Taco Cabana – Albuquerque, New Mexico
In 1972, English author Diana Kennedy, the doyenne of Mexican cuisine, penned The Cuisines of Mexico, a Mexican cookbook in which she described Texas’s Mexican food as “inauthentic,” coining the term “Tex-Mex.” Kennedy essentially drew a line of demarcation between the foods of her beloved Mexico, what she viewed as “the real thing” and the foods prepared North of the Border. Her assertion was that most Mexican food in America is technically of Tex-Mex derivation (yes, that includes New Mexican cuisine). Meghan McCarron’s feature on Tex-Mex cuisine for Eater seems to indicate Kennedy’s low regard for Tex-Mex cuisine is rather widespread: “The standard narrative about Tex-Mex is that it’s an inauthentic, unartful, cheese-covered fusion, the kind of eating meant to be paired with unhealthy amounts of alcohol or to cure the effects thereof. There’s a lot of easy-melt cheese, the margaritas are made with a mix, and the salsas come from a bottle.” Just what is Tex-Mex and why does it inspire such rancor? According to Serious Eats, Tex-Mex cuisine “ is rooted in the state’s Tejano culture (Texans of Spanish or Mexican heritage who lived in Texas before it became a republic) and also Mexican immigrants who hailed largely…
