Culinary Tourism

Chapter 9. From Culinary Other to Mainstream America: Meanings and Uses of Southwestern Cuisine

CHAPTER 9 From Culinary Other to Mainstream America Meanings and Uses of Southwestern Cuisine Amy Bentley The United States is in the midst of a culinary love affair with what is generallyknown as Southwestern cuisine. From the elite echelons ofhaute cuisine, to party and recipe ideas in women's magazines, to fast-food conglomerates , Americans can scarcely escape (nor would they want to) ingesting various combinations of tortillas, chiles, beans, cheese, tomatoes, and corn. Witness the following phenomena: for the last several years salsa has outsold ketchup in the United States; Doritos and Tostitos tortilla chips are the second and third most popular-selling snack chips in the country (behind Lay's Potato Chips); nachos are common, popular snacks at football and baseball games; and New Mexico adopted as its state motto "Red or Green?"-in homage to the thousands of times a day restaurant servers ask which kind of chile their customers prefer smothering their burritos and enchiladas (Collins 1997; PepsiCo 1993; Daily Camera 1995). Such restaurants as the Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe, Mesa Grill in New York City, and the Frontera Grill in Chicago are the hot diningspots; meanwhile, Taco Bell is rapidly expanding both its number of restaurants worldwide and its volume of business per unit. We have indeed come a long way from the Green Giant canned "Mexicorn" of the 1950s and 1960s, with its indecipherable slivers of red and green intermixed with corn kernels. When examined through the lens of culinary tourism-understanding "food as other" as a dynamic process running along three axes: from exotic to familiar, inedible to edible, and unpalatable to palatable-most Americans regard mainstream interpretations of Southwestern cuisine as 210 I From Culinary Other to Mainstream America highly familiar and appetizing. Indeed, so familiar has the commercialized "Tex-Mex" version of Southwestern cuisine become that it has been dubbed "Gringo food" by some in the food industry (Collins 1997). Such an assessment is significant given that not too long ago Texas Anglos considered Mexican food unfit for human consumption, even to the point, folklorist Mario Montano notes, "that Anglos considered Mexican food so bad that they said wild animals did not scavenge on Mexican dead bodies" (1992:108). Similarly, the elite class in Mexico, historian Jeffrey Pilcher explains, considered tamales, enchiladas, and quesadillas "thefood of the lower orders" (1998:46). The entry of Southwestern cuisine into mainstream American foodways is a fascinating and important way to understand how the same cuisine has different meanings to different groups of people depending, among other things, on ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and openness to culinary exploration. On a more concrete level, it is also an important way to examine the place and status of Mexican Americans within the larger cultural milieu. A product of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands region , Southwestern cuisine contains multiple meanings resulting in a "text" replete with cultural contradictions. There are at least three possible ways to think about the nature and function of Southwestern cuisine , and while contradictory in some respects, all three seem valid. First, mainstream Americans' embracing of the cuisine juxtaposed with an intense current national hostility toward Mexico and Mexican Americans indicates a culinary neutralization and cultural domination ofborderlands foodways. Second, despite this cultural hegemony, for many Mexican Americans elements of Southwestern cuisine can provide a means of ownership and self-identity. Such events as tamale and tortilla making canbe sites ofresistance to the dominant culture through which Chicanos and Chicanas can retain and strengthen cultural identity. However, the popularity and even the creation of Southwestern cuisine are not only about appropriation and resistance. Cuisines are never static, but are constantly evolving and are reshaped much like culture in general. Southwestern cuisine, while different from and many would say inferior to its more authentic counterpart, has nonetheless attained legitimacy and positive acceptance, with the potential to function for many Americans as a foray to increased understanding of Latino cultural, economic, and social issues.l Southwestern cuisine is the offspring of Native American and Mexican foodstuffs (chiles, pinto beans, pork, cornmeal, cumin, onions, tomatoes ), flavor principles, and cooking techniques, combined with European Amy Bentley I 211 American elements (more beef; a variety of cheeses, including cheddar; sour cream; sausage; fewer "variety" meats and dishes) originally imported to the region through the Spanish conquest and later through nineteenthcentury German and Anglo settlers, cowboys, and the transcontinental railroad's Harvey Restaurants. Southwestern cuisine extends primarily...