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