Truly Texas Mexican

My name is Adán Medrano. I'm a native of San Antonio, Texas and Nava Coahuila,

and I live in Houston. I'm a food writer.

I love to cook. I've been a cook for a long time in restaurants,

and I trained at The Culinary Institute of America sometime back.

That's how I started.

At The Culinary Institute of America, as good as a school it is,

and as well as they do with Argentina, Peru,

with their cuisine, Mexico, they weren't doing my food.

They were not doing the food of poor people who live

in Central and South Texas.

It just wasn't there. It was invisible, nothing.

I had some run-ins with some of the professors who wanted me

to cook a certain way, and I said, "That's not the way you do it."

And I would cook it my way and then they would say, "Oh."

I got my diploma, got certificate and realized that--

that I needed to tell the story that wasn't being told.

Oh. Gee, that's good.

The Texas-Mexican Cuisine gives you an opportunity to see

how differences are embraced.

But before their embraced, you have to understand them.

Ah, let me show you, let me show you, let me show you.

This. This is what the Texas-Mexican cuisine is about.

This is what the Mexican-American people are about, it's the molcajete.

This molcajete is the metaphor for our food and for our community.

If you take the molcajete...

This is volcanic rock by the way. You're going to put ingredients in there.

You're going to mash them.

You like the sound. Where out of many differences,

they come together, you crush them,

you paste them, you harmonize them

and then you have beauty out of differences.

That's the best way that I could tell you.

This would be a celebration of the American roots.

I'm hoping that this will be a story that is understood.

I hope it's a story that bothers some people, that bothers most people

because I hope it's a story that is about becoming, what we can become.

So I'm often asked, "Do you like Tex-Mex food?"

There are two answers to that.

The first meeting I had for Tex-Mex is it's by Anglos for Anglos,

and it served in places like the tourist centers here in the San Antonio River...

...was created in the 1900s when Texas food

made by Mexicans, by Native American Mexicans

were so delicious that everyone was coming to San Antonio

because it was a tourist destination because of the food.

But the problem was that it was good and delicious, but...

...they didn't want to rub elbows with the Mexicans.

So you wanted Mexican food without the Mexicans.

We never ate Tex-Mex food at home, enough with the cheese.

The other meaning of Tex-Mex is owned by Mexican Americans who don't have another word

for the Mexican food of Texas.

It was not called Tex-Mex when the ladies, the chef restaurateurs,

now called Chili Queens, were cooking here at San Antonio,

those ladies who in the 1880s, 1900s,

began the first restaurants of San Antonio in Texas.

The San Antonio original chefs.

The Chili Queens of San Antonio were in all the plazas

in the center of the city. So Alamo Plaza was one of the main spaces

that the women congregated to sell their food.

This is where you could find the locals who needed to eat.

This is where tourists who were visiting wanted to eat as well.

We didn't have the restaurants that we know today that were indoors.

So the women just created their puestos,

their little stands, and prepared food.

I know my own great-grandmother, Teresita Cantú, she was a vendor, a chef,

my mother did tell the story of my great-grandmother being a Chili Queen,

and using the word Chili Queen.

The little baby is my mother, who's now 95 years old.

So my great-grandmother, she'd made tamales,

carne guisada, pollo guisado,

arroz con pollo, mole, chile relleno.

I was thinking about nopalitos and capirotada.

Um, so I think those are the foods that she must have made

because those are the ones that my mother made.

So yeah, everyone had a different style.

Everyone had their forte and what food they were going to prepare

and how they prepared it, the food that they had grown up with.

And so that allowed for the diversity

and the meals that were unique and distinct to each one of those stands.

These women have to be recognized for their smartness

and for their business-- for their business smarts.

A lot of people tell me, "We come to downtown to go shopping,

and we have to stop, eat Maria's, it's just a tradition."

So, you know, everybody knows us, thank God.

I'm Maria Jilma Sanchez, and we're at Maria's restaurant in McAllen, Texas.

This is my mother.

She's the founder of Maria's restaurant.

- You're the founder. -Yeah.

My grandpa said, " Mi hija, when you grow up,

you're going to be an excellent cook."

That's what my grandpa told me one time.

I'll never forget that.

I knew I wanted to be in the restaurant business

since I guess my teenage years. My mom started and I said,

"My mom can do it, I can do it too."

This is Lalo. He's my head waiter.

-Hi, Lalo, Adán, how are you? -Hi. Good.

