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