December 30, 2024 • 28 mins
Listen to Hungry for History from the beginning! Enjoy this rewind episode from Season One.
Eva and Maite take a trip down memory lane as they explore the unique past of Tex-Mex food. From the unknown history of the San Antonio Chili Queens to the difference between Tejano and Chicano, the ladies dive into the rich cuisine that is Tex-Mex.
Maite's Chili Queen-Style Chile con Carne
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Mike and I are both from Texas, so of course
we've got to talk about tex mex food.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We have to. This is exciting.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
My name is Eva Longoria and I am my te
Gomez Rajon and.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our
past and present through food.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So make yourself at home, even Brochel, It's been a
thing for me in my marriage because I call text mechs.
For me is Mexican food, like I've always called it
Mexican food in Texas and my husband, who's a Mexican national,
we fight about a lot of things, as we've talked
(00:46):
about many times on the podcast, flower tortillas versus corn tortillas,
the burrito, breakfast, tacos, like, there's just so much. And
I I remember when I moved to Los Angeles, was
the first time I heard the word text me in
the like culinary lexicon. I was just like, oh, well,
I mean, yeah, it's Mexican food from Texas.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
But yeah it's tex mex Like.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I didn't really consider it a whole different thing until
I really got versed in astronomy, and I realized, oh
my god, it is as It's a whole category in itself.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
It's a regional cuisine. It is its own thing, one
hundred percent. Because even me growing up in Laredo, first generation,
the food that we had at the house was more
Mexican food, not necessarily tex Mex, right, but of course
it's Laredo, so it is part of that culture. So
basically South Texas it's it's a regional cuisine. It's one
(01:42):
of the oldest cuisines of the area. Right. And originally
it's Texas Mexican food, And like the rest of the
you know, pre colonial food and the rest of Mexico,
it was mostly plant based, with lots of prickly pear
and pecans and venison and turkey. And it didn't become
this sort of yellow cheese, greasy fried food until post conquest, right,
(02:09):
And the term text Mex didn't really appear until nineteen
seventy two.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
So not that I don't remember it.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I mean, I know we're talking like conquest and stuff
like that, but I don't remember hearing it as an
antiquated word. Tex Mex seems very modern. The word the
word text Mex.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It is it is.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
And actually Diana Kennedy, who we talked about in one
of the episodes, the British born authority on Mexican Food,
she was the one that first used the word Texmex
in the seventies. She was basically making a clear distinction
between Mexican food and everything made north of the border,
and it was sort of dismissive.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
It's like, this is real and that's text Mex. But
tex Mex food is a centuries old cuisine.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
This text Mex food that has a lot of cheese,
yellow cheese and fried and all of that is an Anglo.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Contribution to the food.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Because the first sort of tex Mex restaurants appeared, or
what is called tex Mex now, appeared in San Antonio
soon after Texas became part of the US and the
Mexicans were being driven out of the city. But all
of the Americans that were going to the city on
the tex Mex railroad loved.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
The Mexican food. They just didn't like Mexicans. They liked
their food.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Who Okay.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
In nineteen hundred, there was a restaurateur from the Midwest.
His name was Otis Farnsworth and he opened up a
restaurant called the Original Mexican Restaurant in the San Antonio
River Walk, right, So he created this sort of model
for tex Mex restaurants and people loved it. That's the
first time that we see like the combo plates, you know,
(03:59):
you have like andulaa and the.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Be right, theres yeah, and you're like, I.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Want the number five and I want the number two
or you know that has these sort of complates aid
such a part of the text mex cuisine. And that
was actually an idea of one of his employees, a
Mexican employee, who was like, oh, let's do this so
that non Spanish speaking Americans can then just see the
(04:24):
pictures and order the number one or the number two.
But the first sort of tex Mex restaurant was created
by a Midwesterner, so not even a Mexican, but in
San Antonio.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
In San Antonio, So would you say San Antonio's the
cradle of the tex Mex.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
And actually the people that really put Texas Mexican food
on the map were the San Antonio Chili queens.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Who are the San Antonio Chili Queens.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
They were these amazing women that in the eighteen hundreds
would actually make chili, which is a big part of
that of text mex cuisine is chili. So these women
would actually make chili, which is basically meat with it's
basically a mole, but more just with chile, it's more
(05:17):
a sort of a simple mole. And then they would
actually sell them make it at home, and this was
our home cooking, right basically the original text mex is
like home cooking. So they would take this to the
platas in San Antonio and.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
People that were coming into the city. It was such
a hub for tourists.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And it was like, oh, this new Mexican world, and
they were introducing this Mexican food to this Anglo population.