We're very famous for carnitas, our enchiladas.

Our plato real, plato real, it's got a little bit of everything.

And that's very, very popular.

And then we have our bistec ranchero,

and, uh, we have, uh, de caldo de res.

Fideo, a lot of people don't know how to make fideo.

Hey, we make it.

- Pico de gallo? - Pico de gallo.

Pico de gallo. I've never tasted it.

This is made with tomato, onion, cilantro, jalapeno.

-Jalapeno. -Jalapeno, yes.

or is it fresh?

It's fresh, it's all fresh.

And then we just put it in the blender. That's it.

Little bit of salt.

That's all, simple as that.

We get a lot of young customers, a lot of young customers, especially on Saturdays saying,

"Ma'am. We didn't know you all existed, my God.

This is food, pizza." Everybody, they get all excited

because it beats Taco Bell, and I go, "Well, hello."

- - I like your first cardboard--

-What do you call it? -Cardboard. Cardboard food.

We call it cardboard food.

What do you think of the new ones in the fast food--

-Oh, mira, okay. My! -

-Look at that. - And our homemade tortillas.

- Homemade tortillas. - Yes, sir.

It's very-- it's very obvious these are--

Yeah, they're homemade, we make them here.

And this is the way we ate it.

We didn't use a spoon. We went like this.

Yes, of course, that's much better.

And it tastes better.

Are there many women business restaurant owners like yourself?

I would say like five that I know, they're close friends of mine.

And they all-- they all started here.

They all started as a waitress, and now they have their own business.

It means I-- we taught them good.

My cooks are all women. My dishwashers are men.

We try and having that-- a male cook, but my ladies, they're too, you know, picky.

So we'd rather have ladies, they understand each other better.

It's the care they put into our food.

They are my kids, with them I'm-- I'm strong.

I'm strong. The women have to be on top now.

I just love being here.

You know, I love my-- I love the business.

I always said, I always made homemade cookies.

And that's what people like.

-Mama knows best, Mama cooks better. -

When a customer tells me, "Golly, I just finished eating this plate."

And it reminds me of Grandma, like, you know, you make it good

like Grandma used to make it. I bring them memories.

And he goes, "That's why we like eating here because it's comida casera."

Just like home. That's what it is. Yeah.

- You bring them memories. -Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Mm! Mm!

Oh, that's nice.

That's very, very nice.

The flavor is so different. It's a lovely cinnamon taste.

-That's lovely. -

Thank you very much.

So, you want to take a look?

Okay.

My name is Celeste de Luna and we're here in Harlingen, Texas.

Recently I, um, bought a new press, it was expensive.

And I saved for three years out of art sales to buy it.

I never understood men and their cars and like how they love their cars

so much and gave it a name and all that, but I get it now.

I feel that way about my press.

You would ink it up and then you'll pla-- you place your matrix right here.

So then you put your paper like this this. Put this down. And so then you put it

through like this. Then it would end up looking like the impression.

This is my Coatlicue print.

That's one that I've done just

'cause I've loved the idea of Coatlicue,

who is a Mexican goddess.

Most people refer to her as like the goddess of birth and death.

This is my one of my tamalada prints.

We would have a tamalada and we-- my par-- my family would kill a pig.

And so I can remember my mom, you know having a whole pig

on, you know, the mesa, on the countertop,

I mean, how horrifying is that. And then you know, "Why don't you like horror movies?

Right, like how--"

Like and you come in and you're like, "Ah!" Like, and there's a pig

-and it's dead. - There's blood.

There's blood everywhere and your mom, "Good morning." You know.

-"No!" -

I give my life for your tamales.

And so this is my little honoring of the pig in general.

So, we are going to make a Rio Grande Valley Specialty.

That's an original recipe by Celeste, which I am going to taste

-for the first time, and it's called grapefruit pie. -

- People who love grapefruit do love this pie. - Do love it? Okay.

You know, I can remember my mom sort of

eating grapefruit at the kitchen table.

And I think, man, you know, if she were alive, she would have loved this pie.

And then you put a little bit of the gelatin,

you put it in the fridge for an hour, it'll gel.

Then we would take our grapefruit slices, arrange them, then pour the rest

of the gel in there. And then cover it and we can--

we can put it in the refrigerator, and then it's done.

And the light is just right, it shimmers.

Oh, it's great.

-That's beautiful. -Doesn't it look great?