Reviewing “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America”

Posted on April 27, 2012 by cindylu

A couple weeks ago I RSVP’ed to attend a book talk and signing to coincide with the release of Gustavo Arellano’s new book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America at UCLA. I was looking forward to it as I enjoyed Gustavo’s two previous books (Ask A Mexican and Orange County: A Personal History) and couldn’t wait to read the results of his research on the popularity of Mexican food across the US. I follow him on Twitter and Facebook and he’d been dropping hints about his research and trips on both and in articles on the OC Weekly. Plus, is there any topic better than Mexican food and drink?

Anyway, I also like Gustavo. He’s a funny, entertaining and opinionated writer covering topics a lot of other journalists ignore. I’m also a fan because we share similar roots. Our mothers were both born in El Cargadero, a pueblito outside of Jerez, Zacatecas. His more autobiographical books felt like I was reading my own familiy’s history.

I never went to the book signing. That afternoon, my Dodger loyalty trumped my Cargaderense roots and pride. Who says Mexican immigrants and their children don’t acculturate or assimilate? Sorry, Gustavo. I ditched your reading but I did buy and read Taco USA. I went the e-book route since I didn’t want to wait for it to ship and didn’t feel like making a trip to the bookstore.

Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America Review

Taco USA is a must read and worth the money you would have spent on dinner at your favorite Mexican restaurant or a couple of meals from your favorite taco truck. I read slowly, wanting to savor — sorry for the pun — the descriptions of a lot of new-to-me takes on Mexican food outside of Southern California. I was also disgusted by some of the many culinary crimes committed in the name of making Mexican food palatable to white Americans’ taste (see: canned tortillas… guácala!).

Back to the book, the first two thirds are a chronological history of Mexican food in the US. Gustavo recounts the heyday of chili queens in Santa Fe and tamale men from San Francisco to Chicago at the turn of the century. Even back then, ambulantes (street vendors) were a big part of the Mexican food culture, or what passed as Mexican food. I had no clue why cartoon characters crowed about “hot tamaleeees!” Now I know. Other things I learned: the taco (hard, fried style not the ones above) didn’t become popular nationwide until the 1950s-60s; why non-Mexicans are the most popular Mexican food writers and chefs; the origin of nachos; and why chicken, shrimp or veggie fajitas is a misnomer.

My favorite chapters were about the burrito and Mexican food cooked by and for Mexican people. I attribute that to my LA and California bias. Gustavo begins the chapter on the burrito by describing the Manuel’s Special giant burrito at El Tepeyac Café in Boyle Heights (East LA, for the LA outsiders).

I have a particular affinity for El Tepeyac even though a lot of people don’t think the food is all that great. My grandparents, Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni used to live right around the corner from El Tepeyac. Literally. During parties, we used to peek over the wall into the El Tepeyac parking lot. My parents met when they were part of the youth group at Assumption Church, which is across the street from El Tepeyac. It’s where they got married. My siblings and I were baptized there and several other aunts and uncles married there. My roots run deep.

I started the burrito chapter, “What took the burrito so long to become popular”, with warm fuzzies. And then Gustavo went on to the Mission style burritos in San Francisco (my favorite burritos) and how they inspired chains like Chipotle. I’ve had two Chipotle burritos, both bought by someone else. I don’t get the hype. He also answered a baffling question about the origin of San Diego -berto suffixed chain restaurants. My favorite is the Adalberto’s by my tío Beto’s house in Chula Vista. Their carne asada nachos are amazing.

Gustavo’s chapter on the rise of Mexican food made by and for Mexicans made me hungry and sad that my favorite Mexican restaurant on the westside shut down a couple years ago. I was introduced to Oaxacan food in the late ‘90s by friends and quickly grew to love their moles, enchiladas and chilaquiles. I didn’t know at the time that Oaxacan restaurants were still relatively new in LA. The westside outpost of La Guelaguetza closed down recently. It bummed me out. That was my go-to spot for taking friends from out-of-town for Mexican food they couldn’t get elsewhere. Sadly, I never tried the chapulines (grasshoppers).