And it was called gardenet on chile and they would
serve the garden on chile with flower dirtilla and the cup.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Of gardene chile or chili concarne.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Originally it was called garnet on chile, and then it
became Anglo sized into chili concarne.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And then it was chili, and then it was just chili.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
So they would make it at home and then like
load it onto their wagons and then go sell it
to uh tourists.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Mostly right.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
It was tourists, it was people coming through the city, right,
And this was a big part of the allure of
going to San Antonio is to taste the chili from
these women.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And they really sort of it became famous.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Everybody wanted to taste the food of these women. And
they were these like sort of badass women. And sometimes
they would play guitar and they were said to have
you know, rolled their own cigarettes with you know, tobacco
and they would roll it in corn husks. But they
were these just incredible business women and they created this
sort of mystique of the Mexican senorita. It was the
(06:45):
San Antonio chili queens. They started in the eighteen hundreds
and then eventually, you know, as time went on, as
a lot more Anglos were moving into San Antonio, they
were being.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Pushed out of the area.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
First they were sort of outside of the plazas because
it seemed you know, dirty or and it's unsanitory. And
then you know, in nineteen thirty seven is when it
was like, oh, these women, it's unsanatory. They were banned,
and by nineteen forty three they were completely banned. So
we didn't see any of the chili queens selling their
(07:20):
chili at all anymore, but.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Their presence is well documented in like the newspapers like
San Antonio Daily Express in eighteen ninety four had a
review of them, and they were talking about, you know,
how these chili queens were jolly and they were so
they were like ever attentive, and so there's like all
of this documentation about this food in eighteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Oh yeah, tons.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
And then there were some food reviews that also were
not favorable because they were like, oh, this is you know,
too hot, too spicy, too Mexican. One of the reviews
was the chili queen's food is fire bricks from So
I'm assuming that I'm assuming that meant spicy.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Yeah, like you know, this is definitely from hades.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
But also that I can see it now because I
you know, we're both from Texas.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
We have to take Texas history growing up.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
But how the upper class of San Antonio saw Mexican
food as a threat to not only white workers, but like.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
The standard of living.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
They were like, god forbid, this becomes more popular than
you know, Anglo cuisine. And so I think that's really
interesting how food and politics are pretty parallel in the
birth of tex mex food.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Absolutely. There was this German born man. His name was
William Gebhart and he lived in New Brown Falls, that's
like just just outside of center. It's like half an
hour awy from San Antonio. And he used to go
into San Antonio in the you know, eighteen nineties, early
nineteen hundreds, and loved this chili from the chili queens.
(09:09):
But it was fresh chiliss. It was just really good
home cooking. And he was like, oh, I want to
recreate this, So he developed a chili powder. The gap
Hard chili powder is a famous chili powder in Texas
that a lot of people use in their chilies. So
he would go to San Antonio, he would taste the
chilies he was figuring out.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
How to weigh.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
He then import chilianchos from Saint Luis Potosi dehydrated these chilis.
First he called this powder chili powder dampico dust, and
then eventually he made this powder and he developed this
eagle chili powder. This man nineteen oh eight he published
(09:49):
the first text mex cookbook. A German published the first
sort of Texas Mexican cookbook called Mexican Cooking to educate
the American public about Mexican food. This is a German
guy who did this, And yeah, he was also the
first person to make canned chili in nineteen oh eight, and.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
His chili powder is still super famous.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
I mean they sell it everywhere at the atb It's
like sort of the chili.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Powder, the oldest one.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But it is interesting that the reason he did that
was because if you cooked with ch fresh chilas, it
had to be seasonal, and so he wanted to create
a different way to have this spice all year round.
And so I thought that was pretty innovative of him
at the time, to go, how do we keep this
flavor year round because the chilas were limited seasons exactly
(10:43):
do to the availability. And so yeah, interesting, But you
know a lot of people don't understand German settlements were
alive and well in Texas. There's so much German heritage
in Texas. That's why banda music is actually polka music.
That's why they music has a bit of polka in
it because it's German. Coming up next, Mike, then I
(11:07):
discussed the background and the idea of being the hanul.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Where did tekano first come from?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
That word According to the Texas State Historical Association, it
was defined in eighteen twenty four denoting a Texan of
Mexican descent. So it's basically a Mexican Texan, a Texas
Texan Mexican, and it can be you know, a Techano
could be, like you said, Tejano music, Tejano art, Techano cuisine.
(11:55):
It could just be sort of anything from this area.
But one thing that is really interesting I think about
the area is that we think, you know, there have
been indigenous populations in this area.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Of northern Mexico.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
There's like fifty different indigenous nations that lived in the
state of Texas even before the conquest, right, So there's
the don Gawas and the Comanches and the gan Gauas,
and it's all of these indigenous groups that when the
Spanish came, they became Hispanicized and they became sort of
(12:30):
Mexican even though they have deeper roots than that. So
this area is so you know, complex, So a lot
of Texans that identify themselves with being Mexican even pre date.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
When Texas was Mexico, right, So it's so many layers
and layers of history.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
So it's like Oh, the Haano could be that you know,
people that have these indigenous roots, or it could.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Be people like us.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Right, you've been there for your family has been there
for centuries. My family has been there since the seventies, right,
so not that long. I know you studied Chicano studies, right,
is sort of your thing?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Is it the same?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Chicano is more California based. It's a word I never
heard of or used until I moved to a Los
Angeles And I mean Chicano was a politicized invention when
they put it on a census one year to try
to group together basically what we now call Latinos. And
so they were like, let's put this word. And I
(13:36):
think California Mexicans, which are different than Texas Mexicans. California
Mexicans reclaimed the word Chicano and made it their own.
