was like
we're gonna have chicken tonight. Let's go get the chicken.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Like we we we ate what we what we killed.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And but I grew up the same way with Palomas
with quail, and my dad didn't have hunting dogs. He
had four daughters and he would shoot the quail and
we'd have to see where it fell, and we'd run
and we would go find it and we would pick
up all the quail and we'd bring them back and
I would have to de pluck them.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Oh my god, yes girl.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Yes that is cool. If you're like little house in
the prayer.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I was.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And let me tell you, I thought everybody grew up
this way.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Apparently not cool. So did you hunt as well?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah? We hunt? I mean I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
I was, you know, like I I shot a lot
of guns and we would like go shoot cans and
we'd shoot a watermelon and things like that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
But I wasn't big on killing animals.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
No, no, but but we would go hunting with my
dad and like if it was the malast season, you know,
he would go and shoot a pavelina and if it
was but they you know, they were big hunters, and
my dad and and really South Texas in general, it's
a big hunting totally community uh culture.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
But but but the eating on the ranch was like
less than the hunting and the killing. It was the
that we would pick our carrots from the ground and
peel them. We would you know, it was watermelon season,
we would have watermelon for three months. It was gala
basta season. We would have galabasta for three months. Like
we eating seasonally and from the ground. It was such
(09:01):
a beautiful way to grow up. I have such an
appreciation for what the land can give you. If we
were sick and we had a cough, my dad would
go and tear off mint, and he would tear off
some other leaf I can't I can't remember what it
was called, and he they would boil it and that's
what we would drink for cough medicine. We would like
it was so beautiful living off the land. My dad
would call it living off the land. We can live
(09:22):
off the land. We don't need anything.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
That's amazing. Yeah, that's so cool that you were brought
up there. I love that.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
I love hearing these stories because it feels like it's
so you know that, Yeah, this appreciation for what the
land can give you, and then you have such a
respect for the land, right because yeah, you know, you
have to take care of it so that it could
you take care of each other.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
So cool. Yeah, we can't talk Rancho without talking Texas.
And where the word Texas comes from. I didn't know
where the word Texas comes from or the.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Yeah, according to the Texas State Historical Association, there has
the word is widely believe to derive from thaisha, which
is a native Kdo word for friend. So the Texas
state motto is friendship, right, the friendly state. It carries
this original meaning. But there's a historian, jorgue Luis. I
got to see how. He wrote a book called Texas
(10:15):
The False Origin of the Name. He suggests that the
word is not as romantic. It comes from tjorja, which
is a Spanish word for a tree, a ye tree,
of which there is a similar tree growing in Texas.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Interesting, but well, I will say, I don't know where
the word comes from, but but I had always, I
have and still to this day, identify as a Texan
before anything else, do you.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I'm always like, I'm a Texan.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I'm a Tefana and that or and then I'll say American,
and then I'll say Mexican American, and then I'll say,
like all the things come after, but like first and foremost,
I always feel Texan.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Texan. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
I usually I feel like I say Mexican because because
my parents, like my dad from you got that, my
mom from Mexico City, grew up speaking Spanish at home.
So I'd say Mexican and then Texan, you know, because
then I went to school in Austin and then I
was really really got to know that Texas. And we
spent summers in Corpus, which is also super Texas.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah. So it's also super different because growing up in
Corporate Christy too is like beach town. Yeah, so it's
like opposite of Rancho.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
It's like we would still do fires on the beach
and cook, but like it's just it's so diverse, so
so diverse. When we come back chef food writer and
filmmaker Adan Medrano joins the show don't go anywhere.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
So let's go back to the land before the ranchos,
before Texas was part of Mexico, before it was part
of the US, and.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Talk about the diet of the native people of Texas.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
People forget the history of Texas because Texas has such
a strong identity that they they're like, yeah, yeah, it
was Mexico and it was like yeah, but it was
also Spain and then before that it was also indigenous land, So.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
I remember going when I was in when I was
growing up, we would go to San Antonio a lot,
and there was this restaurant called Los Patios in San
Antonio that was a long.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Eye likely is it still there did? You don't know
if it's still there, But we used to like that
was like vacation.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
Yeah, yeah, going for the weekend to San Antonio, and
I remember my brothers and I would play along that
creek and my brother found some arrowheads there.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I used to We used to find arrowheads all the
time on our ranch.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Overly time, I find that that just blows my mind
because you know, the earliest I mean, like you said,
there were native people living in this land for thousands
of years. I mean the earliest archaeological evidence of food
in Texas dates back around twenty thousand years. There's a
place called the Galt Site just north of Austin where
(13:03):
they've found bones of bison and deer and turtles and ducks,
so frogs and quails. So there's archaeological evidence that there
have been people eating there for thousands and thousands and
thousands of years.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Twenty and twenty thousand years ago.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Yes, So is there any evidence of cooking, like, because
what we talked about was like more hunter gatherer stuff,
Like how far back was the was like I guess
evidence of cooking with fire?
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Yeah, so around eighty three hundred years ago, So eight
thousand years ago is when we first start seeing these
oven of you know, earth ovens with rocks like barbecue.
So that's the first time that we see like evidence
of cooking.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, we talked about it in our barbecue episode, like
you know, just the different ways like barbecue such a
big thing in Texas, but like it was indigenous, like
even I was I was saying, you know in the
Yucatan where you're from, you know, the cocina and the
bbu part, the cooking in the ground, like that's ancient.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
It is, it's ancient.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
And I love that that it's so ancient in Texas
because barbecue is such a part of the culture and
it has been for literally thousands and thousands of years.
And the whole idea of making these earth ovens, so
you have to do the pit and then put agave
seeds in the fire, so it's a communal activity.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Did you grow up eating nopalace?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I did not, and I do not like them to
this day.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I didn't my dad, my dad.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
It's the sliminess, Like I don't like okra either. And
my dad loved nopallece and he would make us clean
them when we were little. So I hated them also
because in preparing them, we we get spinas. We would
get the thorns and our fingers and they were so fine,
those spinas.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
The spinas are thorns.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Thorns to me is like on a rose and they're
very thick.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
These are so freaking tiny and and and they get
in everything. You takes months to get them out of
your fingers. It's like it's a different kind of spinat. Yeah, yeah,
I had a thorn.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
It's a different Yeah, I I didn't grow up eating them,
not because I don't like them. I do love them,
but my mom hated them because of the exact same
reasons that you're you're describing.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
But I do love them. I do love them. I
usually make them. I like them grilled with gela. I
love them.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
But they were eating, you know, nopalles in this area
also for thousands of years. They were a principal food
of the Chichi mekas in northern Mexico, and not just
the paddles, but also the prickly pears.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Do you like the prickly pears tunas?
