What's the REAL Tex-Mex?

[Richard Kilgore]

Patricia Sharpe has an interesting and nostalgic article in the August Texas Monthly. Unfortunately, "Tex-Mex 101" does not appear on their website. It's worth a look, whether or not you got here before 1970, at "the cuisine that was fusion before fusion was hip." If you remember Austin's El Toro, if you want to know "what put the Tex in Tex-Mex" and which restaurants carry on the tradition, check out the magazine...or help me find a link.

Edited September 20, 2003 by Richard Kilgore (log)

[Jaymes]

Here's a link to a similar article in the Dallas Morning News.

You do have to register, but it's free.

And a very interesting article - seems that there's a food fight going on in poor Julia's kitchen at the Smithsonian!!

What's TexMex? Big border skirmish back east.

[fifi]

Uuuuh... I "arrived" in Houston in 1946. I don't ever remember being without Tex-Mex. My mother made some killer Tex-Mex style enchiladas. There is a picture somewhere with me in my high chair playing with the cheese stringys. Felix's restaurant in Houston was founded in 1929. The original was on Main Street. The one I remember is on Westheimer and is still there.

[fifi]

Lookie what I found!

History in Houston

edit to add: My sister and I are going to meet at Felix's on Westheimer for lunch tomorrow. I was googling to see if I could find a menu and I tripped across this link. I will report back on lunch.

Edited September 26, 2003 by fifi (log)

[fifi]

The lunch at Felix's was a step back in time. I had to have the Mexican Dinner #1 because that is what Robb Walsh had: Beef taco, tostado, tamale, cheese enchilada, garnished with chili gravy, refried beans, spanish rice (or spagetti?????).

Like he says, the gravy says it all...

It resembles the flour-based brown gravy you might find on a Salisbury steak or a roast beef plate at the Piccadilly Cafeteria, but with comino and chili powder added.

It was all very good. It was all very typical Tex-Mex. I don't know what else to say about the food. But there is something intangible about eating in a place that has been owned by the same family since 1929. Oh... And our elegant waiter has worked there for 30 years.

[Richard Kilgore]

The earliest Tex-Mex memory I have is eating at La Tupinamba in Dallas in the mid-50s. Even then I thought of it as Texas food, rather than food from Mexico.