What's the difference between Mexican and Tex Mex again...

What's the difference between Mexican and Tex Mex again? Is mixing beans and meat in the same burrito treyf for Mexicans?

Mexico is a huge country, coastal regions eat a lot of fish, northern regions eat more beef and wheat, southern regions eat more pork and maize, central highlands use nuts and herbs that aren't available anywhere else.

Tex Mex is basically just flyover food but with canned sliced jalapeños in vinegar, and a horrible thing called "queso" which has nothing to do with cheese but they gave it a Spanish name so that makes it somehow not an abomination in the eyes of the lord

Texmex is American inspired Mexican food.

Mexicans eat beans and burritos.

Forgot the atrocious use of cumin, and garbage ingredients. A lot of tex-mex is just a re-purposed hamburger.

TexMex is cowboy food similar to what's eaten in the border Mexican areas near Texas. Rice and flour tend to replace corn, dairy is heavily used and beef is the favored meat.

In other parts of Mexico the cuisine is built more heavily around masa, pork, seafood, fresh herbs, toasted spices and tends to be less heavy with the cowboy beef and dairy.

Cumin is used in some Mexican cuisine, though. Keep in mind that San Antonio was founded by Hispanicised Canarian Berbers whose native cuisine makes heavy use of cumin. Their cooking spread throughout what is today Texas and is why Tex Mex uses more cumin than Mexican cuisine does.
However, there is no shortage of recipes which use cumin hailing from Nuevo León, Tamaulipas and Veracruz, which are areas of Mexico which also experienced significant Canarian immigration.

I didn't know that. Cumin isn't native to Spanish or Spanish American cuisine?

It's a leftover from the Moorish/Arab invasions, but not very common in native mainland Spanish cuisine, no. Same with Sicily. However, in Canarian cuisine, it's super common.
The only spice brought to Spain (and Sicily) by the conquests that's still in common use today is saffron.

For Mexico, however, outside of Leb Mex cuisine, those states already mentioned, and a few moles, cumin just isn't used anywhere near as much as it is in Tex Mex cuisine, which uses it liberally.

As for Spanish American cuisine, I assume you mean 'Hispanic,' have I got that right? IE Spanish speaking people of the Americas and not Americans of Spanish descent, yes?
Well, not to flog un caballo muerto, but the Canarians also settled in large numbers on various Caribbean islands. To this day, cumin is used far more readily in mainstream Puerto Rican, Cuban and Dominican cuisines than it is in Mexican. And even in those, it's not used as much as it is in Tex Mex.

The border areas where Northern Mexican and Anglo/German settlers led to a very distinct regional cuisine. Wheat and rice became the staple starches instead of maize and the use of dairy products is much more common than in most of mexico. Beef is more commmon than pork.

There is a shitload of absolute garbage pretending to be tex mex all over the upper midewest but it's worse than taco bell.

Flour tortillas, tortas and guisado de res are great examples, as are birria and the many exellent cheeses made in northern Mexico.

More recent innovations like fajitas and chimichangas fit into the same framework.

If they use cheddar cheese or sour cream then it is texmex. If they have nacho cheese sauce or nachos then it is texmex. If they have hard shell tacos then it is texmex. If it has ground beef then it is texmex.

>It's a leftover from the Moorish/Arab invasions
You say that like it's nothing, but the Moors had the Iberian for 700 years. That's a long fucking time. Regardless of how diligently Christians tried to rout out every bit of Moorish influence it was impossible. It's alive and well in the cuisine, music, architecture, tile making and the asses of the women. And Ibreians brought that to the New World, no doubt.

Fun fact: The original tapas dish was a piece of ham on top of a glass of sherry. A great way to tell if your guest was a muslim or a jew under the guise of polite hospitality. Many of the remaining dishes of Moorish origin got baptized through the addition of pork. But a few live on unchanged, like Pisto Manchego and the chickpeas and spinach stew.

It wasn't said like it's nothing. Stop reading into things that aren't there to read into.

>It's alive and well in the cuisine
Not really. It's the Mediterranean. It all shares similar roots, even in areas with no history of Arab influence.

>chickpea stew
Chickpeas are eaten everywhere in the Med. Chickpea-based stews predate Islam by centuries and the Moorish invasians by millenia.

>music
Andalusian classical music is extinct in Spain, but alive and well throughout the Maghreb.

