Dallas Food Blog

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

In Spain, as well as throughout Latin America, the dining public is big on pig. How big? Well, it is estimated that the entire chorizo production of Spain is 65,000 tons annually, more than the weight of 10,800 adult male African elephants or 406 Boeing 747s--which is equally hard to fathom unless you're into that kind of comparison.

Much of this sausage is made from fresh pork mixed with garlic, herbs, and paprika, then cold-smoked and cured over a number of months. The finished product is thin-sliced, similar to Italian proscuitto, and served as one of the star ingredients in Spain's numerous tapas bars.

But here's the real question: What's the difference between Spanish chorizos and Mexican?

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Puerto de Veracruz is a bustling metropolis of half-a-million located on the Gulf of Mexico. Its rich history stretches back to Pre-Columbian times, and it is sometimes called The Four Times Heroic City after resisting two invasions from the United States and two from France.

One of the French invasions is known today as The Pastry War--what else would the French fight over?--and occurred when a French chef had his shop looted by Mexican officers. French diplomats demanded 600,000 pesos from the Mexican government as recompense. When payment from President Anastasio Bustamante was not forthcoming, the French Navy sortied to blockade all Mexican ports and to seize the city of Veracruz.

Eventually, Mexico capitulated and ordered payment of the pesos.

A chicken fried steak, by any other name...

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Let's suppose a job offer landed in your lap that's just too good to be true. The money is a significant upgrade from your present position.

Only one problem: You'd have to move out of state, possibly even out of the country. How could you possibly leave Texas and all the Lone Star things you hold near and dear, such as chicken-fried steak? I mean, do other cultures have anything like our thick Texas beef, pounded tender, breaded, fried, and covered with an impossibly rich layer of cream gravy seasoned with just the right amount of salt and pepper?

You may be surprised to learn that the answer is yes. It's called milanesa and is actually rather common in Europe and South America.

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Say the word 'empanada' anywhere in Latin America, and you'll most likely get an instant nod of affirmation. That's because the little wrapped pastries (the word literally means " wrapped or enveloped in bread") may be the most ubiquitous dish south of the border, appearing in virtually every cuisine.

As usual, there's some uncertainty as to where and when the the dish was first created. Many of those who study such things believe they may be derived from the savory pastries introduced to Spain by Arabs during the eighth century conquests. Others insist their origin came later--though from the same region.

Whatever--in Spain and Portugal, the empanada is prepared as a large pie and cut into pieces. The European version is most often filled with pork, chorizo, or seafood. In Argentina they use chicken, beef, corn, or spinach. Move to Colombia and Ecuador, you find corn flour instead of wheat (for the most part), while in Mexico, empanadas may be either savory or sweet, as it is not uncommon to find fruit-filled varieties served as dessert.

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Cochinita pibil, a slow-roasted Mexican pork dish which originated on the Yucatan peninsula, is often made from suckling pig. Of course, in these less literal times, cooks use butt or loin as well.

During Mayan times (in other words, before the Spanish introduced domesticated pigs) the feast was prepared with whatever game they could snare--rabbit, boar, venison, armadillo--according to food writer Betty Hallock in her Los Angeles Times article, "The Year of the Tasty Pig."

Carolina Buia and Isabel C Gonzalez note in their entertaining guide, Latin Chic, that tacos de cochinita pibil are found everywhere in the Yucatan, "from street stands in Cancun to fine restaurants in Playa del Carmen."

Traditionally, cochinita is prepared in a coal-filled pit, similar to that Hawaiian luau staple, Kalua pig. But the Latin Chic recipe calls for marinating the meat in anchiote paste and citrus juices.

Ooops...wrong image.

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

"If everybody had an ocean/Across the U.S.A/Then everybody'd be surfin'/Like Californ-I-a/You'd see 'em wearing their baggies/Huarache sandals too..."