And so Chicano became an identity that was full of
pride and was powerful and really aggregated the Mexicans in
(13:57):
California to not only unite against policies that were targeted
to pair down our communities, whether it was English classes
or any other racist policies that were instilled in a
certain time in California, but we kind of reclaimed the
word and it is now evolved into something I'm very
(14:21):
proud of. I'm proud to be called a Chicana because
it is a word that is now has a bigger
spectrum of what it means. It has a bigger umbrella
of what is under it. But it is different than
at Techano because at Techano is a Texas Mexican. And
so I remember my first class getting my master's in
(14:42):
Chicano studies, and it was just clear that we were
just such a diverse group that we're not monolithic. You know,
all the Hispanics slash Latinos slash latin X slash whatever
we want to identify as. We're all so different and
in the most beautiful away. And so I think that
where that's most reflected is in food. It is absolutely
(15:06):
in food. Okay, So when we talk about text mex
cuisine and we talk about the yellow cheese, we're talking
about cheddar cheese, and cheddar is not really used in Mexico.
We don't really see yellow cheeses. Yeah, yeah, it's queso
fresco cacio, which is also called kea hawk and cheese
(15:27):
mozzarella is used a lot in Mexico more than cheddar.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You don't see yellow cheeses at all, like in Mexico.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, you don't really see sea And it's probably in Texas.
It was just more available, especially with the railroad right
that it's easier to get yellow cheeses from the Midwest
than it was to get cheeses from Mexico, So it
was just more available.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
I just get really mad that tex Mex food is
really defined by this yellow cheese, which is very processed
American cheese. And I'm like, I wish tex Mex was
known for something else because it's like popular text mex foods.
Ok so number one, number one, yeah, ko yeah, And
(16:11):
so I just feel like, you know, the definition of
a lot of text mex food is this highly processed
American cheese. So can we make the correlation that it's
not the healthiest.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It's not the.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Healthiest because it has become not the healthiest, but the
original food of the region. It does not have the
yellow cheese and does not have all of this stuff.
It's this home cooking that's a lot of you know,
mostly plant based, just like most other Mexican food, The
(16:47):
yellow cheese and the you know, deep frying and all
of that. That's much more of an Anglo addition to
the food of the region.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Cheese invented by James Kraft in the nineteen tens, and
he invented this method that involved heating the cheddar cheese
and whipping air into it, and then it made it
more shelf stable, which we like to call processed, so
that it could be shipped. And Velveta is like the
(17:22):
culmination of his dream to produce this like creamy, consumer
friendly cheese. But that has a lot of things in it.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
It's highly processed, it lasts forever, and so it was
it worked, it was easy for people.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
You don't have to go to the store that often.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
And it's just it's it's he developed this this stuff.
And there are early you know, cookbooks like Junior League cookbooks,
Ladies Club cookbooks from the area or from Texas with
recipes for velveta or American cheese, which is this cheddar
cheese that we're talking about, suggesting.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That people of all classes ate it.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So it's so interesting when become food becomes.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
A class thing, right, it's like, oh yeah, yeah, everybody
eats this.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
This yellow cheese.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
After the break, we're gonna talk about some of our
most popular.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
Tex Mex dishes.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Oh, and the Freedo pie.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Don't go anywhere. I use rotel in everything. I literally
(18:41):
travel with rotel because to have tomatoes and green chilies
together in this beautiful marriage you can put. I put
it in my in my re fried beans. I put
it in my chadrow beans. I put it in my cassel,
I put it in my fitheo, I put it in
my right I put rotel in everything because it's so easy.
(19:03):
And when I'm in a country like I am in
Spain right now and they don't have obviously a can
of rotel, I try to look for the ingredients separately
and make my own rotel, it doesn't come out the same.
And I was reading that rotel was birthed in Texas.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Yeah, I had honestly had never even heard of rotel
before I started doing the Text Mex research.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
No, I've never heard of it. Now I have to
get it. And it's this signature.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Blend of tomatoes canned with spicy green chillis. It was
invented by Carl Rotel in Elsa, Texas.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I don't even know where Elsa, Texas is.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Oh, I know where Elsa, Texas is in South Texas. Elsa,
Texas is where where our ranch was, Like it's in
Edinburgh and McAllen. It's like over there in Hidaligo County. Yeah,
so it's super South Texas.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
But is this guy? So his name was carl or Carlos.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Carl Rotel, and it's spelled r o e t t
e l e so spelled different, and then he thought
that the customers would find it really difficult to pronounce
his name.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
So it was shortened to row our Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Dash t e l It's it's one of my favorite
products to cook with. And maybe it's because I'm I'm
text mex.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Yeah, yeah, totally, that's so funny.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
A couple of other I think textmex Staples is the
way we make inchiladas because there's in chiladas in Mexico.
But I think in chiladas and Texas are super different
than oh my gosh, than in chiladas in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Completely different, yeah, completely different.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
I feel like in chilada's in Texas it's mostly red,
the red sauce. It's more humani, right, and there they
have the yellow cheese or they have the yellow cheese
on top. In Mexico, there are so many other variations.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
There's the green ones, there's a mule in.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Chilaas there's a like different ones, but they're very.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Different than the Texas ones.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, if I make Mexican in chiladas, like in Mexico,
I cook my chicken, I put it in my tomatio salsa.
I usually use a white cheese. I use Crema Mexicana. Like,
it's definitely a different things, not sour cream, not sour
cream not so when I cook. In the States, there
(21:26):
was this brand called Wolf Brand Chili. Did you eat
Wolf Brand chili?
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Growing up?