The latter third of Taco USA focuses on Mexican food products and drinks in US stores. This was less interesting to me, except when Gustavo discussed the history of brands like salsa El Tapatio. I was used to seeing it on the table at home, but was surprised when I started to see it as a condiment in restaurants or as a flavor for Doritos. I also got confused by all the entrepreneurs making money off Americans’ tastes for tortillas, salsa, tequila and more.

My only criticism is that Gustavo doesn’t discuss one popular critique or fear of Mexican food: it’s unhealthy and fattening. He does discuss the xenophobic fears, e.g., Mexican food is dirty, too spicy, or it’s going to cause some unfortunate digestive issues. This one got to me when I was losing weight and would read “Going out for Mexican, help!” on the Weight Watchers message boards as if Mexican food needed to be feared. Yes, I know, there are a lot of popular Mexican dishes that are fried and/or very cheesy. I love some of those, but it’s just one type of Mexican food. I lost a bunch of weight without ever giving up my beloved tortillas, (both corn and flour, not the cardboard like whole wheat kind either), tortas and tamales.

A life without tortillas would just be sad. I think Oscar Zeta Acosta, the Brown Buffalo, said it best:

What value is a life without booze and Mexican food?

Gustavo is currently on a media and book tour. Check out his schedule here. For more on the book, you can find a short interview with Arellano on LA Bloga and an excerpt in the LA Weekly. He also was on NPR this week discussing the rise of tacos and the origin of Taco Bell.

Edited: The NYT reviewed Taco USA in the Dining & Wine section this week. It’s a great review and gives you more of an overview of the book and about Gustavo’s career as a food critic and expert on all things Mexican American. If you haven’t exceeded your 10 pages/month limit, go read it.

V-day dinner by Chef Danny

Posted on February 18, 2012 by cindylu

My brother, Danny, invited Sean and I to a Valentine’s dinner over the weekend. I know V-Day isn’t a family oriented holiday, but Danny’s a trained chef and it’s kinda rare that I get to eat anything he makes. Whenever I see him he’s usually exhausted from work. Sean liked the idea of a home-cooked gourmet meal rather than going out to a restaurant.

Traffic from LA to Hacienda Heights was horrible, but it was worth it. Danny made a delicious dinner with a little help from me, Lori and Costco. I like helping him out, it actually makes me feel like I know something about cooking.

We sat down to dinner a little late, but it was fine with me and accommodated my parents’ schedule.

Green salad

Shrimp in a cayenne butter sauce with garlic asparagus

Filet mignon with a mushroom sauce, shrimp, roasted potatoes, asparagus and carrots (not pictured: garlic bread from the grocery store)

Apple pie a la mode (from Costco)

I was so stuffed.

My favorites were definitely the cayenne shrimp and the mushroom sauce.

As or VR, he was really working the puppy dog eyes angle to get some steak.

Burger Week recap

Posted on December 31, 2011 by cindylu

Some time in the spring, Sean emailed me a list of the best burgers in LA compiled by LAist. Even though Sean wanted to start working through the list, we never got around to it, at least not intentionally. We crossed off The Apple Pan as it was across the street from the theater where we saw Thor.

Earlier this month, LA Weekly posted another best burgers in LA list. Sean nudged me about it. We decided to make a dent in the list this week since we both are on vacation.

Thus, began Burger Week. After the second day, we made a spreadsheet in Google Docs and included any spot on LAist’s 2010 best burger list, 2011 list or LA Weekly’s 2011 list. Yeah, the spreadsheet is nerdy, but it made picking the next spot easier. We based our choices on type (“gourmet” vs “basic”) and location. Most of the high end burger spots are located on the Westside so we didn’t ever travel more than 6 miles.

MONDAY

Father’s Office Burger @ Father’s Office
Los Angeles (near Culver City)

FO is a familiar spot. It’s less than a mile away, but I don’t go very often as I’m not much of a drinker and it’s pricey for a burger. Still, after a few visits over the last few years, it’s easy to see why the FO burger is consistently listed as one of the best burgers in LA.