Despite the popularity brought to them by the Beach Boys way back when, huaraches aren't just a type of shoe. In fact, they are an oblong-shaped delicacy made from fresh masa, flattened into a form that is roughly the same thickness as pita bread, then fried and topped with a variety of goodies such as black beans, chorizo, cheese, and vegetables.

Oh, the finished product does resemble a sandal in appearance, but that's about it. Writing in the Houston Press, Robb Walsh notes that huaraches likely originated in Mexico City during the 1930s, when Carmen Gomez opened a restaurant serving tlacoyos. Since customers noted that tlacoyos looked like Mexican sandals, the creation earned the nickname huarache--a term that has been around since pre-Columbian times and came from the Purhepecha word "kwarachi."

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

No matter that you haven't read the strip in many years, or even if you've never perused the comic that has been a staple of the funny papers across the country for over 70 years, you still probably know that Dagwood Bumstead snacks on impossibly tall sandwiches. Perhaps you've even eaten a Dagwood sandwich yourself, wondering all the while how a man rapidly approaching middle age can consume such humongous things.

Well, in Mexico, Dagwood's sandwich would be called a torta.

Famed Austin etymologist Barry Popik cites numerous examples where a torta is described as a Mexican Poor Boy, particularly in the States. But  calling it a Mexican Dagwood gets the point across better. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Patricia Quintana and Meg Rose agree--and describe a typical Mexico City street scene where the overstuffed sandwiches are sold from push carts:

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

"Arnold Layne had a strange hobby/Collecting clothes/Moonshine, washing line/They suit him fine"

OK, so what in the name of Pink Floyd does a song about a dirty old Brit have to do with a Canary Islands standard of shredded pork or flank steak in a tomato-based sauce? Quite a bit, actually.

Ropa Vieja means "old clothes" in Spanish, and as usual, there is a delightful legend as to how the dish acquired its name. Seems a poor gentlemen learned that his family was coming over to his house for dinner, and he had nothing in the larder to feed them. In desperation, he gathered some old clothes from his closet, and proceeded to shred and cook the tattered rags.

Miraculously, they turned into a wonderful stew-like concoction thanks to his great faith in family. It's the Pinocchio story...or have there been other such transformations?

OK, so the song was a bit of a stretch. But since Spanish ships carried the dish to other parts of the New World, Ropa vieja has actually found a home in many Latin cuisines, always with local variations.

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Migas, chilaquiles, menudo. In this series, we've written numerous times about savory South-of-the-border breakfast and brunch dishes. But what about pastries such as dulce de leche cake or alfajores cookies or pan dulces? And why can't we get good old All-American pancakes in Latin countries?

Important question, that. You can get pancakes, but they may or may not be sweet, and they may not taste a whole lot like what your neighborhood IHOP produces on Sunday mornings. In fact, they may be made from corn.

Say hello to cachapas, the All-South-American treat said to be the national dish of Venezuela, or one of them anyway.

Pedroserafin

A Spanish version of migas.

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Eggs, tortilla strips, onions, chiles, and cheese. Or bread, oil & vinegar, spinach, alfalfa, and....licorice flavoring??

Believe it or not, these are some of the raw ingredients of two classic versions of that breakfast staple, migas.

You are, no doubt, familiar with the Tex-Mex incarnation of the dish, which is yet another rendition of eggs and is quite similar in composition to chilaquiles and huevos rancheros. Yet in Europe, migas are quite different.

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

How do you describe a tostada? As with many Latin dishes, it often depends on what side of the border you come from.

In Texas, or most of the other Estados Unidos, the tostada ("toasted") is most familiar in its classic Tex-Mex, taco-salad-wannabe incarnation: Seasoned ground beef or refried beans spread on a flat, fried corn tortilla, then covered with diced tomato, shredded lettuce, cheese, and salsa.

You know them well, and your corner Taco Whatever has them readily available for your late-night runs when you are beset by the drinking munchies. Tostada perfection, yes?