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, the tunas, they're called tunas. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Well, when my dad, because he had four girls and
he wanted a boyd he had, he only had us,
so he would take us, uh you know, hunting and fishing,
we did all the boy stuff, and he would take
eat of us camping for like two three days, and
we'd have to survive off the land and we could
not take food with us, and we would have to
find what we could eat. And so that's another reason
(16:09):
why I don't like the ballets, because we would find
a cactus.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
He's like, you can eat that, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Like, I'm not eating that, and then when you're hungry,
you're like, fine, I'll eat it, and we would drink.
There's water inside the tunas, and so if you were thirsty,
you could open that up and you could drink the water.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Oh yeah, different than the fruit itself.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Differs like fruit. There's like water in there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Oh I never realized that.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
I usually buy them and I and I muddle them
and make margaritas out of them.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Oh, I never thought too.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
But now does the tuna have uh, spinuts on it
or no?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
No?
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Well I think that, yeah, the fruit itself does, so
you also have to. But you know, I usually go
to a Mexican market in LA and then just find
them and they're already cleaned.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
You know the only time I did like eating no
baalace was in Gueralacara. There's an amazing chef that was
on searching for Mexico and he made nofalle sevice, so
he was like a vegan sevice and he.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
And I loved it, and I said, why do I
like this? But I don't normally like it? And he's
what he does is he you know, dethorns them, cleans
them and cubes them really tiny, and then he salts
them and overnight the sliminess is gone. The salt.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
You salt it and let it sit in the fridge overnight,
and then you rinse it in the morning. There's no,
they're not slimy.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's actually crispy. It's like it's a good texture to it.
Introducing our guest, Aan Medrano. He's a chef.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
He's a food writer filmmaker who focuses on the rich
culinary history of Texas, Mine and Mita's homes date. He's
the author of the cookbook Don't Count a Tortillas, The
Art of Texas Mexican Cooking and Truly Texas Mexican and
of culinary heritage and Recipes. He has numerous articles. He
(18:05):
was the executive producer and writer of the documentary Truly
Texas Mexican, which is streaming.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
On Amazon Prime. Like that, do you want to add
anything to this amazing guest.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Well, I just want to say I first came across
Avan when we were researching our Chili Queens episode last season,
and I watched the documentary and I was like, oh
my god, I have to know this person. We have
not met in person, but we have many conversations, and
I love everything that Navan does. He's a wealth of knowledge,
(18:36):
and I'm just thank you, thank you for joining us
and for the work that you do.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I'm so couch for joining.
Speaker 6 (18:43):
Well, thank you, thanks for having me. It's an honor
to be here, really mighty. I've followed your work and
the teaching that you do in museums and with videos,
and of course if I'm one of your biggest fans
all the way from the television series too when you
were doing Playing Coup in anyway, so it's an honor to.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Be Oh yeah, to be here.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Thank you very much, thank you. We're so excited.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
You know, Mike and I started this podcast because we
are both Texicans as we call ourselves, uh, and we're
both we both have very different journeys and history with Texas.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
She you know, I'm thirteenth generation, she's sec first or second.
Speaker 7 (19:23):
First, first, first generation, and so even I mean, we're
both so similar and yet we are worlds apart, sometimes
with cuisine.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Just because she grew up in Laredo and I grew
up in Corpus Christi, and so we thought like you
would be the perfect person to have on as somebody
who's you know, an expert in this? And this Texas
Mexican food as people call text mex How did you
how do you define text mex food?
Speaker 6 (19:51):
Oh? What a great?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Wait?
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Oh wait not wait?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And and and sorry you don't you don't like the
word text mes.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
No, no I do, I do.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
I do like it. It's appropriate for Texan ex food.
It's appropriate. So I have nothing against tex mex food.
I just don't want it to be confused. The reason
I make the difference is that Texas food is not
my mother's comita cassera. I don't think it was your
mother's Eva, nor was it Mita's mother comia coscera. The
Texas Mexican food basically is the flavor profile of comita
(20:25):
cassera that you will find in every Mexican American home. Houston,
Corpus Christi, Laredo, San Antonio, Ego pass and it's in
Texas and northeastern Mexico. You have to include that region
because before the border became an international boundary, our families
lived on both sides. Both you and I have families
(20:48):
north of the Rivrande and south of the Riverran. It
just is an inescapable fact when the river became an
international border, it did not sever the family connections, the
cultural connections, the flavor profile connections. So if you're in Brownsville, Texas,
and you cross the river and you go to Matamoros,
the taco you had with the flower tortilla will taste
(21:11):
exactly the same as the flower taco that you have
in Matamoros. And because text Mex has become so popular
in the popular imagination, it has erased the traditions that
you ever might have grown up in Corpus CHRISTI Lailo,
and for myself San Antonio. It has not erased it
in its power because there are thousands of successful Texas
(21:35):
Mexican restaurants and there are very few tex mex restaurants
and I always have So that's one The history of
the origin and the flavor profile. Those are the two
different ways that text Mex differs from Texas Mexican. Texas
Mexican is really comia casera of Native Mexican American families
in South Texas and northeastern Mexico.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Why was the native character of this food erased from
public record? Why is it lumped into this one category?
Speaker 6 (22:07):
You know, when text mix begins as a word. It
is invented by Anglo writers in the seventies who begin
to look at our food and realize how important it is,
and they don't know about it. They never introduced your mother.
They never went to's grandmother and say tell us about it.
They went to these Anglos who were running restaurants and
(22:29):
they asked them because they spoke English. And so the
entire worldview of what text mex is is an Anglo
American invention. So I would say the reason it has
been erased is twofold. Our food narrates our identity, and
it also shapes our memory of how we came here.