In short, it’s delicious. We both had the Father’s Office burger: Kobe beef, Gruyere, caramelized onions, applewood bacon compote, maytag blue cheese and arugula on a roll. I love the combination of Gruyere, arugula and caramelized onions. We passed on the shoestring fries (they’re good) and split a basket of sweet potato fries with garlic aioli on the side for dipping. The burger is great, but the sweet potato fries with garlic aioli are my favorite menu item. Since FO is a gastropub known for a wide beer selection, we paired our burgers with Unibroue Fin du Monde.

Heads up:
It’s not cheap, but you get what you pay for. The burger can easily feed two people with smaller appetites. FO does not do substitutions and does not have ketchup in house. This has never bugged me. The LA location gets very crowded at peak hours and you might have to stand around waiting for a table or spot at the bar to open up before ordering food. Be patient.

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Tamales tally

Posted on December 25, 2011 by cindylu

Tamales are not my favorite Mexican food. They’re not even in the top five.

I used to pride myself on how few of them I could eat each Christmas season. Usually the count was somewhere around 2. I’d have one of the spicy red chile and pork tamales and one of the sweet cinnamon, pineapple and raisin ones for breakfast. The sweet ones are always best as breakfast on Christmas morning when my mom places them on a comal or a pan to toast them lightly. A savory/spicy tamal works just as well for breakfast.

This year, I’ve been craving tamales. Prior to Christmas, I’d only eaten on tamal and that bugged me. That changed last night and this morning when we had the traditional tamales and a bunch of other delicious food. Funny thing, Sean asked me if it was okay to have tamales for breakfast. I almost laughed at him. It’s not only okay, it’s condoned and might be the only thing available aside from some beans and eggs. He’s a newbie at Mexican Christmas.

The tamal tally is currently 4. Let’s see how many more I can eat.

***

It used to really bug me when I heard people refer to the singular tamal as tamale. It sounds wrong to my bilingual ear, but I know the English translation is tamale. In fact, my spell checker has tamal as incorrect and tamale as correct. I mentioned this to a friend once and he mentioned that tamale is closer to the Nahuatl word, “tamalli.” He reasoned that tamal was the bastardized Nahuatl term for the food we’ve come to love.

Anyway, who talks about tamales in the singular anyway? If you eat just one, you’re doing it wrong. Or you’re saving room for all the other delicious food. I can’t blame you too much.

NY vacation and engagement party eats

Posted on October 21, 2011 by cindylu

Sean and I didn’t have much of an agenda for our NY trip. There were only a few things we wanted to do and see. Of course, some of those things were food related.

We arrived on Wednesday night and went straight to the future in-law’s home in Long Island. We were very hungry as we’d only eaten breakfast and snacks on the plane. Sadly, JetBlue stopped carrying Munchies. That was one of my favorite parts about my monthly flights to/from JFK. I actually complained about it on the customer satisfaction survey. Kenny (future brother-in-law) picked us up form the airport. On the way there he told us Mrs C (fMIL) had made a steak dinner. It was delicious. No, I don’t have photos.

A few hours later, we were ready for dessert: Dunkin’ Donuts. LA transplants, especially those from NY, have a lot of valid reasons to complain about LA. One of those is often the lack of DD. We used to have DD, but the donut market was already saturated with mom and pop shops and Winchell’s. Although you can’t go to a DD in LA, you can buy a gift card at drugstores or grocery stores. Sean ate a few vanilla donuts. I tried a few of the season flavors (pumpkin, apple spice), but my favorite is still the simple glazed donut. We had DD a few more times on our trip.

On Thursday night, we went out to dinner with friends for Filipino Food Nite at Tito Rad’s in Queens. I missed the first Filipino Food Nite, but was glad for the second. We ate family style and had several dishes including: fried calamari, lumpia (yum!), chicken adobo, pork adobo, sisig, pancit, tuna, and plain white rice.

