Just as Mexico has regional culinary traditions — Oaxacan, Sonoran, Sinaloan, and many more — Los Estados Unidos has its distinct Mexican cuisines; many fans of Mexican meals consider the signatures of these precise American Mexican foodways to be minor travesties of flavor and inauthenticity — Tex-Mex? Walking tacos? Totchos? Utahn candy red meat? — unworthy of debate along with the taco vans of Los Angeles, the barbacoa of South Texas, or the Sonoran hot puppies of Tucson.
Yet those oft-maligned neighborhood patterns are the vocabulary of Mexican-American meals — springing up organically out of particular communities or circumstances. They may be how many Americans come by way of Mexican dishes, day in and day out. And like their thoroughly assimilated and disseminated culinary ancestors — chili, Taco Bell, nachos, fajitas — those nearby specialties, from the Mission burrito to the new tamale, are no much less valid or scrumptious than their greater exalted opposite numbers.
This map and the word list highlight just a few hallmark nearby dishes that make up the U.S. Mexican Food — what they are, in which they come from, and in which you can consume them throughout the U.S. Like any map of a brand new world, one need to anticipate it to be out of date in a few years — who knows what dish will overcome America next?
ACP
Range: American South into the Rust Belt
What: Arroz con pollo — no longer the traditional Caribbean or South American style, however surely grilled bird breast and rice, covered in a cheese sauce
Origins: This permutation of “arroz con pollo” dates again to the Mexican Inn in Fort Worth, Texas, which had ACP on the menu as early as the 1930s. After presenting the peripheries of Tex-Mex through the 1980s, it fell off menus amid the fajitas wave. It’s now ubiquitous in the South and Midwest as a staple in eating places run through immigrants from San José de la Paz, Jalisco, who own over 700 restaurants there.
Dessert sopaipillas
Range: Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico through the Texas Panhandle into Arkansas
What: Fried triangles of dough dusted in cinnamon or sugar and supplied as dessert along with honey
Origins: Sopaipillas in each savory and sweet bureaucracy reign at some point in New Mexico. However, in the rest of the American Southwest, they’re nearly a dessert; the spread of Tex-Mex via the Lower Midwest ensured that sopaipillas became a staple of Mexican restaurants in Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Hot Tamales
Range: Mississippi Delta
What: Small tamales made with cornmeal soaked in chili powder to present them more warmth than Mexican-fashion tamales
Origins: Not even the Southern Foodways Alliance—the grand chronicler of the South’s delicacies—has ever definitively cracked how this most Mexican food came to the most Southern part of the South. African Americans have ruled the craft for generations, and iterations of hot tamales additionally exist throughout Chicago, but especially on the South Side.
Mexi-Fries / Potato Olés, aka Tater Tots
Range: Pacific Northwest via Upper Midwest
What: Tater little toddlers “pro” with “Mexican” flavors (chili powder, cumin) commonly eaten as sides but also stuffed into burritos or tacos
Origins: Tater tots in Mexican meals happened gracias to two chains: TacoTime in Oregon and Taco John’s in Wyoming. The former named them “Mexi-Fries,” while the latter called them “Potato Olés.” Good for them!
Mission Burritos
Range: Originally in San Francisco; now, everywhere
What: Massive burritos made on an assembly line with your desire for substances
Origins: At El Faro in San Francisco’s Mission District in 1963, Febronio Ontiveros made a widespread burrito out of flour tortillas to feed hungry firefighters. The Mission-fashion burrito went on to steer gringo favorites: the wraps craze of the 1990s and the Chipotle chain. El Faro remains inside the Ontiveros family; however, it rarely registers in a Bay Area obsessed with its opponents, La Taqueria and El Farolito.
