Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America
Author:
Genres: Biographies & Memoirs, Cookbooks, Food & Wine, Science & Math, Politics & Social Sciences
Book Type: Paperback
Author:
Genres: Biographies & Memoirs, Cookbooks, Food & Wine, Science & Math, Politics & Social Sciences
Book Type: Paperback
Burritos in space... who would have thought it!
Bread may be dangerous in space, 'cause it clogs air vents, but flour tortillas are A-OK!
This quirky social history of "Americanized" Mexican food is an epic journey through time as to how the cuisine from South of the Border conquered America. It's also a good example of a good book (in most respects) in the genre of food writing: it's unpretentious, engaging, and, at times, hilarious. I also appreciated that it was written for a more general audience than a specialized, academic one.
The author is Gustavo Arellano, a gifted narrator with a sense of style, his skills honed by the penning of his popular column "Ask a Mexican," which featured in OC Weekly (it's now a book all its own). He also wrote a "personal" history of Orange County, California.
The book is a refreshing departure from the numerous others on culinary history I've consumed over the years (!). It didn't parade an endless list of the author's accolades or engage in shameless name-dropping, as many other books of this genre tend to do, which was much appreciated. Rather, it tells the fascinating stories of the real people, pioneers, all, who introduced some of America's now-most-loved food items to a mass market: from chili to tacos, burritos, enchiladas, and even junk-food staples such as Fritos and Dorritos (little gold things... my favorite!). One observation: as noted by a couple of other reviewers, this engaging social history is written from a decidedly "Southern-California" perspective, so some of the content which assumes local knowledge may be lost on readers from other parts of the country.
Small sacrifice, though. This thoroughly entertaining and fairly well-researched book relates, mostly in chronological fashion, the meteoric rise of "Mexican" food in the US. The ubiquitous cuisine's success is clearly manifest (with a few notable exceptions, as the book relates): salsa even overtook ketchup as America's best-selling condiment in the 1990s, and we've apparently never looked back. Now, as the author notes, it seems that every few years, a new trend in fusion cuisine inspired by south-of-the-border fare which captures the culinary imaginations of Americans seems to pop up: flaming fajita platters... chimichangas... chipotle! Some combinations are truly shocking: fish tacos, OK... Korean barbecue tacos: yikes!
To get into the "meat": (pardon the pun). As the first chapter notes, not unlike the case of religious traditions, culinary syncretism has existed since time immemorial, as has incorporating notions of the divine into truly heavenly cuisines. Example: the fascinating phenomenon of the Christ of the Cacao figure in Mexico City. A few miles from one of the most significant churches in the country sits the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption. Inside its St. Joseph's chapel is a dejected-looking Christ figure, depicted seated, holding a branch of a cacao tree. To this day, worshipers leave offerings, sometimes of foods such as candies at the feet of the figure, as the Aztecs, who inhabited the area centuries prior would have done in worship of their deities. A little more esoteric phenomenon is the "Jesus-image-in-a-tortilla" one, where images of the divine seem to randomly appear in burn patterns in food items like tortillas and occasionally slices of bread, which, as the author relates, in one case even spawned a backyard shrine which became a pilgrimage site for the faithful.
The above cacao example also reminds me of the Madonna of the Pomegranate, popularized by Byzantine monks in the 8th and 9th centuries, who incorporated Christian elements along with those of the pagan past into their canon. This depiction has become rather popular in southern Italy: there is even a Basilica of the Madonna of the Pomegranate near the town of Borgo La Pietraia (a few miles from Paestum). The icon became even more popular and well-known in the fifteenth century, as a result of the 1487 Botticelli painting, now housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. An even earlier version may have appeared, courtesy of none other than Leonardo da Vinci, circa 1457, but the creator of that particular work is disputed. In any event, pomegranates were alternatively associated with death and rebirth in ancient times (the story of Persephone and the underworld), but also fertility (the many seeds). The pomegranate was also closely associated with the goddess Hera - hence the translation from the Queen of the Gods to the Queen of Heaven, Mary. So, too, with Christ of the Cacao. In short, this kind of thing has been going on for a long time.