(22:54):
So I would say when I grew up, this is
to explain why we're not there. We're not there because
we were erased and because the way that our education
system happens in Texas took away our identity as Native Americans.
In eighteen thirty seven, you have a report from the
committee it's called the Texas Standing Committee on Indian Affairs.
(23:21):
This is eighteen thirty seven, just after the Element and
they say to President Sam Houston of the Republic of Texas,
your committee considers the Karankawa no longer on different people.
They are now Mexicans and part of the Republic of Mexico.
(23:41):
So with one stroke of a pen, the native roots
and identity of our ancestors was erased from the public record.
We then became Mexicans. We were no longer Tonkawa quawj deco.
This is simply by design. And I would say if
you follow that in eighteen thirty seven, through the Edge
Education Project of Texas, I grew up learning from school
(24:04):
with two markers of my identity Mexico and Spain. That's it,
and everything around mequa We think an identity Karanka of
Corpus Christi, with their rich thousand year old history, totally
arrest It doesn't exist except in the road science of
Corpus Christie. You have Karankawa, You've got leeban Abache in
(24:28):
the road sience. So they point to something, but the
narrative is not there because we weren't given in our
mind too markers we belonging to Mexico and or to Spain.
So that's all we think about. And so my work
is about getting back to the interior spaces of our families.
(24:50):
Because of the interior spaces where we really know our identity.
It's strong because with some of the words that we use.
For example, for a mother is not mama, which is Spanish,
it's ama, which is a Native American term. And for
we don't say baba Spanish, we say a ba. In
(25:12):
the interior of our being, we remember these very important
identifying things and women remembered, remembered the flavor profile that
makes us who we are. We're not Mexican from Maya
in Azteca, Mexico City. That is not our defining characteristic.
So that's why that's why this has happened. But I
(25:34):
would say, are our Mexican American mothers and women were
so strong because they're the ones who do the cooking.
They're in charge, and if cooking is member and identity,
they're the ones who in our homes that ah. I
recall that those flavor profiles that my mother and grandmother
invented in Larelo Corpus Christi, Houston, those untold stories that
(25:58):
were erased by political men in Texas, the women kept
alive and it is the most successful Mexican flavor profile
in the United States. You know, when you go to
Missouri or when you go to Chicago, they're not going
to serve you iguana in Chilada's with white cheese and
black beans. They're gonna serve you, right, They're going to
(26:22):
serve you nachos. They're going to serve you our cheese
and chiladas. So the recipes that our grandmothers created have
just simply become very, very influential. In Texas, there are
thousands of Mexican restaurants and cafes, and there's very very
few text mix If you look at the signs in
San Antonio, I don't know that there are any text
(26:44):
mix restaurants. Signs in Corpus Christi or in Lailo, they
all say they all say Mexican.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
They say Mexican.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
No, no, But you know, in La there's a lot
of text mex signs, which is and it's funny because
you go in and it's not tex Mexicans.
Speaker 6 (27:00):
Yeah, yes, it's.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
It's Calmes, it's Calmex. But it does text mex Yeah.
But it's so interesting you say that because you know,
I mean, this is a.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Bigger conversation about the erasure of of our history, right,
And and I got my master's in Chicano studies, and
I had never even known the other side, you know,
it like opened my eyes, you know, really, you know,
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I was just like, I didn't learn this in Texas history.
What are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (27:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:32):
And and to learn it later in life, and to
learn it in a point where I wanted to know
and absorb as opposed to like, you know, when you're
young and you just want to pass the class, right,
the the interesting thing. And I think a big reason
why Mike then I wanted to do this food podcast
because that at heart, we're both historians and we love history,
(27:55):
and there's there's no better footprint or fingerprints of history
than following a following the culinary path of people. You
want to really know the people of a culture, look
at their food, right, And so Mike and I really
have been fascinated by this journey of doing this podcast
and have been fascinated by the response of people who
(28:18):
love this podcast because they're learning about.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Mexico and Latin America.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Mostly we talk about you know, Spain and other cultures sometimes,
but mostly we focus, you know, on what we know,
and more than more than learning about cinnamon or vanilla,
they're like, I never knew that about Mexico. I never
knew that about Texas, and so I love I love
that we get to like hide the history lesson in
(28:44):
the culinary and the culinary journey.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
And then I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
You mentioned, and we've talked about this process of neistimialization
so much in the podcast. It's such, we have mass
in our bones. Were the people of corn? But then
this is there's this idea of that mesquite right when
we talk about an externalization, did that make its way
to northern Mexico South Texas?
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Do we see that there? Because corn is not something that's.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Popular really that you know, Yeah, let me tell you.
And I know because because I married at Chilango. I
married a Mexican. I remember when I when I started
dating and I told my mom, Mom, I'm dating a Mexican.
She goes from Mexico, Like you know, it was like
a big deal. And he is a corn tortilla guy.
(29:37):
He does not understand why I make flower tortillas every
morning and you do every morning every morning I make
my flower tortillas. And doing searching, doing this podcast and
also doing searching for Mexico, you know, understanding why the
north is flower and why the rest of Mexico was corn.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
It was fascinating. But but my then, what was your question? Sorry?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I just we have a big corn versus flower tortilla
debate all the time.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
All the time.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
Because I grew up My mom is from Mexico City,
my father was from Yucatan, so I grew up with
corn in the house. But I grew up in Laredo,
so also, you know, flour we had always, but I
gravitated towards corn. But when did this process of nixtimialization
make its way to our area?
Speaker 6 (30:27):
Yes, I think the process of Dixe neximalization is adding
god calcium to corn when you're boiling it, and that
makes the protein digestible. It adds nyosin B three and
therefore becomes a much more life sustaining grain. I always
(30:48):
think about that, and it makes me sad because it
contributes to the fact that my ancestors, actually I should
say our ancestors in Navaquouila, Lareedo in this area have
been erased. The reason I feel sad is that the
(31:09):
cosmopolitan nature of the Quawi Tecan group that karankaas in
Corpus Christie, was so rich, and yet we hear nothing
of it. That's what makes me said. In sixteen twelve,
Captain John Smith in Virginia actually writes in his diary
(31:30):
about seeing how the Native Americans in Virginia are making tamales.