Not so fast, says Rick Bayless, frequent Food Network guest and author of Mexico: One Plate at a Time. His South-of-the-border-inspired Black Bean Tostadas with Smoky Salsa are made Oaxacan-style with anise-scented avocado leaf, pasilla or chipotle chiles, and goat cheese. As usual, he elucidates further on his favorite lunch snack's sexy savoriness:
 

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

In Puerto Vallarta, you can enjoy pozole poolside. According to food writer Eduardo Rincon-Gallardo, the only place to enjoy the savory pork and hominy stew in the Mexican seaside resort town in its green incarnation (rather than the more common red version found in the U.S.) is a restaurant called Aqui es Guerrero, a charming, straw-thatched-roof venue located by the pool at the entrance to the Hotel Vallarta Sol. He notes that the main ingredient of posole verde is corn treated with calcium called cacahuazintle, along with shredded pork, onion, garlic, oregano, avocado, dried ground chili pepper, and other spices.

Apparently, the atmosphere at Guerrero also includes some feathered friends, for he notes, "While I write this, a noisy flock of parrots keeps flying overhead, then disappearing into my neighboring tree, once perched they become invisible, but to watch them flying as a thunderous bright green crowd is a delight!"

Hard to find delight in the thought of...never mind, you get the point. As those in the infantry used to say, only two things drop from the sky, one being paratroopers.

In her book My Mexico, Diana Kennedy confirms that pozole is indeed a Puerto Vallarta staple, adding that Thursday is the tradional day for the dish, and that white pozole is served in the mornings and green midday. In fact, pozole is so beloved by the people of the Jalisco town that she includes a recipe featuring shrimp as a substitute for pork.

​Seriously, you would think that the people of Mexico had enough hangover remedies. After all, this is the culture that gave us menudo, that savory dish of cow or sheep stomach soup that is de rigueur eating on New Year's morning--not to mention other sopas such as chicken tortilla, which many people claim to have the same desired effect.

Why do we need another?

Two answers: One, people might not exactly cotton to the idea of eating sheep stomach soup. More important: Chilaquiles, the delicious concoction of eggs, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and fried leftover tortilla strips is a great way to start any day. Besides, after a night of imbibing tequila, mezcal, or your favorite cervezas, you need all the help you can get.

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Be careful how you use the term "gordita". It can get you into trouble real fast.

Like many food-related expressions in Mexican culture, gordita has more than one meaning. You can use it colloquially as a term of endearment for a Rubenesque or full-figured young woman, like the English terms "little butterball" or "pleasingly plump"...

Um...doesn't really sound all that endearing, after all. Well, needless to say you must know your lady real well before addressing her in this fashion. Otherwise the response may hit like a ton of bricks.

Gorditas are also small masa tortillas patted into a circle, cooked over a griddle, then dropped into hot oil, where they balloon into a shape similar to a puffy taco, only thicker. The resulting pockets are then split and stuffed with guisos, chicken, chorizo, eggs, cheese, or whatever strikes the chefs fancy that day. The finished dish is a Mexican cousin of the El Salvadoran pupusa.
 

Ledelboy

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Ceviche is marinated seafood, so it should come as no surprise that Mexico and nearly every country in Central and South America with a coastline features it in their cuisine.

In an article entitled 'The Many Incarnations of Ceviche,' food writer Jami English compares the dish to Japanese sashimi and Italian crudo as an exhibition of the beauty of local seafood in its purest state. "Peruvian ceviche is arguably the simplest and most classic form of the dish. This version uses lime juice and onion as a base, and a firm-fleshed white fish, traditionally shark, sole, or corvina (sea bass). Octopus and shellfish, particularly shrimp, clams, and mussels, are also common ingredients depending on region. The Ecuadorian adaptation uses tomato in addition to citrus and is finished with a crunchy popcorn or nut garnish. Mexican ceviche gets an extra acidic boost from sliced onions, and Panama adds heat with Scotch bonnet peppers."