Speaker 4 (21:31):
I never had chili growing up at home because in
my house it was you know, more mex not the
text mex So.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I've never had canned chili.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Like even to this day, I would have, Well, maybe
I have probably like going, you know somewhere else, but yeah,
I never had inchiladas with chili or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Oh my god. That's the only in Chila that I knew.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
My mom would buy these cans of Wolf Brand chili,
which is chili concarne, and there was a recipe on
the back of the can.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
On how to make the inchiladas.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
And that's like I've searched my whole life for Wolf
Brand chili. There's a place that sells it in California,
but it's mostly a text Mex brand and you just
heat up the chili and you cook your tortilla, roll
it in the chili, top it with the yellow cheese
and it's delicious. My best friend from Texas for her birthday,
(22:19):
she always asked me, will you please make me Wolf
Brand in chiladas? Oh?
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Really, yeah, that's in Chilada.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Also that the thing that's very Texas, very thick on
a very text Mex for me, I grew up with
it was the Freedo pie.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Freedom grow up with a Freedo.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Pie and school, not at home, but in school they
used to have. It's basically a Freedo bag, opened up
the Freedo bag and then with a dot with like
a huge scoop of chili. It's the text Mex Chila
kiles fie yea.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
I didn't realize it was basically Chila kiles, you know,
but it is. But now I love Freedo pies. I
had it every day.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
For lunch, I think for four years straight.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
In high school, and the fact that it was like
a lunch item at school was like, I wonder if it.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Is I mean, it's that is it's so Texas.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
They would slice the bag, the snack bag, so like
the individual serving, you slice it on the side, not
the top, the side, and you just pour your chili
right into the friedo bag and then you put the
cheese on it.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I mean, honestly, anything with frido. Fritos are the most
delicious thing in the world. I have to say, I
love Frito's. They're the best. Other text mixings the puffy taco.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yes, frying corn tortillas in general is a text mexing,
not just for fuffy tacos. I make I fry more
tortillas for a lot of things. And so I think
that the frying of the corn tortilla is not Mexican.
Mexican's just heated up on the komal.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
But then you also have things like can you cut down?
You have the salvotes and those are fried.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
It's basically like a puffy taco.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
They're fried corn mass. They're a little bit thicker. But
it's this similar idea, right, So sort of frying it
and then shaping it and also putting like the you
know the sweat of iceberg lattice, yeah, you know all
of that, and the and the puffy cheese.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And there's also fajitas. Of course that's a very.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Texas thing, super tex mex Northern Mexico, which is grilled
skirt skirt steak, although and I don't know if that's
it's tex mex but also Northern Mexico they just call
it arara, so it's a different sort of thing, but
it's basically there's so much meat in the area.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Textbanksuit is heavy, heavy, heavy meat.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Well we call in Mexico they call thostadas.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
We call chalupa chalupas.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I love.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
But it's the same thing, right.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
But it's the same thing, Yeah, just chia bus because
I grew up calling them both chilopus sostadas at home.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It was the SaaS. Outside it was a chiluba. But
it's the same thing.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Here's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
In Mexico, taqitos or tacos, takitos. Takitos are the a
rold flout us call them flout.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Us, Yes, we call them.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Mexico they call them tacitos. And the other probably my favorite.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
This is my favorite.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Text mex food is breakfast tacos.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
So breakfast tacos is like, there's like this whole controversy, right,
San Antonio claims to have invented the breakfast that got awesome,
claims to invent the freakfast taco.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
But it's like, isn't breakfast? Aren't they just like a thing?
Speaker 4 (25:28):
I mean, I remember there was a place in Laredo
called Cortula. It was a restaurant and they used to
have like their breakfast tacos were amazing. But it's just
a flower tortilla, right right with? I mean, how is
it a text that's I don't understand how it's a
text mex thing.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Well, first of all, because it has a flower tortilla, right.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Okay, Yeah, in itself that's okay, Because here's the thing
in Mexico, even in the north where they eat flower
tortillas in Monterey, they're very thin and translucent.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
They're very different text mex flower tortillas are thick like
a peita bread. They're thick like non like Indian bread.
You know, they're thick, and so that in itself makes
a breakfast taco very different. So you make which I
make them every morning. I make breakfast tacos every morning.
I make my flower tortillas from scratch. They're very thick,
(26:20):
and then you make potato and egg. You can make
chotese on egg. I make bean tacos every morning. And
when you go in Texas, everybody has breakfast tacos in Texas,
and it's a whole competition of like whos. Especially in
San Antonio, where I also live, is like this competition
of who has the best breakfast tacos. And it's like
(26:41):
chodese on and egg are my favorite bean tacos. Usually
bean and cheese is super popular, but I do bean.
I don't like the cheese.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
I there's this restaurant that every time I go to Laredo,
I always have to go to.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
It's down the street from my house.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
It's called Danny's and it's it's like a local, a
Laredo chain.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
They have the best breakfast.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I don't eat eggs, but theirs I will eat eggs there.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Al that's the only place that I lead the eggs.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
But they have machakallo, which is the dried shredded which
is very northern. Yeah, that's very northern Mexico. In Laredo
you see it a lot as well. I don't know
if you could consider it tex Mex or if it's
more Northern Mexico.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
But in Laredo you see a.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Lot of machacado and it's that cooked together in a
breakfast taco. Oh my god, it's it's it's amazing. It's
the most delicious thing. So I guess it's more of
a of a of a Laredo Tex Mex thing because
it's the Yeah, I normally like them really paper thin,
but these are like thick and kind of chewy and delicious.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I'm so happy y'all went on this, uh basically trip
down memory lane with Mike and I with text Mexmex.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So good, so good. Thank you for listen today.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Hungry for History is an unbelievable entertainment production in partnership
with Iheart'smichael Thura podcast network.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Mike and I are both from Texas, so of course
we've got to talk about tex mex food.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We have to. This is exciting.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
My name is Eva Longoria and I am my te
Gomez Rajon and.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our
past and present through food.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So make yourself at home, even Brochel, It's been a
thing for me in my marriage because I call text mechs.