This is sixteen twelve, and it's sad that it has
all been erased because of the things we have been
talking about. But not in the food. Not in the food.
The food has not been erased, thankfully.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
What to you is.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Typical comita casseera.
Speaker 6 (31:51):
Okay, I would say Comiita cassera has a flavor profile
that includes chile pekin, klitri, we say kalitre. Know if
your family said keleter, well we did. You don't find that.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
You do not find that my dad uses chili peckins
for everything. My dad only uses chili peckin.
Speaker 6 (32:11):
That's us to red emirate, which we call kelythri pecans
cactus into beans of course, and the flower tortillas. I
love to talk about flower totias, but that's another and
that techniques are different. We use the techniques that were invented,
as I said before, by women fifteen thousand years ago. Wow,
oven roasting, you know the fire pits that you dig
(32:32):
in the oven. They were the precursor to today's oven.
So someone invented that how to cook food within an
enclased oven. So all of those technologies we still use today, boiling, saute, charring, stewing,
not so much deep frying, which is a text nex thing.
By the way, tex mex is a imitation of my
(32:53):
mother's Comita Cassetta, and I don't think they did it
very faithfully, but they did it in a way that
is success and it's a big business. But tex Mex
is an imitation of Texas Mexican food. And the last
thing about Comita Cassetta is hospitality. You never have food
just as food, you have hospitality. You have community. By community,
(33:16):
I mean connection to history, to this land and to
families that have come before us. And lastly, you have memory.
The strength of it is it is so delicious. That's
why it has influenced all of the Mexican food in
the United States, and Wahaka has not. Sure, you have
Molee and you have some fancy restaurants, but by and large,
(33:37):
the mass mass successful restaurants throughout the United States are
our food.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
I'm curious, I keep saying Mesquite dot, Yes.
Speaker 6 (33:45):
Before I said we had these two markers, Myoztec and Spain.
I want to reevaluate our real marker, which is the
border of Texas, South Texas and northeastern Mexico. And in
there mesquite is prominent because we are Lajite del Mesquite.
(34:08):
Corn arrives here two thousand years ago, but eight thousand
years ago, mesquite is what we ate. Mesquite was what
we cooked with in our caves. We took the spines
off and it was carpets in our caves, and we
had our entire culture based on mesquite. It was as
(34:31):
symbolically important to us as corn is now in the imagination.
So in my new book and with the few series,
we are going to look at mesquite and see how
chefs are beginning to reemploy it. We have mesquito malis,
we have mosquito tillas that are coming in. I spoke
to a chef in Austin and I said, what mesquite vinegar.
(34:55):
So there is this resurgence. And the nice thing about
it is that these are all young chefs. I think
it's wonderful. So thank you for asking that.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Thank you, thank you so much, Adan, This is fascinating,
I know.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Thank you so much. I'm so excited for people.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
We're gonna link all of your books and your documentary
on our podcast if you guys want to know more
about Adan Medrano.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
He's truly fascinating and even.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
If you're not a Texican like us, I think you're going.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
To find it super interesting. Thanks for joining us, Adan,
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Hungry for History is a hyphen Media production in partnership
with Iheart'smichael Tura podcast network.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
My name is Eva Longoria and I am my Traon
and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll
talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So make yourself at home.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Even I am so excited about this episode because I
grew up on a ranch.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Yeah, I mean, this episode is made for you. I
want to know. I want to know more.
Speaker 5 (00:31):
I know, and when people think of northern Mexico and
South Texas, people think of ranches, right, they think of
Marco's cowboys. So today's episode is all about food on
the rancho.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This is how I grew up.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I thought everybody grew up like this, by the way,
I mean, I thought everybody grew up on a ranch.
We never used our kitchen inside. We had a stove
in an oven, but we always like the coffee was
made on the fire outside. Oh, my dad would have
the little percolator thingy. He would wake up and start
a fire outside. That was the first thing my dad
(01:10):
would do and he and he would put this you know,
rocks and this grill down and then the coffee would
be right there and it'd start percolating, and then my
mom would get up and she'd make Dorfellas and nokomal
just on the fire, on the flame, you know, with
her hand tossed test dogs, and then our breakfast sausage
we'd cook on the grill. Like everything was outside on
(01:34):
the girl.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Rain or shine, hotter or cold.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I was like, what's that.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I we never used our kitchen. I'm telling you, we
never used our kitchen.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
How cool.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
So this is your whole life, from when you were
born to when you you know, went off to.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
College, yeah, and beyond.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Like literally, if my dad, if I didn't move my
family to San Antonio now, they would still be cooking outside.
But I had to move him off the edge because
they were getting older. But no, I mean this is
how I grew up. I mean when I was in
school during the week, we would be you know, not
on the ranch, but this was this was daily life.
And it's so funny because there's things that you wouldn't
(02:13):
think you could cook on the grill like that, like coffee,
Like why would you Why wouldn't you just make coffee
in a coffee pot? Nope, had to be on that.
Oh I wish I still had it, and you know
it was old. Yeah, the enamel, stainless steel percolator sing
and it would just heat up when it heat it up,
and then you know, say big Thanksgiving. My dad would
(02:35):
go kill the turkey. Wow, and we would grill it
on the grill and I mean we would be spitting
out the little.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Pellets from the shotgun. Really, it was like pellet Yes, yes, girl,
that's hardcore.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
That's true truly. So when did your family get.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
To detect, says, because I had a very different experience.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Yeah, you and I had a very experienced spirit I yeah, experience.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
We moved to.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
We came to the Americas in sixteen o three and
my my thirteenth great grandfather.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
My great great great great great great great grandfather, was.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Eleven years old when he landed in Veracruz and they
eventually migrated north because the King of Spain was giving
land grants in the north of Novlo Espana.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So this was New Spain.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And to this day there's a map and it says
Longoia Road because that's the parcels they gave all the
brothers and sisters of the Longoia. So it was like
bed Longoria Lorenzo Longoria, whoever Longodca, Longoia, and there was
all they were all like side by side by side.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
And that was.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Before the eighteen hundreds. It was probably like at the
turn of the century of eighteen hundreds. Then the Mexican
American War happened and they didn't cross the border, the
bard across US, and so we were no longer New Spain.