Chef Rafael Palomino, in his cookbook Bistro Latino named in honor of his famed former NYC restaurant, confirms that just about any fish that swims in waters warmed by the Humboldt Current can be used to make ceviche.

pdphoto.org

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

If you think cookout in Texan terms, you are usually thinking of brisket...well, steak and burgers, too--but that's everywhere. If you think of grilling in Mexican terms, though, it's carne asada all the way.

That's right--skirt or flank steak (in most cases), marinated, broiled over (hopefully) a wood or charcoal fire, sliced thin across the grain and served with fresh, hot tortillas.

Food writer Derrick Riches reminds us that in Mexico, carne asada is not just a dish, it's a celebration. "In Mexico and the American Southwest, you will find that Carne Asada is the Mexican equivalent of Barbecue. I mean that in the party sense of the word. Traditionally a large fire pit is used to prepare this party, but you can use whatever you have. Since everything is prepared over direct heat, you don't need a lid or a fancy grill. The cut of beef you use doesn't need to be fancy either."

Some say Montezuma (Moctezuma) was a big fan of mole.

​On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

If you've never been farther than Tacos Bell and Bueno, then it's quite likely that you've never heard of mole, or if you have, that you dismissively think of it as "that chocolate sauce," and wonder why anyone would put such a thing atop enchiladas.

Not so fast. In her book, The Cuisines of Mexico, Diana Kennedy cautions against such a quick conclusion when it comes to mole: "Well, it isn't a chocolate sauce. One little piece of chocolate...goes into a large casserole full of rich dark-brown and russet chilies. And anyone I've ever served this to has been surprised and delighted, for in this, as in other Mexican sauces, the seasonings and spices are not used with such a heavy hand that they vie with each other for recognition but rather build up to a harmonious whole."

On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Say cheese.

Quesadilla translates as "little cheesy thing"--so no true recipe can exist without it. Even vegan variations tend to use soy cheese prominently. Writing in his book Mexico: One Plate at a Time, Rick Bayless lists three basic types of quesadillas, the primary difference being their methods of preparation:

"The one prepared from a ready-made tortilla (mostly a corn tortilla in Mexico, a flour one in the United States) that's folded around melting cheese and lightly crisped on a griddle is easy to make very good as long as the tortilla is fresh and the cheese is melting and tasty....Our second recipe, the griddle-baked quesadilla made from masa that's pressed out, laid on the griddle, filled and folded, is best when the masa is pressed thin enough to be in proportion to the filling....The third recipe, the fried quesadilla, is perfect when the masa is pressed thin, there's an epazote-flavored nugget of melted cheese inside, and the outside is crispy but tender and greaseless."

On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Why in the world would anyone crave a bowl cow or sheep stomach soup? They do a stuffed stomach dish in Scotland, but that's just to get through Burns Night and all that Scotch...Oh. Great for hangovers.

Of course, a glass of water with each alcoholic drink probably works better, but where's the fun in that?

Like so many of the dishes in Mexico, menudo may have originated in Pre-Colombian times, and there are several variations. Menudo in Sonora may be blanco (white) rather than rojo (red) as it is in Chihuahua. In Central Mexico, they sometimes refer to soup made from sheep's tripe (stomach) as menudo and soup made from beef tripe as pancitas. And pozole involves pork.

On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

If Cole Porter, world-famous composer, musical philosopher and inspiration for the Jonas Brothers...yeah, right...were alive today and writing about food instead of music, he might term El Salvador's love affair with pupusas this way: "Birds eat them/Bees eat them/Even educated fleas eat them." And in El Salvador, make no mistake, El Presidente himself partakes of the humble street food. So beloved are the hand-made corn flatbreads that November 13th has been declared National Pupusa Day in that country.

Basically, pupusas are created by shaping masa harina or fresh masa into flat corn cakes, preferably by slapping them from hand to hand much like a tortilla--although using a tortilla press is also acceptable. After shaping the masa mix into small balls, pupusas are stuffed with a filling and are fried in a griddle or skillet until done. Ground or shredded pork and shredded cheese are commonly employed as fillings, along with onions, garlic, jalapenos, chopped tomato and tomato broth, cumin and salt.