The Meatball Shop was the only restaurant on our to-do/see/visit list. We went on Friday afternoon, our first day back in Manhattan. Luckily, there was no wait. I had the special, the chile relleno meatball. It was less spicy than I expected and they were a little stingy with the perfectly spicy tomatillo salsa. I tend to load my tacos with cilantro, and was sad that it could barely be tasted in the meatballs. I had butternut squash with ricotta and candied walnuts on the side.

On Friday evening, we attended a birthday party at the Mercury Bar. The bar is two doors down from Pizza 33, which Sean recommended. Rather than eat at the bar, we stepped out for Ziti pizza. The pizza was too dry, adding red pepper flakes helped. It wasn’t the best pizza I’ve had in NY, but it was certainly enough to fuel some drinking and dancing.

On Saturday night, the future in-laws hosted a small engagement party. Although Sean’s met most of my extended family, I’ve only met his parents and brother. Mrs C did a great job cooking up a variety of Jamaican dishes for the party. I’m not too familiar with Jamaican food. I’ve had a few typical dishes (e.g., beef patties, jerk chicken, oxtail soup, red beans and rice), but still have a lot to learn. The menu for the party included: jerk chicken, jerk pork, BBQ ribs, fried chicken, mussels, salmon, oxtail soup, a paella-like seafood and rice dish, a few different types of rice, mac n’ cheese, green salad, beef patties, saltfish and crackers, and green beans. I know I’m forgetting something.

Despite filling up my plate twice, I didn’t get to try everything. There was a lot of food leftover which we ate for the next couple of days. My favorite was the very tender jerk chicken and jerk pork. It was quite spicy (much more than the one Sean occasionally makes).

I washed this all down with some wine and later some very sweet and potent rum punch and rum cake.

Every day is like (a Lenten) Friday

Posted on April 5, 2011 by cindylu

I gave up meat for Lent. I chose meat over sweets because the former seemed easier. I’m still eating fish, seafood and eggs, so it’s basically like every day is a Lenten Friday.

I’ve never gone so long without eating poultry or red meat. It was a bit challenging initially. I wasn’t eating enough protein and was hungry all the time. Plus, I was still training for the marathon and I worried that the change in diet might negatively affect me. It didn’t.

After the first couple of weeks, I’ve adjusted to the new diet. I miss meat, but not too much. There have only been a couple of instances when I really wanted meat. One was when I was right in front of the taco stand at my family’s fundraiser. The tacos de pollo, al pastor and carne asada smelled so good. It didn’t help that I wasn’t interested in any of the meatless options. A second was after the marathon. I really wanted a cheeseburger but settled for a salmon burger.

I miss meat more out of convenience. When I cook, I usually make something with chicken or beef. If I don’t have time to pack anything for lunch, I typically make a turkey or ham sandwich, or I grab a Trader Joe’s microwavable meal. Those usually have chicken. I’ve tried TJ’s vegetarian microwavable meals and they’re either not satisfying or just taste bad.

The best part of this has been trying out new recipes and cooking some things I love but never make (e.g., tacos de papa). Over the weekend I made El Chavo’s veggie mole. I had this at his house last year and loved it despite not caring for tofu. I followed El Chavo’s directions to a tee and my veggie mole was delicious. Sean even had seconds. [Note: the chilaquiles, soyrizo with papas and beans up there were made by El Chavo too. Very delicious. He needs to post up a recipe for the salsa he used on the chilaquiles.]

If anything, I know that giving up meat for 40 days is much easier than giving up tortillas. I dreamt about tortillas three times then, but haven’t had any dreams about cheeseburgers or tacos de pollo asado… yet.

Paper bagging it…

Posted on March 19, 2010 by cindylu

Perhaps I shouldn’t have read Gustavo’s article on the dearth of comida Zacatecana in LA.

Such diversity is a natural result of decades of Mexican migration, but there’s one glaring anomaly: Zacatecas’ culinary traditions are virtually invisible in local restaurants.