That we were no longer Mexico, and then we were
Republic of Texas for a second, and then we were
(04:15):
United States of America and we still you know, still
have the land today, the same land grant from the
Spanish crown. And you had to prove there was a
big land grab at the time in South Texas, you know,
after the Mexican American War and after the Treaty of Invaluble,
a lot of stuff wasn't honored in that treaty, and
so there was a lot of land grabs that you know,
(04:37):
people just ripped up their Spanish crown proof of their land.
They're like, oh, too bad, and they would just move
the fences. And my grandfather tells me stories of like
early nineteen hundreds of you know, having to have armed
guards at the perimeter of the ranches because people would
come and move your fence. Oh my god, it's crazy. Yeah,
(05:00):
that's fascinating. Oh my gosh, that's so fascinating. So you
must miss it that life.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I do. I do.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
And like when we did when we did searching for
Mexico and we didn't we a leon, Oh my.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Girl, that's that was like I was Salsa.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I was like I was, I was, I was a
pig and ship right like I was just this is
I mean, the smell of lenya to me is so comforting.
And so I do miss it. And I wish Santi
could grow up that way because he loves being outside.
He loves animals, he loves you know, he'll grab a chicken,
he'll grab so when we're in Mexico, I try to
(05:41):
take him.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
We were in Monterrey and there was a ranch and
I was like I told that. I was like, maybe
we should buy a ranch. And he's like, are you crazy?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Like he's such a city any boy, he's so Mexico
city Chilabo bougie.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
He's like, what are we gonna do on a ranch?
I was like, We're gonna have chicken cookout outside. It's
going to be amazing. He's like, no, thank you, Oh
my god.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Completely different lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And there's so much history, so much history in South Texas.
What was yours? What was your history? Your trajectory?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Not Vancho.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
I mean my grandfather used to have a ranch in Tampico,
outside of Tampico in northern Mexico, Tamaulipas. But they saw
that ranch when I was little. But I remember going. Actually,
it's one of my earliest memories. I was like three
or four, and we were on a horse with my
and with my cousin and it was amazing. And then
my uncle and my grandfather they were hunting for ducks
(06:36):
and then I pointed to one and they shot it
and boom, the duck fell down dead. Yeah, And I
was like, oh my god, that doug just died because.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I pointed to it. And I was this little girl.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
And then a few hours later, we're having lunch and
it's the dead duck and I was just sitting there
just crying.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
And to this day, I cannot dug. I cannot die.
But that's part of life. On the right, it is
if you hunt and you eat with you, and that's
that's life. That's how it is.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That's the thing is.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
It's different than like the big game hunters that go
to Africa and kill elephants like that. Wasn't not like
that's up. Like I said, it was like Thanksgiving, we
gotta go get the turkey. And then it was like
we're gonna have chicken tonight. Let's go get the chicken.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Like we we we ate what we what we killed.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And but I grew up the same way with Palomas
with quail, and my dad didn't have hunting dogs. He
had four daughters and he would shoot the quail and
we'd have to see where it fell, and we'd run
and we would go find it and we would pick
up all the quail and we'd bring them back and
I would have to de pluck them.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Oh my god, yes girl.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Yes that is cool. If you're like little house in
the prayer.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
I was.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And let me tell you, I thought everybody grew up
this way.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Apparently not cool. So did you hunt as well?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yeah? We hunt? I mean I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
I was, you know, like I I shot a lot
of guns and we would like go shoot cans and
we'd shoot a watermelon and things like that.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
But I wasn't big on killing animals.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
No, no, but but we would go hunting with my
dad and like if it was the malast season, you know,
he would go and shoot a pavelina and if it
was but they you know, they were big hunters, and
my dad and and really South Texas in general, it's
a big hunting totally community uh culture.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
But but but the eating on the ranch was like
less than the hunting and the killing. It was the
that we would pick our carrots from the ground and
peel them. We would you know, it was watermelon season,
we would have watermelon for three months. It was gala
basta season. We would have galabasta for three months. Like
we eating seasonally and from the ground. It was such
(09:01):
a beautiful way to grow up. I have such an
appreciation for what the land can give you. If we
were sick and we had a cough, my dad would
go and tear off mint, and he would tear off
some other leaf I can't I can't remember what it
was called, and he they would boil it and that's
what we would drink for cough medicine. We would like
it was so beautiful living off the land. My dad
would call it living off the land. We can live
(09:22):
off the land. We don't need anything.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
That's amazing. Yeah, that's so cool that you were brought
up there. I love that.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
I love hearing these stories because it feels like it's
so you know that, Yeah, this appreciation for what the
land can give you, and then you have such a
respect for the land, right because yeah, you know, you
have to take care of it so that it could
you take care of each other.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
So cool. Yeah, we can't talk Rancho without talking Texas.
And where the word Texas comes from. I didn't know
where the word Texas comes from or the.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Yeah, according to the Texas State Historical Association, there has
the word is widely believe to derive from thaisha, which
is a native Kdo word for friend. So the Texas
state motto is friendship, right, the friendly state. It carries
this original meaning. But there's a historian, jorgue Luis. I
got to see how. He wrote a book called Texas
(10:15):
The False Origin of the Name. He suggests that the
word is not as romantic. It comes from tjorja, which
is a Spanish word for a tree, a ye tree,
of which there is a similar tree growing in Texas.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Interesting, but well, I will say, I don't know where
the word comes from, but but I had always, I
have and still to this day, identify as a Texan
before anything else, do you.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I'm always like, I'm a Texan.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I'm a Tefana and that or and then I'll say American,
and then I'll say Mexican American, and then I'll say,
like all the things come after, but like first and foremost,
I always feel Texan.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Texan. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
I usually I feel like I say Mexican because because
my parents, like my dad from you got that, my
mom from Mexico City, grew up speaking Spanish at home.