From street vendor snack to the frozen food aisle.

On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Sometime toward 3 a.m., when the drinking is (usually) winding down and serious munchies coming on, almost anything will make for a snack, providing it releases the right amount of filler and fat into your system. 

If you're in San Diego there are plenty of options. According to David Moye, in his article, "Roll Another Number for the Road," published in San Diego's Citybeat magazine, you simply head out to one of "those ubiquitous taco shops like Roberto's, Alberto's, Gilberto's, etc., (which) are practically the only restaurants running (during those hours) with full steam and grease."

Here in Dallas, you might possibly locate a manned pushcart in Oak Cliff or Webb Chapel during those hours. You may have staked out a permanent stand, as well--one drawing a steady stream of multilingual traffic. Or if you're like some of us, you head straight for Whataburger and chow down on one of their taquitos, which are really soft tacos in disguise.

So the tightly rolled snacks are familiar to many people. But what's the difference between a taquito and a flauta?

On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Jon Sullivan

"Was there ever a fruit as sensual as the avocado? So rough-hewn, dare-to-touch-me masculine on the outside, so yielding, inviting, soft spring green and feminine inside?...It's no wonder that this perfect fruit begs to be mashed to enhance its melting, natural spreadable quality...Avocado flesh by itself has an unctuous quality and subtle flavor--no need to dilute it."

Wow.

The above undiluted description of everyone's favorite green dip, not surprisingly, comes to us courtesy of flowery Rick Bayless, author of Mexico: One Plate at a Time. After such a description, it is easy to understand what the late, great Richard Pryor meant when he said, "(After that), I need eight hours sleep. And a bowl of Wheaties."

On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

Drywontonmee

"When you have four hundred pounds of beans in the house, you need have no fear of starvation. Other things, delicacies such as sugar, tomatoes, peppers, coffee, fish or meat, may come sometimes miraculously, through the intercession of the Virgin, sometimes through industry or cleverness; but your beans are there, and you are safe. Beans are a roof over your stomach. Beans are a warm cloak against economic cold." --from Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck.

Simply put, beans are the food of the poor in Hispanic countries, and have been so for thousands of years.

Diana Kennedy, the high priestess of Mexican cuisine, notes in her book The Cuisines of Mexico, that if you travel throughout the country, you will notice canvas awnings set up on market days in every small town and village, where vendors and small-time growers hawk an astonishing array of legumes. "The black veracruzanos, the purple mottled flor de mayo, the deep yellow canarios, the brownish bayos or sabinos, the white aluvias, and big green and white habas...overflowing the big woven baskets, or poured into piles like slag heaps in the marketplace."

Kvanhorn, via Flickr

On The Range is a weekly exploration of the history and lore of Texas menu items.

San Francisco in the mid-1960's. Peace, love, and cable cars. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

If you were into music, you could go to the Avalon Ballroom or Bill Graham's Fillmore West Auditorium and for a couple of bucks hear such bands as Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Quicksilver Messenger Service, whose thirty-minute workouts on Bo Diddley's classic "Who Do You Love" are the stuff of legend. But for no cost at all, you could make your way to Golden Gate Park, where the Diggers organized free food for all ("It's free because it's yours!"), every day at 4PM. You were merely asked to bring your own bowl and spoon.

Or, if you were really adventurous, you could wander down to the Mission District, birthplace of the modern San Francisco-style burrito--available today virtually everywhere in Dallas.

Goats helped settle America.

Not kidding: According to Robb Walsh, author of The Tex-Mex Cookbook, goats were the preferred diet of common folk in Europe, so when Columbus sailed to the New World on his second voyage in 1493 he brought goats for meat, cheese, and milk--along with Spanish shepherds to make it all happen. They brought sheep, as well, but they were raised for wool, not eaten at dinnertime.