>architecture
>tile making
The two things that are undeniable remnants of Islamic conquest.

>and the asses of the women
Have you ever met any Maghrebi women? They have no ass definition at all! They're either shapeless or have scooter-riding Midwesterner-tier saggy butts.

>tapas ham story
Anecdotal at best, especially considering that Moors wouldn't drink alcohol and Spanish Jews had a long history of Cryptojudaism (IE outwardly following local custom in public, but begging forgiveness from god and keeping Jewish faith at home, and yes: even to the point of eating pork). Look up Cryptojudaism and Belmonte Jews.

>chickpea stew
The cumin in it is the give away.
>Andalusian classical music is extinct in Spain
Yet the guitar remains central, along with the Fado guitar in Portugal. These instruments are directly descended from Middle Eastern instruments brought to Spain by the Moors. I'd argue the prevalence of the harmonic minor scale has a similar history.
>Have you ever met any Maghrebi women?
In Morocco, yes. Traditional dress doesn't really show off their shape, but they're better endowed in the ass department than women of traditionally Christian Northern countries.

And in Andalusia there are still plenty of places where the food is free as long as you keep paying for drinks. How the fuck do you think such an odd tradition came about? It's a great way to make sure none of your patrons are Muslim, because you can't eat without drinking. I doubt that's a coincidence in a part of Europe the Christians had to violently take back from Muslim control just over 500 years ago.

If it uses wheat flour tortilla then it is texmex. If it has molten lava cake for dessert then it is texmex.

I just looked up, in Spanish, literally a hundred recipes for chickpea stew with spinach. Only two had cumin, one of which was called "curry" and the other "estilo marroqui" (literally "Moroccan style).
I've never in my life encountered garbanzos estofados con espinacas with cumin in it. Ever.

>In Morocco, yes. Traditional dress doesn't really show off their shape, but they're better endowed in the ass department than women of traditionally Christian Northern countries.
I'm sure I know many, many more Maghrebi women than you do, only a handful of whom wear traditional dress outside of going to Mosque. They're shapeless until they have their first kid, then they all develop secretary butt.
At least they're better than Middle Eastern women, who are hot until they have their first kid, then became hambeasts.

>How the fuck do you think such an odd tradition came about?
So are you talking about tapas or botanas? Because what you're describing is botanas, not tapas.
And I can only speculate on how the tradition for botanas came about, much in the same way you're doing. I would guess that it just happened organically, the same way that banchan/anju work in Korean dining/bar culture, respectively.

>Yet the guitar remains central, along with the Fado guitar in Portugal.
The guitar is descended of, both etymologically and evolutionarily, of the ancient Greek/Neapolitan kithara (theta in the Parthenopean pronunciation of ancient Greek being a soft T, like the quickly spoken double-T in the word 'chatter' rather than an English TH-sound like the TH in the word 'three').
The guitar's history in Spain predates Moorish conquest by about a thousand years.

>I'd argue that the harmonic minor scale is evidence
I'd argue that you're correct and that's something I overlooked.

>Only two had cumin
I only know the dish as it was served to me in Seville, and it definitely had cumin.
>I'm sure I know many, many more Maghrebi women than you do
I'm quitr sure you do. I have only been once, and spent most of my time in the medina in Fez.
>The guitar's history in Spain predates Moorish conquest by about a thousand years
Hard to trace it's history in Spain back before the 15th Century, and then the guitar was a four course instrument. The now standard six string version borrows its tuning from the viheula, which borrowed its tuning from from the lute, which came from the Middle Eastern oud.

Maybe.

As an aside, what I find high-larious is that musical instruments are forbidden by several hadiths (such as in the Sahih al-bukhaari) and recommended against in the Quran itself (in the 17th and 31st suwar).
According to al-Bukhaari, Mohammed likened the playing of musical instruments to adultery and drunkenness.

Working on the Sabbath is forbidden in the Bible. So is eating fat, wearing clothes with more than one kind of fiber, and, especially relevant for you: lying about being a virgin.

Is it really a surprise to you that another religion also has ridiculous rules?

Lying and bearing false witness aren't the same thing.

Why is
>lying about being a virgin
relevant for me?
Also
>implying i'm a jew/christian

>Mohammed likened the playing of musical instruments to adultery and drunkenness.
So did many American preachers, especially when it came to the violin.The reason the Appalachian dulcimer exists is because it was plain enough that a preacher who would never tolerate a violin would let it slide.