So I'd say Mexican and then Texan, you know, because
then I went to school in Austin and then I
was really really got to know that Texas. And we
spent summers in Corpus, which is also super Texas.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah. So it's also super different because growing up in
Corporate Christy too is like beach town. Yeah, so it's
like opposite of Rancho.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
It's like we would still do fires on the beach
and cook, but like it's just it's so diverse, so
so diverse. When we come back chef food writer and
filmmaker Adan Medrano joins the show don't go anywhere.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
So let's go back to the land before the ranchos,
before Texas was part of Mexico, before it was part
of the US, and.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Talk about the diet of the native people of Texas.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
People forget the history of Texas because Texas has such
a strong identity that they they're like, yeah, yeah, it
was Mexico and it was like yeah, but it was
also Spain and then before that it was also indigenous land, So.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
I remember going when I was in when I was
growing up, we would go to San Antonio a lot,
and there was this restaurant called Los Patios in San
Antonio that was a long.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Eye likely is it still there did? You don't know
if it's still there, But we used to like that
was like vacation.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
Yeah, yeah, going for the weekend to San Antonio, and
I remember my brothers and I would play along that
creek and my brother found some arrowheads there.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I used to We used to find arrowheads all the
time on our ranch.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Overly time, I find that that just blows my mind
because you know, the earliest I mean, like you said,
there were native people living in this land for thousands
of years. I mean the earliest archaeological evidence of food
in Texas dates back around twenty thousand years. There's a
place called the Galt Site just north of Austin where
(13:03):
they've found bones of bison and deer and turtles and ducks,
so frogs and quails. So there's archaeological evidence that there
have been people eating there for thousands and thousands and
thousands of years.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Twenty and twenty thousand years ago.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Yes, So is there any evidence of cooking, like, because
what we talked about was like more hunter gatherer stuff,
Like how far back was the was like I guess
evidence of cooking with fire?
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Yeah, so around eighty three hundred years ago, So eight
thousand years ago is when we first start seeing these
oven of you know, earth ovens with rocks like barbecue.
So that's the first time that we see like evidence
of cooking.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, we talked about it in our barbecue episode, like
you know, just the different ways like barbecue such a
big thing in Texas, but like it was indigenous, like
even I was I was saying, you know in the
Yucatan where you're from, you know, the cocina and the
bbu part, the cooking in the ground, like that's ancient.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
It is, it's ancient.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
And I love that that it's so ancient in Texas
because barbecue is such a part of the culture and
it has been for literally thousands and thousands of years.
And the whole idea of making these earth ovens, so
you have to do the pit and then put agave
seeds in the fire, so it's a communal activity.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Did you grow up eating nopalace?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I did not, and I do not like them to
this day.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I didn't my dad, my dad.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
It's the sliminess, Like I don't like okra either. And
my dad loved nopallece and he would make us clean
them when we were little. So I hated them also
because in preparing them, we we get spinas. We would
get the thorns and our fingers and they were so fine,
those spinas.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
The spinas are thorns.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Thorns to me is like on a rose and they're
very thick.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
These are so freaking tiny and and and they get
in everything. You takes months to get them out of
your fingers. It's like it's a different kind of spinat. Yeah, yeah,
I had a thorn.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
It's a different Yeah, I I didn't grow up eating them,
not because I don't like them. I do love them,
but my mom hated them because of the exact same
reasons that you're you're describing.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
But I do love them. I do love them. I
usually make them. I like them grilled with gela. I
love them.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
But they were eating, you know, nopalles in this area
also for thousands of years. They were a principal food
of the Chichi mekas in northern Mexico, and not just
the paddles, but also the prickly pears.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Do you like the prickly pears tunas?
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, the tunas, they're called tunas. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Well, when my dad, because he had four girls and
he wanted a boyd he had, he only had us,
so he would take us, uh you know, hunting and fishing,
we did all the boy stuff, and he would take
eat of us camping for like two three days, and
we'd have to survive off the land and we could
not take food with us, and we would have to
find what we could eat. And so that's another reason
(16:09):
why I don't like the ballets, because we would find
a cactus.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
He's like, you can eat that, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Like, I'm not eating that, and then when you're hungry,
you're like, fine, I'll eat it, and we would drink.
There's water inside the tunas, and so if you were thirsty,
you could open that up and you could drink the water.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Oh yeah, different than the fruit itself.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Differs like fruit. There's like water in there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
Oh I never realized that.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
I usually buy them and I and I muddle them
and make margaritas out of them.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Oh, I never thought too.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
But now does the tuna have uh, spinuts on it
or no?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
No?
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Well I think that, yeah, the fruit itself does, so
you also have to. But you know, I usually go
to a Mexican market in LA and then just find
them and they're already cleaned.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
You know the only time I did like eating no
baalace was in Gueralacara. There's an amazing chef that was
on searching for Mexico and he made nofalle sevice, so
he was like a vegan sevice and he.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
And I loved it, and I said, why do I
like this? But I don't normally like it? And he's
what he does is he you know, dethorns them, cleans
them and cubes them really tiny, and then he salts
them and overnight the sliminess is gone. The salt.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
You salt it and let it sit in the fridge overnight,
and then you rinse it in the morning. There's no,
they're not slimy.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's actually crispy. It's like it's a good texture to it.
Introducing our guest, Aan Medrano. He's a chef.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
He's a food writer filmmaker who focuses on the rich
culinary history of Texas, Mine and Mita's homes date. He's
the author of the cookbook Don't Count a Tortillas, The
Art of Texas Mexican Cooking and Truly Texas Mexican and
of culinary heritage and Recipes. He has numerous articles. He
(18:05):
was the executive producer and writer of the documentary Truly
Texas Mexican, which is streaming.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
On Amazon Prime. Like that, do you want to add
anything to this amazing guest.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Well, I just want to say I first came across
Avan when we were researching our Chili Queens episode last season,
and I watched the documentary and I was like, oh
my god, I have to know this person. We have
not met in person, but we have many conversations, and
I love everything that Navan does. He's a wealth of knowledge,
(18:36):
and I'm just thank you, thank you for joining us
and for the work that you do.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I'm so couch for joining.
Speaker 6 (18:43):
Well, thank you, thanks for having me. It's an honor
to be here, really mighty. I've followed your work and
the teaching that you do in museums and with videos,
and of course if I'm one of your biggest fans
all the way from the television series too when you
were doing Playing Coup in anyway, so it's an honor to.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Be Oh yeah, to be here.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Thank you very much, thank you. We're so excited.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
You know, Mike and I started this podcast because we
are both Texicans as we call ourselves, uh, and we're
both we both have very different journeys and history with Texas.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
She you know, I'm thirteenth generation, she's sec first or second.