The first chapter addresses Mexico's pre-Spanish heritage, most notably the Aztecs. As one would expect, culinary traditions began morphing almost immediately when the newly-arrived Spanish were furnished with new foods they had never seen previously, including maize, turkey, vanilla, and, most profoundly, the ancestor of chocolate, first a drink made from the beans of the cacao plant. Sadly, cultivation of these highly lucrative crops, especially vanilla and cacao, has all but ceased in the land of their birth. The cultivars of these wonderful plants have been exported to the far reaches of the globe and are now grown on extensive plantations in Africa and Madagascar, in the case of the former, resulting in the near demise of the industries for native people in Mexico. Other food items followed, including tomatoes, potatoes, and the ubiquitous chili pepper, all new-world introductions which made their way across the Atlantic via what is known as the Columbian Exchange. There certainly was an exchange, but it seems that the "Old World" came off the better for it. Who can conceive of "Italian" food, whose development in America has a fascinating story all its own... without tomatoes!?
The result, as the author notes: Mexican food has made such inroads into the global market that it has the power to "turn skeptical, outright hostile foreigners into zombies to the taste." Such is the power of regional cuisines everywhere, in fact.
These examples set the tone for much of the book: although much has been gained by the introduction of traditionally Mexican products to the wider world, much has also been lost, as the author is never slow to lament. The "native" aspects of these foods have been replaced by "commercialized," mass-marketed versions whose modern forms bear little resemblance to those of their predecessors (see especially Chapter 3), to the degree that they have lost their "authenticity" (an oft-utilized term in this book, but, admittedly, not one herein clearly defined). Perhaps the most profound example is the "canned" enchilada... just... don't. Frozen pizza, conversely, has experienced far more success, and much less revulsion.
In defense of syncretism, however: it's not really a fair criticism. The same could be said of almost every ethnic cuisine which has become "-ized" in new environments - and not just in the US, the above example of "Italian" food being paramount. Take pizza, for example. What has to be America's most popular food item has morphed from its humble beginnings as "peasant" fare in southern Italy, around Naples, probably, to a worldwide cultural phenomenon. Few would argue that "pizza" is actually "Italian," and fewer still would criticize the fact that every place on the planet where you can find it has engaged in cultural appropriation in developing their own unique take on the omnipresent flatbread meal. Even in the US, fierce rivalries abound as to which is proper, or even preferable: Chicago deep-dish or New York thin-crust? How about Hawaiian?
Personal anecdote (several, actually): I quickly discovered this realization when I began to travel internationally, even living in Italy on a fellowship several years back. Prior to that, however, I had the opportunity to travel to Southeast Asia, on a couple of occasions, where I encountered the same phenomenon. Now, I love me some Italian food, being of Italian heritage myself. Let's just say that what is described as "Italian" food differs greatly, depending on where you are on the map. Try Italian food in THAILAND! I've had it at four-star hotels and at hole-in-the-wall expat proprietorships in Chiang Mai, and, suffice to say, it's an altogether different animal from the cuisine you would get in either the US *or* Italy. Or anywhere else, for that matter... and that's the point. It's good... just, different.
I can say the same for Indian food, which I've also had on multiple continents. Indian food in Italy is decidedly different from that found in the small, predominantly-take-out shops in Britain which tend to concentrate in certain neighborhoods, or in the sit-down restaurants in the US. In Italy, it has a distinct flavor that I've encountered nowhere else in the world - it tends to be not as "sweet," one of the greatest sins of Indian food commonly found in the US, and is more heavily laden with spices, especially basil, than in other places. It has a uniquely "Italian" flavor, which I was not expecting. Again, I've had it throughout Italy and Europe (an Indian food dinner in Salzburg, Austria to celebrate my 25th birthday was a real treat!), with my favorite being in a small, mom-and-pop (mama e papa?) eatery in Trastevere, across the Tiber from the center of Rome, and in my experience, each place adjusts the flavors according to local tastes. Having never been to India, which is so highly regional that to characterize an entire cuisine as "Indian" is also problematic, I can't even imagine what it's like there. I won't even get started on "Chinese" food.
Maybe that's missing the point, with regard to the acceptance of the foods but the rejection of the people who created it, but that happens everywhere else, too, as I've seen, including in Italy when I was living there. Perhaps a preferable way to frame the argument is that upon their introduction to other cultures, traditional Mexican foods transformed radically from their original versions, however loosely defined, and have become truly globalized, but, unfortunately, this has often resulted in the demise of the previous traditions in their homeland, along with the loss of their historical and cultural significance. For example, with regard to what we colloquially refer to as "hot chocolate": the original drink, as the Aztecs would have enjoyed it, has no sugar, and consists of a cocktail of ingredients, most significantly, whipped cocoa butter and chili water, the former element completely absent in modern "cocoa," which is essentially chocolate-flavored milk. The current form is almost unrecognizable from the original, with much being lost, including knowledge about the plants and the people who first developed it. That is, indeed, lamentable.