For me is Mexican food, like I've always called it
Mexican food in Texas and my husband, who's a Mexican national,
we fight about a lot of things, as we've talked
(00:46):
about many times on the podcast, flower tortillas versus corn tortillas,
the burrito, breakfast, tacos, like, there's just so much. And
I I remember when I moved to Los Angeles, was
the first time I heard the word text me in
the like culinary lexicon. I was just like, oh, well,
I mean, yeah, it's Mexican food from Texas.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
But yeah it's tex mex Like.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I didn't really consider it a whole different thing until
I really got versed in astronomy, and I realized, oh
my god, it is as It's a whole category in itself.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
It's a regional cuisine. It is its own thing, one
hundred percent. Because even me growing up in Laredo, first generation,
the food that we had at the house was more
Mexican food, not necessarily tex Mex, right, but of course
it's Laredo, so it is part of that culture. So
basically South Texas it's it's a regional cuisine. It's one
(01:42):
of the oldest cuisines of the area. Right. And originally
it's Texas Mexican food, And like the rest of the
you know, pre colonial food and the rest of Mexico,
it was mostly plant based, with lots of prickly pear
and pecans and venison and turkey. And it didn't become
this sort of yellow cheese, greasy fried food until post conquest, right,
(02:09):
And the term text Mex didn't really appear until nineteen
seventy two.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
So not that I don't remember it.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
I mean, I know we're talking like conquest and stuff
like that, but I don't remember hearing it as an
antiquated word. Tex Mex seems very modern. The word the
word text Mex.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
It is it is.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
And actually Diana Kennedy, who we talked about in one
of the episodes, the British born authority on Mexican Food,
she was the one that first used the word Texmex
in the seventies. She was basically making a clear distinction
between Mexican food and everything made north of the border,
and it was sort of dismissive.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
It's like, this is real and that's text Mex. But
tex Mex food is a centuries old cuisine.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
This text Mex food that has a lot of cheese,
yellow cheese and fried and all of that is an Anglo.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Contribution to the food.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Because the first sort of tex Mex restaurants appeared, or
what is called tex Mex now, appeared in San Antonio
soon after Texas became part of the US and the
Mexicans were being driven out of the city. But all
of the Americans that were going to the city on
the tex Mex railroad loved.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
The Mexican food. They just didn't like Mexicans. They liked
their food.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Who Okay.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
In nineteen hundred, there was a restaurateur from the Midwest.
His name was Otis Farnsworth and he opened up a
restaurant called the Original Mexican Restaurant in the San Antonio
River Walk, right, So he created this sort of model
for tex Mex restaurants and people loved it. That's the
first time that we see like the combo plates, you know,
(03:59):
you have like andulaa and the.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Be right, theres yeah, and you're like, I.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Want the number five and I want the number two
or you know that has these sort of complates aid
such a part of the text mex cuisine. And that
was actually an idea of one of his employees, a
Mexican employee, who was like, oh, let's do this so
that non Spanish speaking Americans can then just see the
(04:24):
pictures and order the number one or the number two.
But the first sort of tex Mex restaurant was created
by a Midwesterner, so not even a Mexican, but in
San Antonio.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
In San Antonio, So would you say San Antonio's the
cradle of the tex Mex.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
And actually the people that really put Texas Mexican food
on the map were the San Antonio Chili queens.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Who are the San Antonio Chili Queens.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
They were these amazing women that in the eighteen hundreds
would actually make chili, which is a big part of
that of text mex cuisine is chili. So these women
would actually make chili, which is basically meat with it's
basically a mole, but more just with chile, it's more
(05:17):
a sort of a simple mole. And then they would
actually sell them make it at home, and this was
our home cooking, right basically the original text mex is
like home cooking. So they would take this to the
platas in San Antonio and.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
People that were coming into the city. It was such
a hub for tourists.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And it was like, oh, this new Mexican world, and
they were introducing this Mexican food to this Anglo population.