Speaker 7 (19:23):
First, first, first generation, and so even I mean, we're
both so similar and yet we are worlds apart, sometimes
with cuisine.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Just because she grew up in Laredo and I grew
up in Corpus Christi, and so we thought like you
would be the perfect person to have on as somebody
who's you know, an expert in this? And this Texas
Mexican food as people call text mex How did you
how do you define text mex food?
Speaker 6 (19:51):
Oh? What a great?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Wait?
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Oh wait not wait?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And and and sorry you don't you don't like the
word text mes.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
No, no I do, I do.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
I do like it. It's appropriate for Texan ex food.
It's appropriate. So I have nothing against tex mex food.
I just don't want it to be confused. The reason
I make the difference is that Texas food is not
my mother's comita cassera. I don't think it was your
mother's Eva, nor was it Mita's mother comia coscera. The
Texas Mexican food basically is the flavor profile of comita
(20:25):
cassera that you will find in every Mexican American home. Houston,
Corpus Christi, Laredo, San Antonio, Ego pass and it's in
Texas and northeastern Mexico. You have to include that region
because before the border became an international boundary, our families
lived on both sides. Both you and I have families
(20:48):
north of the Rivrande and south of the Riverran. It
just is an inescapable fact when the river became an
international border, it did not sever the family connections, the
cultural connections, the flavor profile connections. So if you're in Brownsville, Texas,
and you cross the river and you go to Matamoros,
the taco you had with the flower tortilla will taste
(21:11):
exactly the same as the flower taco that you have
in Matamoros. And because text Mex has become so popular
in the popular imagination, it has erased the traditions that
you ever might have grown up in Corpus CHRISTI Lailo,
and for myself San Antonio. It has not erased it
in its power because there are thousands of successful Texas
(21:35):
Mexican restaurants and there are very few tex mex restaurants
and I always have So that's one The history of
the origin and the flavor profile. Those are the two
different ways that text Mex differs from Texas Mexican. Texas
Mexican is really comia casera of Native Mexican American families
in South Texas and northeastern Mexico.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Why was the native character of this food erased from
public record? Why is it lumped into this one category?
Speaker 6 (22:07):
You know, when text mix begins as a word. It
is invented by Anglo writers in the seventies who begin
to look at our food and realize how important it is,
and they don't know about it. They never introduced your mother.
They never went to's grandmother and say tell us about it.
They went to these Anglos who were running restaurants and
(22:29):
they asked them because they spoke English. And so the
entire worldview of what text mex is is an Anglo
American invention. So I would say the reason it has
been erased is twofold. Our food narrates our identity, and
it also shapes our memory of how we came here.
(22:54):
So I would say when I grew up, this is
to explain why we're not there. We're not there because
we were erased and because the way that our education
system happens in Texas took away our identity as Native Americans.
In eighteen thirty seven, you have a report from the
committee it's called the Texas Standing Committee on Indian Affairs.
(23:21):
This is eighteen thirty seven, just after the Element and
they say to President Sam Houston of the Republic of Texas,
your committee considers the Karankawa no longer on different people.
They are now Mexicans and part of the Republic of Mexico.
(23:41):
So with one stroke of a pen, the native roots
and identity of our ancestors was erased from the public record.
We then became Mexicans. We were no longer Tonkawa quawj deco.
This is simply by design. And I would say if
you follow that in eighteen thirty seven, through the Edge
Education Project of Texas, I grew up learning from school
(24:04):
with two markers of my identity Mexico and Spain. That's it,
and everything around mequa We think an identity Karanka of
Corpus Christi, with their rich thousand year old history, totally
arrest It doesn't exist except in the road science of
Corpus Christie. You have Karankawa, You've got leeban Abache in
(24:28):
the road sience. So they point to something, but the
narrative is not there because we weren't given in our
mind too markers we belonging to Mexico and or to Spain.
So that's all we think about. And so my work
is about getting back to the interior spaces of our families.
(24:50):
Because of the interior spaces where we really know our identity.
It's strong because with some of the words that we use.
For example, for a mother is not mama, which is Spanish,
it's ama, which is a Native American term. And for
we don't say baba Spanish, we say a ba. In
(25:12):
the interior of our being, we remember these very important
identifying things and women remembered, remembered the flavor profile that
makes us who we are. We're not Mexican from Maya
in Azteca, Mexico City. That is not our defining characteristic.
So that's why that's why this has happened. But I
(25:34):
would say, are our Mexican American mothers and women were
so strong because they're the ones who do the cooking.
They're in charge, and if cooking is member and identity,
they're the ones who in our homes that ah. I
recall that those flavor profiles that my mother and grandmother
invented in Larelo Corpus Christi, Houston, those untold stories that
(25:58):
were erased by political men in Texas, the women kept
alive and it is the most successful Mexican flavor profile
in the United States. You know, when you go to
Missouri or when you go to Chicago, they're not going
to serve you iguana in Chilada's with white cheese and
black beans. They're gonna serve you, right, They're going to
(26:22):
serve you nachos. They're going to serve you our cheese
and chiladas. So the recipes that our grandmothers created have
just simply become very, very influential. In Texas, there are
thousands of Mexican restaurants and cafes, and there's very very
few text mix If you look at the signs in
San Antonio, I don't know that there are any text
(26:44):
mix restaurants. Signs in Corpus Christi or in Lailo, they
all say they all say Mexican.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
They say Mexican.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
No, no, But you know, in La there's a lot
of text mex signs, which is and it's funny because
you go in and it's not tex Mexicans.
Speaker 6 (27:00):
Yeah, yes, it's.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
It's Calmes, it's Calmex. But it does text mex Yeah.
But it's so interesting you say that because you know,
I mean, this is a.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Bigger conversation about the erasure of of our history, right,
And and I got my master's in Chicano studies, and
I had never even known the other side, you know,
it like opened my eyes, you know, really, you know,
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I was just like, I didn't learn this in Texas history.