When you think about it the Middle East was what connected both Europe and Africa to India. The influence was felt not just of the cuisine, but in the music as well. Anywhere you find cumin you will find minor scales with a whiff of India on them.

It's safe to assume you live in a country with a Christian cultural background

Your selective outrage at passages in the Koran is therefore misplaced

You're obviously one of those people who flies into a rage at people eating horse meat or dog meat while happily chomping on a bacon cheeseburger because it never occurred to you that your eating taboos are taught and are not some inherent structure of the universe

>You're obviously one of those people who flies into a rage at people eating horse meat or dog meat while happily chomping on a bacon cheeseburger because it never occurred to you that your eating taboos are taught and are not some inherent structure of the universe
It can't be very obvious because it's complete hogwash and total rubbish.
Neither horse nor dog meat consumption is uncommon in my country. Well, dog meat isn't exactly common, but nor is it unheard of.

>Your selective outrage at passages in the Koran is therefore misplaced
What outrage? Finding something peculiar about another culture is now a sign of outrage?
Oh boy, here's some more outrage for you then: I wonder just how much of the noises deaf people make when they have conversations they can hear actually hear and think it's peculiar how touchy-feely the Deaf tend to be.
I find it peculiar that a friend of mine, explaining to me that she doesn't eat beef at home because of her grandmother's religious beliefs, ate steak with me and said "but she's not here to see me do it, so it's okay" then, when I pointed out that her grandmother is dead, she said "oh! You're right!! She could be anywhere!!!" and began bowing in various directions.
And I find it peculiar that anyone would liken playing an instrument to adultery.

Finding aspects of other cultures peculiar or funny is not any indication of outrage. At all.

Now, I'm no proctologist, but I know an arsehole when I see one: do you routinely fly off the handle at imagined slights or is this show of twattage a one-off?

You know how I can tell you're Swiss? No not the dog meat thing. It's because you're highly skilled at being a sanctimonious prick while pretending nobody noticed you have a basement full of dead jew teeth

Well, I certainly wouldn't want live teeth in my basement. They'd breed like rabbits. Where would I put my emergency supplies?

>And I find it peculiar that anyone would liken playing an instrument to adultery.
It's not much of a stretch, though. Music leads to dancing, and dancine leads to fucking. Works that way in many cultures around the world.

The Propher just too the control of sexuality thing St Paul shoehorned into Christianity and carried it a few steps further.

Stealing gold from a thief isn't immoral, unethical, or illegal in their case.

>rice
>in a burrito

I want to cactus-rape whoever came up with this shit. Why is a burrito not just whatever you'd find in a taco, but completely wrapped up? Why the fuck did we need to start stuffing it with 35 extra grams of high glycemic index carbs for no fucking reason?

carbs are cheap filler but you knew this.

no one does it because they want to dipshit, it's because it's cheap and filling

Companies do it because they want to since it is profitable.

For one, mexicans tend not to use large flour tortillas. Nor do they use yellow cheese.

Mexican salsa is a completely different flavor than that shit. Carnitas and barbacoa also aren't covered in a sweet as fuck sauce but serve with their natural flavors. Typically served with your salsa of choice that tends to be hot no matter what.

The tortillas are smaller and made of corn. Most mexican tacos are very small so you can roll it up, pinch, and eat it with one hand.

TEXMEX is pretty big in mexico though. But if you go to any of the markets, everything is completely different.

(pozole blanco is easily one of my favorite meals of all time)

>Tex Mex is basically just flyover food but with canned sliced jalapeños in vinegar

Hey look, it's another pretentious faggot who doesn't understand what he's having an autism fit over.

I think the origins of the giant ass American style burrito were wrapping up the leftovers from the night before in a giant ass tortilla to make a workingman's lunch. Trying to cram as much meat into it as possible seems more gringo to me.

I have only been in a 2 regions of mexico (chihuahua and DF) and each time I passed a chili's it was PACKED and there was a line to get in. Seriously, mexicans LOVEEEEE chilis.

I still don't understand why. You could go to any one of a million fucking little shitty restaurants to get some of the best food fucking ever... and they are all at chilis.