And it was called gardenet on chile and they would
serve the garden on chile with flower dirtilla and the cup.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Of gardene chile or chili concarne.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Originally it was called garnet on chile, and then it
became Anglo sized into chili concarne.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And then it was chili, and then it was just chili.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
So they would make it at home and then like
load it onto their wagons and then go sell it
to uh tourists.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Mostly right.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
It was tourists, it was people coming through the city, right,
And this was a big part of the allure of
going to San Antonio is to taste the chili from
these women.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And they really sort of it became famous.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Everybody wanted to taste the food of these women. And
they were these like sort of badass women. And sometimes
they would play guitar and they were said to have
you know, rolled their own cigarettes with you know, tobacco
and they would roll it in corn husks. But they
were these just incredible business women and they created this
sort of mystique of the Mexican senorita. It was the
(06:45):
San Antonio chili queens. They started in the eighteen hundreds
and then eventually, you know, as time went on, as
a lot more Anglos were moving into San Antonio, they
were being.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Pushed out of the area.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
First they were sort of outside of the plazas because
it seemed you know, dirty or and it's unsanitory. And
then you know, in nineteen thirty seven is when it
was like, oh, these women, it's unsanatory. They were banned,
and by nineteen forty three they were completely banned. So
we didn't see any of the chili queens selling their
(07:20):
chili at all anymore, but.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Their presence is well documented in like the newspapers like
San Antonio Daily Express in eighteen ninety four had a
review of them, and they were talking about, you know,
how these chili queens were jolly and they were so
they were like ever attentive, and so there's like all
of this documentation about this food in eighteen ninety four.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Oh yeah, tons.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
And then there were some food reviews that also were
not favorable because they were like, oh, this is you know,
too hot, too spicy, too Mexican. One of the reviews
was the chili queen's food is fire bricks from So
I'm assuming that I'm assuming that meant spicy.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Yeah, like you know, this is definitely from hades.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
But also that I can see it now because I
you know, we're both from Texas.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
We have to take Texas history growing up.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
But how the upper class of San Antonio saw Mexican
food as a threat to not only white workers, but like.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
The standard of living.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
They were like, god forbid, this becomes more popular than
you know, Anglo cuisine. And so I think that's really
interesting how food and politics are pretty parallel in the
birth of tex mex food.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Absolutely. There was this German born man. His name was
William Gebhart and he lived in New Brown Falls, that's
like just just outside of center. It's like half an
hour awy from San Antonio. And he used to go
into San Antonio in the you know, eighteen nineties, early
nineteen hundreds, and loved this chili from the chili queens.
(09:09):
But it was fresh chiliss. It was just really good
home cooking. And he was like, oh, I want to
recreate this, So he developed a chili powder. The gap
Hard chili powder is a famous chili powder in Texas
that a lot of people use in their chilies. So
he would go to San Antonio, he would taste the
chilies he was figuring out.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
How to weigh.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
He then import chilianchos from Saint Luis Potosi dehydrated these chilis.
First he called this powder chili powder dampico dust, and
then eventually he made this powder and he developed this
eagle chili powder. This man nineteen oh eight he published
(09:49):
the first text mex cookbook. A German published the first
sort of Texas Mexican cookbook called Mexican Cooking to educate
the American public about Mexican food. This is a German
guy who did this, And yeah, he was also the
first person to make canned chili in nineteen oh eight, and.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
His chili powder is still super famous.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
I mean they sell it everywhere at the atb It's
like sort of the chili.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Powder, the oldest one.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But it is interesting that the reason he did that
was because if you cooked with ch fresh chilas, it
had to be seasonal, and so he wanted to create
a different way to have this spice all year round.
And so I thought that was pretty innovative of him
at the time, to go, how do we keep this
flavor year round because the chilas were limited seasons exactly
(10:43):
do to the availability. And so yeah, interesting, But you
know a lot of people don't understand German settlements were
alive and well in Texas. There's so much German heritage
in Texas. That's why banda music is actually polka music.
That's why they music has a bit of polka in
it because it's German. Coming up next, Mike, then I
(11:07):
discussed the background and the idea of being the hanul.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Where did tekano first come from?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
That word According to the Texas State Historical Association, it
was defined in eighteen twenty four denoting a Texan of
Mexican descent. So it's basically a Mexican Texan, a Texas
Texan Mexican, and it can be you know, a Techano
could be, like you said, Tejano music, Tejano art, Techano cuisine.
(11:55):
It could just be sort of anything from this area.
But one thing that is really interesting I think about
the area is that we think, you know, there have
been indigenous populations in this area.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Of northern Mexico.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
There's like fifty different indigenous nations that lived in the
state of Texas even before the conquest, right, So there's
the don Gawas and the Comanches and the gan Gauas,
and it's all of these indigenous groups that when the
Spanish came, they became Hispanicized and they became sort of
(12:30):
Mexican even though they have deeper roots than that. So
this area is so you know, complex, So a lot
of Texans that identify themselves with being Mexican even pre date.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
When Texas was Mexico, right, So it's so many layers
and layers of history.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
So it's like Oh, the Haano could be that you know,
people that have these indigenous roots, or it could.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Be people like us.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Right, you've been there for your family has been there
for centuries. My family has been there since the seventies, right,
so not that long. I know you studied Chicano studies, right,
is sort of your thing?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Is it the same?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Chicano is more California based. It's a word I never
heard of or used until I moved to a Los
Angeles And I mean Chicano was a politicized invention when
they put it on a census one year to try
to group together basically what we now call Latinos. And
so they were like, let's put this word. And I
(13:36):
think California Mexicans, which are different than Texas Mexicans. California
Mexicans reclaimed the word Chicano and made it their own.
And so Chicano became an identity that was full of
pride and was powerful and really aggregated the Mexicans in
(13:57):
California to not only unite against policies that were targeted
to pair down our communities, whether it was English classes
or any other racist policies that were instilled in a
certain time in California, but we kind of reclaimed the
word and it is now evolved into something I'm very
(14:21):
proud of. I'm proud to be called a Chicana because
it is a word that is now has a bigger
spectrum of what it means. It has a bigger umbrella
of what is under it. But it is different than
at Techano because at Techano is a Texas Mexican. And
so I remember my first class getting my master's in
(14:42):
Chicano studies, and it was just clear that we were
just such a diverse group that we're not monolithic. You know,
all the Hispanics slash Latinos slash latin X slash whatever
we want to identify as. We're all so different and
in the most beautiful away. And so I think that
where that's most reflected is in food. It is absolutely
(15:06):
in food. Okay, So when we talk about text mex
cuisine and we talk about the yellow cheese, we're talking
about cheddar cheese, and cheddar is not really used in Mexico.