In his memoir, Are You Really Going to Eat That?, Walsh describes a memorable cabrito al pastor (young kid goat roasted on a spit over a mesquite fire) meal in Monterrey, Mexico, the cabrito capital of the world, with his at-first somewhat reluctant family in tow:

Mike McCune

Little bits of meat--that's the literal definition of carnitas, those bite-size morsels of pork that have served as a favorite snack food throughout central Mexico for many years.

However, according to eminent British food historian Rachel Laudan, carnitas are actually the preferred food of rural weddings in places such as the south-central Mexican state of Michoacan, where an entire pig is often slaughtered to feed hungry masses. These traditional feasts are prepared in huge copper pots and use massive amounts of lard for flavoring...although in today's more health-conscious environment, pork butt (shoulder) is used and the meat is often braised or roasted.

Too bad, says Laudan. You may be inadvertently missing the juiciest and tastiest bits. Here is her description of how to order carnitas in a restaurant in Mexico, specifically El Ricas in the booming town of Silao, Guanajuato:

Chiles rellenos, Emeril-style

Poblano peppers or Anaheim?

When making chiles rellenos, the chef must first consider which pepper might better serve his or her vision of the completed dish. Indeed, they are similar and both are widely used, but tasting reveals subtle but noticeable differences. The leaner Anaheim pepper is actually American in origin, specifically New Mexico by way of California, and its flavor is often more delicate--which some might argue serves as a better canvas for the stuffing and sauce. The slightly more robust Poblano is truly Mexican, having borrowed its name from the state of Puebla, where it originated.

When dried the Poblano is called an 'Ancho' and can no longer be stuffed, but is useful in making moles. Needless to say, Ancho-based moles are the pride of Pueblan or Oaxacan cuisine.

In The Cuisines of Mexico, Diana Kennedy describes a lengthy traditional preparation which includes roasting Poblanos in a broiler until the skin blisters, stuffing with pork tomatillo, coating the pepper in an egg-white batter, then frying it before finally serving in a tomato-based broth. If queso de Oazaca is used in place of the tomatillo, the resulting dish is called Chiles Rellenos de Queso.

What's in a name?

Unless I miss my guess, the guy who first coined the expression must have been thinking about guisado, a Mexican branch of the stew family. Why is this the case? You can answer the question by trying a simple experiment.

Think about beef stew. What images does it evoke? If your parents were good cooks, you may be rewarded with images of juicy, tender comfort food consumed slowly on a cold winter night. Unfortunately, for me it's a reminder of the meat-veggies-and-water combo that my usually-dependable parents would set on the table: Dull, drab, and boring, because they didn't reduce the liquid enough or flavor the stock.

I'd often opt for frozen pizza instead.

Mexican cooks reuse leftovers like nobody's business.

Consider the plight of the frugal family in days of yore, north or south of the border. The basics of life--shelter and food--are not certainties. Since the beginning of farming, rural families learned not to toss any part of a plant or animal that could make a nice meal with just a little ingenuity. Thus dishes such as lengua (beef tongue) or barbacoa de cabeza (slow-cooked cow's head) were born.

Even low-cost items like tortillas are part of this waste-not ethos.

Toasted monkey or [expletive deleted]?

These are the two prevailing definitions for the origin of the term chimichanga, that ever-popular fried burrito that has become a staple at Tex-Mex establishments.

Chimichangas may have originated as early as the 1940's, when cooks at a bar in Nogales, Arizona baked (not fried) one and called it "toasted monkey" due to the finished product's simian-like color. Changa in Mexican Spanish means female monkey--although other Latin countries find different meanings for the term, including business deal, porterage, joke, and payment. In short, a word with multiple meanings.

The more colorful self-censorship theory comes to us courtesy of Nora Burba Trulsson, author of "Chimichanga Mysteries...", an influential Sunset Magazine article detailing the dish's main origin theory. Her primary source was Carlotta Flores, owner of Tucson's El Charro Café, who recounted a family legend in which Flores's great-aunt, Monica Flin, was flipping burros (as burritos are often called in Arizona) in the kitchen one day when one accidentally dropped into the deep-fat fryer.