DEAR MEXICAN: As a proud New Yorker, I gotta ask: What the FUCK is up with Mexican food in this city? Sure, we’re used to getting owned by California and Texas and even Chicago when it comes to getting cheap, regional Mexican food. But I just got back from Philadelphia, where I was able to score some mighty-fine tortas and DF-style tacos that seriously kicked the ass of anything I’ve ever had in Manhattan. Philly, for fuck’s sake! To put that in perspective for you Californians, Philly is the Guatemala of the East Coast!
How can it be that in a city where just about every commercial kitchen in every imaginable cuisine is powered by some seriously world-class Mexican talent, we can’t get decent, affordable Mexican food without having to go to Queens or Brooklyn or the Bronx? Sure, we’ve got Rosa Mexicano and Mercadito and the like—but I can’t afford to spend a month’s rent on one meal. All I want is a nice taqueria that I don’t have to traverse a bridge or a tunnel to get to. This isn’t Arizona! Everyone’s a damn immigrant here! So why are we being punished like this?
Deprived
DEAR GABACHO: Are you a proud New Yorker—or a proud Manhattanite? Because you answered your question in your pregunta. The Big Manzana historically didn’t have great Mexican food—although it did play a crucial role in the development of Mexican food in the United States, but you’ll have to wait until next year for the details, which will be found in my book Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (And Soon, the World)—because Mexicans didn’t migrate to the region in large numbers. That has changed in the past 20 years, with the 2000 Census showing that Mexicans were New York’s fastest-growing ethnic group—and that was before the Reconquista truly wrapped its mestizo hands around Gotham! You have some of the highest concentrations of people from Puebla and Hidalgo in the United States, so feast on barbacoa and cemitas poblanas (sandwiches that make hoagies seem as puny as a singular pierogi) to your panza’s content—and leave the whining to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.
DEAR MEXICAN: I’m a huge fan of yours, and I decided I would at long last ask the Mexican a question! I sat down this morning to drink my mocha and realized I had no idea how Mexicans like their coffee. The Europeans have espresso, the Americans have the mud at McDonald’s, but what do the Mexicans have? Help me, amigo!
Caffeine Cabrona
DEAR GABACHA: Mexicans prefer café de olla—coffee from the pot, preferably lead-lined—spiced with cinnamon and piloncillo, unrefined brown sugar usually formed into a cylindrical triangle from which Mexis smash off pieces. Café de olla is like a Mexican woman—spicy, sweet, caliente, perfect for late nights, early mornings and slow, gentle blowing on its top before sipping.
SHAMELESS PLUG! Not for me, for once, but for the most-Mexican gabacho I know who’s not a cousin-in-law: Robb Walsh, the Gibbon of Texas food history. He recently came out with a new book, The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbecue Cookbook, and Walsh being Walsh, it’s no mere grab bag of great, easily reproducible recipes. You also get gorgeous pictures and stories on the different facets of Tex-Mex cuisine. Learn, for instance, about the curious history of the fajita or the advent of the margarita. A great, useful read, and like I say in the blurb I contributed to the back of the book: Anyone who doesn’t buy it deserves deportation. Learn more at robbwalsh.com, and felíz grilling!
Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him onTwitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!