We don't really see yellow cheeses. Yeah, yeah, it's queso
fresco cacio, which is also called kea hawk and cheese
(15:27):
mozzarella is used a lot in Mexico more than cheddar.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You don't see yellow cheeses at all, like in Mexico.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, you don't really see sea And it's probably in Texas.
It was just more available, especially with the railroad right
that it's easier to get yellow cheeses from the Midwest
than it was to get cheeses from Mexico, So it
was just more available.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
I just get really mad that tex Mex food is
really defined by this yellow cheese, which is very processed
American cheese. And I'm like, I wish tex Mex was
known for something else because it's like popular text mex foods.
Ok so number one, number one, yeah, ko yeah, And
(16:11):
so I just feel like, you know, the definition of
a lot of text mex food is this highly processed
American cheese. So can we make the correlation that it's
not the healthiest.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It's not the.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Healthiest because it has become not the healthiest, but the
original food of the region. It does not have the
yellow cheese and does not have all of this stuff.
It's this home cooking that's a lot of you know,
mostly plant based, just like most other Mexican food, The
(16:47):
yellow cheese and the you know, deep frying and all
of that. That's much more of an Anglo addition to
the food of the region.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Cheese invented by James Kraft in the nineteen tens, and
he invented this method that involved heating the cheddar cheese
and whipping air into it, and then it made it
more shelf stable, which we like to call processed, so
that it could be shipped. And Velveta is like the
(17:22):
culmination of his dream to produce this like creamy, consumer
friendly cheese. But that has a lot of things in it.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
It's highly processed, it lasts forever, and so it was
it worked, it was easy for people.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
You don't have to go to the store that often.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
And it's just it's it's he developed this this stuff.
And there are early you know, cookbooks like Junior League cookbooks,
Ladies Club cookbooks from the area or from Texas with
recipes for velveta or American cheese, which is this cheddar
cheese that we're talking about, suggesting.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That people of all classes ate it.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So it's so interesting when become food becomes.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
A class thing, right, it's like, oh yeah, yeah, everybody
eats this.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
This yellow cheese.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
After the break, we're gonna talk about some of our
most popular.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
Tex Mex dishes.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Oh, and the Freedo pie.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Don't go anywhere. I use rotel in everything. I literally
(18:41):
travel with rotel because to have tomatoes and green chilies
together in this beautiful marriage you can put. I put
it in my in my re fried beans. I put
it in my chadrow beans. I put it in my cassel,
I put it in my fitheo, I put it in
my right I put rotel in everything because it's so easy.
(19:03):
And when I'm in a country like I am in
Spain right now and they don't have obviously a can
of rotel, I try to look for the ingredients separately
and make my own rotel, it doesn't come out the same.
And I was reading that rotel was birthed in Texas.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Yeah, I had honestly had never even heard of rotel
before I started doing the Text Mex research.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
No, I've never heard of it. Now I have to
get it. And it's this signature.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Blend of tomatoes canned with spicy green chillis. It was
invented by Carl Rotel in Elsa, Texas.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I don't even know where Elsa, Texas is.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Oh, I know where Elsa, Texas is in South Texas. Elsa,
Texas is where where our ranch was, Like it's in
Edinburgh and McAllen. It's like over there in Hidaligo County. Yeah,
so it's super South Texas.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
But is this guy? So his name was carl or Carlos.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Carl Rotel, and it's spelled r o e t t
e l e so spelled different, and then he thought
that the customers would find it really difficult to pronounce
his name.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
So it was shortened to row our Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Dash t e l It's it's one of my favorite
products to cook with. And maybe it's because I'm I'm
text mex.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Yeah, yeah, totally, that's so funny.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
A couple of other I think textmex Staples is the
way we make inchiladas because there's in chiladas in Mexico.
But I think in chiladas and Texas are super different
than oh my gosh, than in chiladas in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Completely different, yeah, completely different.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
I feel like in chilada's in Texas it's mostly red,
the red sauce. It's more humani, right, and there they
have the yellow cheese or they have the yellow cheese
on top. In Mexico, there are so many other variations.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
There's the green ones, there's a mule in.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Chilaas there's a like different ones, but they're very.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Different than the Texas ones.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, if I make Mexican in chiladas, like in Mexico,
I cook my chicken, I put it in my tomatio salsa.
I usually use a white cheese. I use Crema Mexicana. Like,
it's definitely a different things, not sour cream, not sour
cream not so when I cook. In the States, there
(21:26):
was this brand called Wolf Brand Chili. Did you eat
Wolf Brand chili?
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Growing up?
Speaker 4 (21:31):
I never had chili growing up at home because in
my house it was you know, more mex not the
text mex So.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
I've never had canned chili.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Like even to this day, I would have, Well, maybe
I have probably like going, you know somewhere else, but yeah,
I never had inchiladas with chili or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Oh my god. That's the only in Chila that I knew.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
My mom would buy these cans of Wolf Brand chili,
which is chili concarne, and there was a recipe on
the back of the can.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
On how to make the inchiladas.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
And that's like I've searched my whole life for Wolf
Brand chili. There's a place that sells it in California,
but it's mostly a text Mex brand and you just
heat up the chili and you cook your tortilla, roll
it in the chili, top it with the yellow cheese
and it's delicious. My best friend from Texas for her birthday,
(22:19):
she always asked me, will you please make me Wolf
Brand in chiladas? Oh?