To that end, the succeeding chapters try to make amends, to tell the tales of both foods and people, such as the vendors of early versions of Mexican foods, pioneers who first brought "traditional" dishes to an American mass market. These included the Chili Queens, denizens of Southwest chili con carne booths, and the "tamale men" of San Francisco (and elsewhere), mobile tamale vendors, who, under the direction of an American company, were dispatched into US cities as far as Chicago and New York. Both were eventually supplanted by commercialized versions of the foods tailored for American palates, in the form of canned products which could be stocked in pantries rather than purchased from individual sellers. However, the more "traditional" versions, as well as the vendors who sell from private homes and small businesses still endure.
Overwhelming demand for these products resulted in the perhaps inevitable development of processed foods, including the junk food staples we all know and most love. Chapter Eleven is also a personal favorite - it's essentially an Ode to the Tortilla, a humble staple cooked up daily from masa (NOT cornmeal, as the author is quick to note) by women throughout the Latinx world, which just seemed to take on a life of its own when it was introduced to El Norte. This includes the proliferation of flour tortillas, produced in enormous factories, the invention of the ubiquitous tortilla chip and associated condiments, such as guacamole. Inevitable commercialization then launched a thousand ships in the form of the chemical-laden processed snacks we can't conceive of life without: Fritos, Dorritos and other concoctions which seem to appear in a never-ending stream of varieties.
The most intriguing chapter to me was Chapter Three, which discussed the birth of the modern Mexican food restaurant (now considered "fast food"), most notably Taco Bell, the brain child of Glen Bell (of course), an enterprising restaurateur whose far-reaching influence is still felt today. These early introductions ushered in an entire syncretized cuisine, including the next phase of conquest, via the sit-down Mexican restaurant in the US, ala now-defunct eateries like El Torito and several others which formed the backbone of America's Mexican food experience in the 80s and 90s. Other chain restaurants likewise opened, with more or less success.
Increasing familiarity with "Mexican" food resulted, perhaps not surprisingly, in the proliferation of recipes and cookbooks, beginning largely in the 1950s, when the latter really became a thing, which also denotes a difference in cultural phenomena. Americans have had a long love affair with cookbooks: any celebrity worth their salt seems to have one these days. It began with the inclusion of "Spanish" and "Mexican" recipes concocted by housewives and professional chefs alike (admittedly those of decidedly European ancestry, at least initially), which expanded into entire books on the latter in their own right. The chapter also notes the dearth of "fine dining" Mexican restaurants and the efforts of both expats and natives who have attempted to bring regional cuisines to a larger audience.
After these limited introductions which met with great success, it seems that Mexican cuisine went regional, first with the the "Southwest" Mexican-food-inspired phenomenon, hailing largely from New Mexico, a country unto itself, it appears, shortly thereafter followed by the "Tex-Mex" craze, whose (seemingly) few defenders still praise its virtues to the skies. These are but two examples of common fare going high-brow, with enterprising chefs taking the term "fusion" to a whole new level, but not always successfully. Southwest fusion certainly isn't what it used to be, and the author argues that "Tex-Mex" is largely on its way out to all but a few faithful, but new iterations continue to inspire, so, despite the decline of New Mexican Southwest and Tex-Mex fare, their shadow is decidedly still with us.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, for a number of reasons, but I did take issues with some things. In addition to there being multiple factual errors (I'm not going to list them all here), the reason that it gets a three-instead of a four-star rating (it really should be about a 3.5) is due to its sometimes-decidedly accusatory tone, specifically surrounding what I would call the wrongful "cultural appropriation" of Mexican food in the US. The picture on the cover speaks a thousand words, in fact.
As we have noted, culinary (and, indeed, cultural) syncretism is ancient, indeed - and the exchange always goes both ways. However, the book tended to focus excessively on the author's assertions that Americans (itself a problematic term, as it's an undeniably diverse category) have historically accepted foods from Mexico but have overtly rejected Mexicans themselves, along with their other cultural traditions. The statement is certainly accurate in some respects, but the way in which the author presents this assertion is highly over-generalized, and was something I didn't really like in a culinary history. As I have described, based on my own personal experiences over the course of a lifetime and visits to nearly two dozen countries, that, too, is a cultural consistency. Describing something as "lily-white" is just irksome. It's his book: he can write what he wants, and I respect his views, but his tone in some of his statements just rubbed me the wrong way, this latter criticism coming from a cultural and ethnic "hybrid" with as many syncretic elements as the food he describes.