What are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (27:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:32):
And and to learn it later in life, and to
learn it in a point where I wanted to know
and absorb as opposed to like, you know, when you're
young and you just want to pass the class, right,
the the interesting thing. And I think a big reason
why Mike then I wanted to do this food podcast
because that at heart, we're both historians and we love history,
(27:55):
and there's there's no better footprint or fingerprints of history
than following a following the culinary path of people. You
want to really know the people of a culture, look
at their food, right, And so Mike and I really
have been fascinated by this journey of doing this podcast
and have been fascinated by the response of people who
(28:18):
love this podcast because they're learning about.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Mexico and Latin America.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Mostly we talk about you know, Spain and other cultures sometimes,
but mostly we focus, you know, on what we know,
and more than more than learning about cinnamon or vanilla,
they're like, I never knew that about Mexico. I never
knew that about Texas, and so I love I love
that we get to like hide the history lesson in
(28:44):
the culinary and the culinary journey.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
And then I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
You mentioned, and we've talked about this process of neistimialization
so much in the podcast. It's such, we have mass
in our bones. Were the people of corn? But then
this is there's this idea of that mesquite right when
we talk about an externalization, did that make its way
to northern Mexico South Texas?
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Do we see that there? Because corn is not something that's.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Popular really that you know, Yeah, let me tell you.
And I know because because I married at Chilango. I
married a Mexican. I remember when I when I started
dating and I told my mom, Mom, I'm dating a Mexican.
She goes from Mexico, Like you know, it was like
a big deal. And he is a corn tortilla guy.
(29:37):
He does not understand why I make flower tortillas every
morning and you do every morning every morning I make
my flower tortillas. And doing searching, doing this podcast and
also doing searching for Mexico, you know, understanding why the
north is flower and why the rest of Mexico was corn.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
It was fascinating. But but my then, what was your question? Sorry?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I just we have a big corn versus flower tortilla
debate all the time.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
All the time.
Speaker 5 (30:07):
Because I grew up My mom is from Mexico City,
my father was from Yucatan, so I grew up with
corn in the house. But I grew up in Laredo,
so also, you know, flour we had always, but I
gravitated towards corn. But when did this process of nixtimialization
make its way to our area?
Speaker 6 (30:27):
Yes, I think the process of Dixe neximalization is adding
god calcium to corn when you're boiling it, and that
makes the protein digestible. It adds nyosin B three and
therefore becomes a much more life sustaining grain. I always
(30:48):
think about that, and it makes me sad because it
contributes to the fact that my ancestors, actually I should
say our ancestors in Navaquouila, Lareedo in this area have
been erased. The reason I feel sad is that the
(31:09):
cosmopolitan nature of the Quawi Tecan group that karankaas in
Corpus Christie, was so rich, and yet we hear nothing
of it. That's what makes me said. In sixteen twelve,
Captain John Smith in Virginia actually writes in his diary
(31:30):
about seeing how the Native Americans in Virginia are making tamales.
This is sixteen twelve, and it's sad that it has
all been erased because of the things we have been
talking about. But not in the food. Not in the food.
The food has not been erased, thankfully.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
What to you is.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Typical comita casseera.
Speaker 6 (31:51):
Okay, I would say Comiita cassera has a flavor profile
that includes chile pekin, klitri, we say kalitre. Know if
your family said keleter, well we did. You don't find that.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
You do not find that my dad uses chili peckins
for everything. My dad only uses chili peckin.
Speaker 6 (32:11):
That's us to red emirate, which we call kelythri pecans
cactus into beans of course, and the flower tortillas. I
love to talk about flower totias, but that's another and
that techniques are different. We use the techniques that were invented,
as I said before, by women fifteen thousand years ago. Wow,
oven roasting, you know the fire pits that you dig
(32:32):
in the oven. They were the precursor to today's oven.
So someone invented that how to cook food within an
enclased oven. So all of those technologies we still use today, boiling, saute, charring, stewing,
not so much deep frying, which is a text nex thing.
By the way, tex mex is a imitation of my
(32:53):
mother's Comita Cassetta, and I don't think they did it
very faithfully, but they did it in a way that
is success and it's a big business. But tex Mex
is an imitation of Texas Mexican food. And the last
thing about Comita Cassetta is hospitality. You never have food
just as food, you have hospitality. You have community. By community,
(33:16):
I mean connection to history, to this land and to
families that have come before us. And lastly, you have memory.
The strength of it is it is so delicious. That's
why it has influenced all of the Mexican food in
the United States, and Wahaka has not. Sure, you have
Molee and you have some fancy restaurants, but by and large,
(33:37):
the mass mass successful restaurants throughout the United States are
our food.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
I'm curious, I keep saying Mesquite dot, Yes.
Speaker 6 (33:45):
Before I said we had these two markers, Myoztec and Spain.
I want to reevaluate our real marker, which is the
border of Texas, South Texas and northeastern Mexico. And in
there mesquite is prominent because we are Lajite del Mesquite.
(34:08):
Corn arrives here two thousand years ago, but eight thousand
years ago, mesquite is what we ate. Mesquite was what
we cooked with in our caves. We took the spines
off and it was carpets in our caves, and we
had our entire culture based on mesquite. It was as
(34:31):
symbolically important to us as corn is now in the imagination.
So in my new book and with the few series,
we are going to look at mesquite and see how
chefs are beginning to reemploy it. We have mesquito malis,
we have mosquito tillas that are coming in. I spoke
to a chef in Austin and I said, what mesquite vinegar.
(34:55):
So there is this resurgence. And the nice thing about
it is that these are all young chefs. I think
it's wonderful. So thank you for asking that.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Thank you, thank you so much, Adan, This is fascinating,
I know.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Thank you so much. I'm so excited for people.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
We're gonna link all of your books and your documentary
on our podcast if you guys want to know more
about Adan Medrano.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
He's truly fascinating and even.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
If you're not a Texican like us, I think you're going.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
To find it super interesting. Thanks for joining us, Adan,
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Hungry for History is a hyphen Media production in partnership
with Iheart'smichael Tura podcast network.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
Hosts And Creators
MAITE GOMEZ-REJÓN
Eva Longoria
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