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Really, yeah, that's in Chilada.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Also that the thing that's very Texas, very thick on
a very text Mex for me, I grew up with
it was the Freedo pie.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Freedom grow up with a Freedo.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Pie and school, not at home, but in school they
used to have. It's basically a Freedo bag, opened up
the Freedo bag and then with a dot with like
a huge scoop of chili. It's the text Mex Chila
kiles fie yea.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
I didn't realize it was basically Chila kiles, you know,
but it is. But now I love Freedo pies. I
had it every day.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
For lunch, I think for four years straight.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
In high school, and the fact that it was like
a lunch item at school was like, I wonder if it.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Is I mean, it's that is it's so Texas.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
They would slice the bag, the snack bag, so like
the individual serving, you slice it on the side, not
the top, the side, and you just pour your chili
right into the friedo bag and then you put the
cheese on it.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I mean, honestly, anything with frido. Fritos are the most
delicious thing in the world. I have to say, I
love Frito's. They're the best. Other text mixings the puffy taco.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yes, frying corn tortillas in general is a text mexing,
not just for fuffy tacos. I make I fry more
tortillas for a lot of things. And so I think
that the frying of the corn tortilla is not Mexican.
Mexican's just heated up on the komal.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
But then you also have things like can you cut down?
You have the salvotes and those are fried.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
It's basically like a puffy taco.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
They're fried corn mass. They're a little bit thicker. But
it's this similar idea, right, So sort of frying it
and then shaping it and also putting like the you
know the sweat of iceberg lattice, yeah, you know all
of that, and the and the puffy cheese.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And there's also fajitas. Of course that's a very.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Texas thing, super tex mex Northern Mexico, which is grilled
skirt skirt steak, although and I don't know if that's
it's tex mex but also Northern Mexico they just call
it arara, so it's a different sort of thing, but
it's basically there's so much meat in the area.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Textbanksuit is heavy, heavy, heavy meat.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Well we call in Mexico they call thostadas.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
We call chalupa chalupas.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I love.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
But it's the same thing, right.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
But it's the same thing, Yeah, just chia bus because
I grew up calling them both chilopus sostadas at home.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It was the SaaS. Outside it was a chiluba. But
it's the same thing.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Here's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
In Mexico, taqitos or tacos, takitos. Takitos are the a
rold flout us call them flout.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Us, Yes, we call them.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Mexico they call them tacitos. And the other probably my favorite.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
This is my favorite.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Text mex food is breakfast tacos.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
So breakfast tacos is like, there's like this whole controversy, right,
San Antonio claims to have invented the breakfast that got awesome,
claims to invent the freakfast taco.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
But it's like, isn't breakfast? Aren't they just like a thing?
Speaker 4 (25:28):
I mean, I remember there was a place in Laredo
called Cortula. It was a restaurant and they used to
have like their breakfast tacos were amazing. But it's just
a flower tortilla, right right with? I mean, how is
it a text that's I don't understand how it's a
text mex thing.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Well, first of all, because it has a flower tortilla, right.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Okay, Yeah, in itself that's okay, Because here's the thing
in Mexico, even in the north where they eat flower
tortillas in Monterey, they're very thin and translucent.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
They're very different text mex flower tortillas are thick like
a peita bread. They're thick like non like Indian bread.
You know, they're thick, and so that in itself makes
a breakfast taco very different. So you make which I
make them every morning. I make breakfast tacos every morning.
I make my flower tortillas from scratch. They're very thick,
(26:20):
and then you make potato and egg. You can make
chotese on egg. I make bean tacos every morning. And
when you go in Texas, everybody has breakfast tacos in Texas,
and it's a whole competition of like whos. Especially in
San Antonio, where I also live, is like this competition
of who has the best breakfast tacos. And it's like
(26:41):
chodese on and egg are my favorite bean tacos. Usually
bean and cheese is super popular, but I do bean.
I don't like the cheese.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
I there's this restaurant that every time I go to Laredo,
I always have to go to.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
It's down the street from my house.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
It's called Danny's and it's it's like a local, a
Laredo chain.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
They have the best breakfast.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I don't eat eggs, but theirs I will eat eggs there.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Al that's the only place that I lead the eggs.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
But they have machakallo, which is the dried shredded which
is very northern. Yeah, that's very northern Mexico. In Laredo
you see it a lot as well. I don't know
if you could consider it tex Mex or if it's
more Northern Mexico.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
But in Laredo you see a.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Lot of machacado and it's that cooked together in a
breakfast taco. Oh my god, it's it's it's amazing. It's
the most delicious thing. So I guess it's more of
a of a of a Laredo Tex Mex thing because
it's the Yeah, I normally like them really paper thin,
but these are like thick and kind of chewy and delicious.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I'm so happy y'all went on this, uh basically trip
down memory lane with Mike and I with text Mexmex.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So good, so good. Thank you for listen today.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Hungry for History is an unbelievable entertainment production in partnership
with Iheart'smichael Thura podcast network.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
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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