Bread may be dangerous in space, 'cause it clogs air vents, but flour tortillas are A-OK!
This quirky social history of "Americanized" Mexican food is an epic journey through time as to how the cuisine from South of the Border conquered America. It's also a good example of a good book (in most respects) in the genre of food writing: it's unpretentious, engaging, and, at times, hilarious. I also appreciated that it was written for a more general audience than a specialized, academic one.
The author is Gustavo Arellano, a gifted narrator with a sense of style, his skills honed by the penning of his popular column "Ask a Mexican," which featured in OC Weekly (it's now a book all its own). He also wrote a "personal" history of Orange County, California.
The book is a refreshing departure from the numerous others on culinary history I've consumed over the years (!). It didn't parade an endless list of the author's accolades or engage in shameless name-dropping, as many other books of this genre tend to do, which was much appreciated. Rather, it tells the fascinating stories of the real people, pioneers, all, who introduced some of America's now-most-loved food items to a mass market: from chili to tacos, burritos, enchiladas, and even junk-food staples such as Fritos and Dorritos (little gold things... my favorite!). One observation: as noted by a couple of other reviewers, this engaging social history is written from a decidedly "Southern-California" perspective, so some of the content which assumes local knowledge may be lost on readers from other parts of the country.
Small sacrifice, though. This thoroughly entertaining and fairly well-researched book relates, mostly in chronological fashion, the meteoric rise of "Mexican" food in the US. The ubiquitous cuisine's success is clearly manifest (with a few notable exceptions, as the book relates): salsa even overtook ketchup as America's best-selling condiment in the 1990s, and we've apparently never looked back. Now, as the author notes, it seems that every few years, a new trend in fusion cuisine inspired by south-of-the-border fare which captures the culinary imaginations of Americans seems to pop up: flaming fajita platters... chimichangas... chipotle! Some combinations are truly shocking: fish tacos, OK... Korean barbecue tacos: yikes!
To get into the "meat": (pardon the pun). As the first chapter notes, not unlike the case of religious traditions, culinary syncretism has existed since time immemorial, as has incorporating notions of the divine into truly heavenly cuisines. Example: the fascinating phenomenon of the Christ of the Cacao figure in Mexico City. A few miles from one of the most significant churches in the country sits the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption. Inside its St. Joseph's chapel is a dejected-looking Christ figure, depicted seated, holding a branch of a cacao tree. To this day, worshipers leave offerings, sometimes of foods such as candies at the feet of the figure, as the Aztecs, who inhabited the area centuries prior would have done in worship of their deities. A little more esoteric phenomenon is the "Jesus-image-in-a-tortilla" one, where images of the divine seem to randomly appear in burn patterns in food items like tortillas and occasionally slices of bread, which, as the author relates, in one case even spawned a backyard shrine which became a pilgrimage site for the faithful.
The above cacao example also reminds me of the Madonna of the Pomegranate, popularized by Byzantine monks in the 8th and 9th centuries, who incorporated Christian elements along with those of the pagan past into their canon. This depiction has become rather popular in southern Italy: there is even a Basilica of the Madonna of the Pomegranate near the town of Borgo La Pietraia (a few miles from Paestum). The icon became even more popular and well-known in the fifteenth century, as a result of the 1487 Botticelli painting, now housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. An even earlier version may have appeared, courtesy of none other than Leonardo da Vinci, circa 1457, but the creator of that particular work is disputed. In any event, pomegranates were alternatively associated with death and rebirth in ancient times (the story of Persephone and the underworld), but also fertility (the many seeds). The pomegranate was also closely associated with the goddess Hera - hence the translation from the Queen of the Gods to the Queen of Heaven, Mary. So, too, with Christ of the Cacao. In short, this kind of thing has been going on for a long time.
The first chapter addresses Mexico's pre-Spanish heritage, most notably the Aztecs. As one would expect, culinary traditions began morphing almost immediately when the newly-arrived Spanish were furnished with new foods they had never seen previously, including maize, turkey, vanilla, and, most profoundly, the ancestor of chocolate, first a drink made from the beans of the cacao plant. Sadly, cultivation of these highly lucrative crops, especially vanilla and cacao, has all but ceased in the land of their birth. The cultivars of these wonderful plants have been exported to the far reaches of the globe and are now grown on extensive plantations in Africa and Madagascar, in the case of the former, resulting in the near demise of the industries for native people in Mexico. Other food items followed, including tomatoes, potatoes, and the ubiquitous chili pepper, all new-world introductions which made their way across the Atlantic via what is known as the Columbian Exchange. There certainly was an exchange, but it seems that the "Old World" came off the better for it. Who can conceive of "Italian" food, whose development in America has a fascinating story all its own... without tomatoes!?