This quirk belies demography. The state is to modern-day Southern California what Iowa was for a previous generation of Angelenos: a place known for its work ethic and its conservative values, and for sending hundreds of thousands of its residents to our sunny wonderland.

Now I’m hungry. Not for queso añejo (which my siblings and I always called queso de pata/feet cheese), or even asado (which I don’t really like and have never had at a wedding), but for a torta de chorizo (which I can’t have today, anyway).

My family doesn’t have a quesero, but we do have a chorisero. Every few months, we’ll get a paper bag with some chorizo links. It’s the best chorizo I’ve ever had, not the crap you buy at the store. Last time I had one, a few days after Christmas, was to prove to my Papá Chepe that I do eat.

I wonder if Mamá Toni has made any of her gorditas de frijoles lately. Those would be yummy today. Or capirotada.

Damn. I hope Mamá Toni saves me some.

Chilaquiles at Homegirl Café

Posted on January 22, 2010 by cindylu

I love chilaquiles. They’re so simple yet so tasty.

A couple of years ago I started a project to review chilaquiles at local Mexican restaurants. I did one review and then let the project go, but continued to eat my fair share of chilaquiles. The problem with reviewing food is that a photo is necessary, but I often forget to stop and take a picture.

On Friday morning, I was patient… at least for a minute.
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Nopalitos

Posted on April 18, 2008 by cindylu

nopales

For a long time, I thought all Mexicans in the LA-area had nopales (cactus) in their backyard. Of course, my sample size was small. All my relatives had nopales growing in their backyard. We did too.

The nopales, spread out in a corner of the backyard against a brick wall, were a nuisance to us kids who had to be extra careful while playing. On the plus side, I’m sure they deterred a thief or two from climbing the wall and we were never burglarized.

For Mamá Toní, a native of Zacatecas where nopales grew on every cerro (hillside), nopales are meant to be eaten. They’re for ensaladas and guisos. They go excellent with tortas de camarón during Lent and are an excellent side dish with carne asada. (I won’t even get in to the tasty tunas, or cactus pears.)

Nopales are not only on our frentes, they’re in our tummies too.
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Hot dog!

Posted on February 1, 2008 by cindylu

“I’ve never had a bacon-wrapped hot dog.”

My friend almost choked, even though he wasn’t eating anything at the time. He coughed and gasped for air.

“What?!” he finally exclaimed.

His reaction was as incredulous as Diego’s and everyone else’s in the comments to my Obama town hall recap.

Yes, I’ve lived in LA [county, Hacienda Heights isn't in the city] my entire life and never had the desire to eat a danger dog or Salvi Dog or TJ Dog or Club Dog.

I remember my introduction to the bacon-wrapped hot dog: July 5, 1994.

I was 13 years old and caught up in World Cup fever. Mexico and Bulgaria were playing in the round of 16. I’d gone over to my friend Star’s house in Walnut to watch the game with her family. Her mom, Angelita, and tías were in the kitchen working on lunch while everyone else watched the game in suspense.

Star has the honor of being the first and only person to ever offer me a bacon-wrapped hot dog.

I looked at it like I look at cauliflower, with pure disdain and disgust.

“You’ve never had one of these?” Star asked incredulously?

“Nope.”

“Don’t you want to try one?” her sister, Miriam, chimed in.

“Nope. That just looks weird. I like my hot dogs plain. Just a little ketchup, mayo and maybe mustard.”

They shrugged their shoulders and asked their mom for a bacon-less weenie. I enjoyed my plain hot dog and chalked up the difference in hot dog preference to the girls’ Guadalajara origins.

Mexico and Bulgaria tied with one goal each. Bulgaria later won the game in penales. It was excruciating.

The events of that day have been repeated several times since. Every time Mexico loses in the Mundial or loses to the US I feel as crappy as I did 13 years ago. And every time I see a bacon-wrapped hot dog, I scrunch my nose and give it the cara de fuchi.

Simply put, no se me antojan.

Lotería Chicana

Category Archives: Comida