The worst thing about mexico? Those little fuckers riding their bikes around selling tomales. It's 7 in the fucking morning and you'll hear TOMMMAAALLLEEESSSS for an hour straight on a speaker. or guys the guys that fill their gas utilities. Or the trash collectors ringing their bells. Or police patrols with their sirens at 3 am. Then all the roosters for some fucking reason living in the middle of a fucking city WHY THE FUCK DO THEY HAVE ROOSTERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOST POPULATED CITY IN THE WORLD FUCK. HOW DO MEXICANS EVER SLEEP.

Probably better decor and Chili's food might be slightly safer.

I'm Mexican: the Nouveau middle class loves American restaurants, poor and rich people eat in those shitty restaurants you mentioned.

>the Nouveau middle class loves American restaurants
I think this is true all over the world. American chain places are pretty fine tuned to middle class taste - the food is not intimidating, portion sizes are large and the prices in line with what the middle class can afford.

yay I'm poor then. Or rich? Probably need money for that last one.

Seriously all of my favorites were hole in the walls. This one place has this pozole blanco y tostadas that I would do anything to know how they made it. Like holy shit.

You know, something weird I came across. Mexican hamburgers... were always soft like meatloaf. Like they used breading filling or something. I was like "man, I just want a plain ol' americano hamburger" and the place we were was a bookstore/restaurant. It was alright but confused me. I decided, out of curiosity, to get another hamburger at a completely different part of DF and sure enough it was the same soft ass squishy meatloaf type patty.

I don't know if It was a coincidence or what.

Well Mexicans have been eating that good hole in the wall stuff their whole life, something like an American chain restaurant like that might be a nice change of pace. And like someone else said, the decor is likely better.

Spot the defensive fat fuck loudmouth Texan

That burger thing is the same in england., they are meatloaf patties.

Tex mex sucks ass, Mexican food is great.

My pet peave also. I never saw this until the late 90s and it took off.
I live in Sonora. THe big ass burros that they sell here have no beans or rice in them at all. Just meat, cheese, veg. and condiments.

I mean I'm ok with black beans, but the rice is what sets me off. At least the beans have a decent amount of fiber in them and are lower glycemic index by virtue of them being legumes.

>glycemic index

Life is too short too care about that faggy shit

I fucking love Mexican food, unfortunately there is no real Mexican food where I live.

There are some Salvadoran places though, and I like their food.

Never eat TexMex north of Austin or Houston.

Mexican food is the food born of the interaction between the native peoples of the region with the Spanish and subsequent groups of immigrants, especially germans, asians, and middle eastern people. Tex-mex is the result of Mexican food interacting with the various food cultures of the Ango-descended peoples of the former British colonies who settled in the Texas area along with the central and eastern European peoples who immigrated to the continent later along with the convenience and processed foods that became available across the US as a result of the industrial revolution. Consider the corn dog as an example: German immigrants brought sausage making with them, mexicans had been cooking cornmeal batters for fucking ever, they collided in Texas and then someone deep fried the result.

>never eat tex-mex or any mexican food from anywhere north of zacatecas or so
Corrected for good taste

If you can't enjoy Tex Mex in San Antonio or Austin like Matt's El Rancho then you have shit taste and there's no helping you. And I say that as somebody who goes down to Oaxaca at least once a year and do the full food experience including eating in Zapotec homes.

>enjoy Tex Mex
>shit taste
Pick two

Good food is good food no matter the label. You're a moron if you condemn an entire style just because most restaurants serving it (Aka everywhere North of Austin or Houston) are garbage that have no idea what they are doing.

People incorrectly use the term Tex-Mex to mean any Americanized Mexican food

>eating in Zapotec homes

That sounds awesome, how do you arrange that?

I have an import business and work with them, so I stay out at the villages.

What do they make for you?

There's a huge variety, but the best I'd say is the Mole. Other highlights are god tier hot chocolate, cheese that is to die for, chocolate covered grasshoppers, assorted meats, fried squash blossom, and a million types of god tier soups.

I'll see if I can easily find some pictures.

This thread has been really interesting.

Are there any history books that deal with cuisine specifically?

I don't really take a lot of pictures of what I eat down there honestly, since I don't want to be rude.

That said, here's another pic of dat meat, which was honestly the best meat I've ever tasted in my life.

I just want fucking US to pick up baja cuisine already. I want to eat some tuna tostadas and geoduck ceviche and more seafood dishes with a touch of japanese flavors