The result, as the author notes: Mexican food has made such inroads into the global market that it has the power to "turn skeptical, outright hostile foreigners into zombies to the taste." Such is the power of regional cuisines everywhere, in fact.
These examples set the tone for much of the book: although much has been gained by the introduction of traditionally Mexican products to the wider world, much has also been lost, as the author is never slow to lament. The "native" aspects of these foods have been replaced by "commercialized," mass-marketed versions whose modern forms bear little resemblance to those of their predecessors (see especially Chapter 3), to the degree that they have lost their "authenticity" (an oft-utilized term in this book, but, admittedly, not one herein clearly defined). Perhaps the most profound example is the "canned" enchilada... just... don't. Frozen pizza, conversely, has experienced far more success, and much less revulsion.
In defense of syncretism, however: it's not really a fair criticism. The same could be said of almost every ethnic cuisine which has become "-ized" in new environments - and not just in the US, the above example of "Italian" food being paramount. Take pizza, for example. What has to be America's most popular food item has morphed from its humble beginnings as "peasant" fare in southern Italy, around Naples, probably, to a worldwide cultural phenomenon. Few would argue that "pizza" is actually "Italian," and fewer still would criticize the fact that every place on the planet where you can find it has engaged in cultural appropriation in developing their own unique take on the omnipresent flatbread meal. Even in the US, fierce rivalries abound as to which is proper, or even preferable: Chicago deep-dish or New York thin-crust? How about Hawaiian?
Personal anecdote (several, actually): I quickly discovered this realization when I began to travel internationally, even living in Italy on a fellowship several years back. Prior to that, however, I had the opportunity to travel to Southeast Asia, on a couple of occasions, where I encountered the same phenomenon. Now, I love me some Italian food, being of Italian heritage myself. Let's just say that what is described as "Italian" food differs greatly, depending on where you are on the map. Try Italian food in THAILAND! I've had it at four-star hotels and at hole-in-the-wall expat proprietorships in Chiang Mai, and, suffice to say, it's an altogether different animal from the cuisine you would get in either the US *or* Italy. Or anywhere else, for that matter... and that's the point. It's good... just, different.
I can say the same for Indian food, which I've also had on multiple continents. Indian food in Italy is decidedly different from that found in the small, predominantly-take-out shops in Britain which tend to concentrate in certain neighborhoods, or in the sit-down restaurants in the US. In Italy, it has a distinct flavor that I've encountered nowhere else in the world - it tends to be not as "sweet," one of the greatest sins of Indian food commonly found in the US, and is more heavily laden with spices, especially basil, than in other places. It has a uniquely "Italian" flavor, which I was not expecting. Again, I've had it throughout Italy and Europe (an Indian food dinner in Salzburg, Austria to celebrate my 25th birthday was a real treat!), with my favorite being in a small, mom-and-pop (mama e papa?) eatery in Trastevere, across the Tiber from the center of Rome, and in my experience, each place adjusts the flavors according to local tastes. Having never been to India, which is so highly regional that to characterize an entire cuisine as "Indian" is also problematic, I can't even imagine what it's like there. I won't even get started on "Chinese" food.
Maybe that's missing the point, with regard to the acceptance of the foods but the rejection of the people who created it, but that happens everywhere else, too, as I've seen, including in Italy when I was living there. Perhaps a preferable way to frame the argument is that upon their introduction to other cultures, traditional Mexican foods transformed radically from their original versions, however loosely defined, and have become truly globalized, but, unfortunately, this has often resulted in the demise of the previous traditions in their homeland, along with the loss of their historical and cultural significance. For example, with regard to what we colloquially refer to as "hot chocolate": the original drink, as the Aztecs would have enjoyed it, has no sugar, and consists of a cocktail of ingredients, most significantly, whipped cocoa butter and chili water, the former element completely absent in modern "cocoa," which is essentially chocolate-flavored milk. The current form is almost unrecognizable from the original, with much being lost, including knowledge about the plants and the people who first developed it. That is, indeed, lamentable.
To that end, the succeeding chapters try to make amends, to tell the tales of both foods and people, such as the vendors of early versions of Mexican foods, pioneers who first brought "traditional" dishes to an American mass market. These included the Chili Queens, denizens of Southwest chili con carne booths, and the "tamale men" of San Francisco (and elsewhere), mobile tamale vendors, who, under the direction of an American company, were dispatched into US cities as far as Chicago and New York. Both were eventually supplanted by commercialized versions of the foods tailored for American palates, in the form of canned products which could be stocked in pantries rather than purchased from individual sellers. However, the more "traditional" versions, as well as the vendors who sell from private homes and small businesses still endure.
Overwhelming demand for these products resulted in the perhaps inevitable development of processed foods, including the junk food staples we all know and most love. Chapter Eleven is also a personal favorite - it's essentially an Ode to the Tortilla, a humble staple cooked up daily from masa (NOT cornmeal, as the author is quick to note) by women throughout the Latinx world, which just seemed to take on a life of its own when it was introduced to El Norte. This includes the proliferation of flour tortillas, produced in enormous factories, the invention of the ubiquitous tortilla chip and associated condiments, such as guacamole. Inevitable commercialization then launched a thousand ships in the form of the chemical-laden processed snacks we can't conceive of life without: Fritos, Dorritos and other concoctions which seem to appear in a never-ending stream of varieties.
The most intriguing chapter to me was Chapter Three, which discussed the birth of the modern Mexican food restaurant (now considered "fast food"), most notably Taco Bell, the brain child of Glen Bell (of course), an enterprising restaurateur whose far-reaching influence is still felt today. These early introductions ushered in an entire syncretized cuisine, including the next phase of conquest, via the sit-down Mexican restaurant in the US, ala now-defunct eateries like El Torito and several others which formed the backbone of America's Mexican food experience in the 80s and 90s. Other chain restaurants likewise opened, with more or less success.
Increasing familiarity with "Mexican" food resulted, perhaps not surprisingly, in the proliferation of recipes and cookbooks, beginning largely in the 1950s, when the latter really became a thing, which also denotes a difference in cultural phenomena. Americans have had a long love affair with cookbooks: any celebrity worth their salt seems to have one these days. It began with the inclusion of "Spanish" and "Mexican" recipes concocted by housewives and professional chefs alike (admittedly those of decidedly European ancestry, at least initially), which expanded into entire books on the latter in their own right. The chapter also notes the dearth of "fine dining" Mexican restaurants and the efforts of both expats and natives who have attempted to bring regional cuisines to a larger audience.
After these limited introductions which met with great success, it seems that Mexican cuisine went regional, first with the the "Southwest" Mexican-food-inspired phenomenon, hailing largely from New Mexico, a country unto itself, it appears, shortly thereafter followed by the "Tex-Mex" craze, whose (seemingly) few defenders still praise its virtues to the skies. These are but two examples of common fare going high-brow, with enterprising chefs taking the term "fusion" to a whole new level, but not always successfully. Southwest fusion certainly isn't what it used to be, and the author argues that "Tex-Mex" is largely on its way out to all but a few faithful, but new iterations continue to inspire, so, despite the decline of New Mexican Southwest and Tex-Mex fare, their shadow is decidedly still with us.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, for a number of reasons, but I did take issues with some things. In addition to there being multiple factual errors (I'm not going to list them all here), the reason that it gets a three-instead of a four-star rating (it really should be about a 3.5) is due to its sometimes-decidedly accusatory tone, specifically surrounding what I would call the wrongful "cultural appropriation" of Mexican food in the US. The picture on the cover speaks a thousand words, in fact.
As we have noted, culinary (and, indeed, cultural) syncretism is ancient, indeed - and the exchange always goes both ways. However, the book tended to focus excessively on the author's assertions that Americans (itself a problematic term, as it's an undeniably diverse category) have historically accepted foods from Mexico but have overtly rejected Mexicans themselves, along with their other cultural traditions. The statement is certainly accurate in some respects, but the way in which the author presents this assertion is highly over-generalized, and was something I didn't really like in a culinary history. As I have described, based on my own personal experiences over the course of a lifetime and visits to nearly two dozen countries, that, too, is a cultural consistency. Describing something as "lily-white" is just irksome. It's his book: he can write what he wants, and I respect his views, but his tone in some of his statements just rubbed me the wrong way, this latter criticism coming from a cultural and ethnic "hybrid" with as many syncretic elements as the food he describes.
