Mexican Foods

In the recent years, I have learned a lot about Mexican cuisine. I finally feel worthy of unironically declaring “I love tacos”. Follow me on a journey to explore the different elements, components, and variations I’ve discovered over the years.

I speak as an outsider, whose perspective is based on Mexican cuisine found in the Northern California region. Don’t take this to be authoritative or complete. It’s my perspective, based on what I have seen, has been fed to me, and has been available and approachable. And I’m confident that it’s a opinion that’s fairly representative of the masses.

The many different regions of Latin America that contribute and influence what we consider Mexican food is vast. Go into this understanding that we’re looking at this from one, single viewpoint and there definitely will be blindspots.

Ingredients

All cuisines develop and evolve based on the local and available produce. To understand Mexican food, we should look at the commonly used ingredients.

Corn

Corn shows up a lot. It’s a staple crop for Mesoamerican cultures for more than 10000 years.

The grain is ground to form masa. When dried, it becomes masa harina (corn flour). This is what is used to make all sorts of dishes: tortillas, tamales, pupusas, and arepas.

Flour

Wheat flour is used a lot in Tex-Mex dishes. Wheat grows in colder climates, further north. This is why it’s regional to Tex-Mex (Northern Mexico) and not prevalent in Latin American cuisines.

They are used to make tortillas. For burritos, flour tortillas are the only option as they can develop sufficient gluten needed to keep a burrito’s fillings contained.

Beans

Beans are a common component in many dishes. It can be stewed or mashed (refried beans). These are served as a side dish or used as fillings for burritos, tamales, pupusas.

Beans vary in texture and flavours. Two common bean varietals are black turtle beans and pinto beans.

Rice

This is the other staple crop. Rice is commonly cooked as served as a side dish or filling, same as how beans are used.

Rice is also used to make horchata, the O.G. rice milk.

Limes

Limes are used everywhere you need acidity. A sign of a good taqueria is one that is not afraid to give me double the reasonable amount of limes. I’m talking a quarter of a lime for a single taco.

Cilantro

Cilantro is used a lot to garnish many dishes. I pity the fool that tastes soap instead of cilantro.

Chili Peppers

There is a lot of chili pepper usage. These make up just about every salsa.

Peppers are dried for long term storage. It’s common to include a rehydration step before making a salsa.

Elements

Cilantro, Lime, Onions

What are some defining characteristics of Mexican cuisine? I’d say a heavy hand on spices that is contrasted against the freshness of cilantro and limes.

The heavy use of cilantro, raw onion, and lime is very similar to Vietnamese food. The usage as a garnish is identical to both cuisines. I’m not sure if this is convergent evolution but they both hit the same notes.

However, Vietnamese tends to be lightly spiced and more subdued in spice usage. Bò khỏ and Bún Bò Huế are two vietnamese dishes that are heavily spiced. These dishes, when garnished with cilantro and limes, bear a strong resemblance to dishes like birria.

Salsas

Salsa is the spanish word for sauce. So it’s used for any and everything that can be considered as such. But it has come into the English language, with connotations of either tomato or chili pepper puree. Salsas bring a vegetal, fruity, and fresh element a dish.

Salsas can be based upon tomatoes, fresh peppers, or dried peppers. The ingredients can be smoked or roasted, to impart additional flavours to the salsa.

Traditionally, a molcajete (mortar and pestle) is used to make salsa. This can be to grind up spices or dried peppers. In modern times, we’ve delegated that task to a blender.

Prominent Dishes

The following several prominent dishes I’ve had the pleasure of eating and discovering over the years. There’s so much variety and cross-cultural dish exchanges among Latin American countries, both here in America and in Mexico. This can make it a melting pot of

Corn Tortillas

Tortilla de maiz (corn tortillas) are commonly served for tacos. Being made with ground corn, they don’t develop gluten and tear easily. This limits the largest feasible size to 6-inches, but 4-inches is most common size for street tacos.

The lack of gluten makes a corn tortilla tender. Similar to the use of a hamburger bun vs. ciabatta: you’d want a tender bun for crumbly ground beef patty whereas a ciabatta might work with grilled chicken. Corn tortillas work great for street tacos, where the fillings are small and bite-sized. They can be seen often doubled up for street tacos, in order to hold a enormous amount of filling.

Flour Tortillas

Tortilla de harina (flour tortillas) are used for burritos, as they have the necessary gluten to make larger sheets needed to contain copious amounts of fillings. Flour tortillas are also used for quesadillas.

The chewiness of a flour tortilla pairs well with chewy meats. This is a common of ranchero cuisine of Northern Mexico. Think steak fajitas, with skirt steak. Or a carne asada taco.

Tortillas in Tex-Mex are often flour tortillas. This is also a byproduct of the region, with wheat crop being more abundant further North. Over in Asia, we see the use of rice noodles vs. wheat noodles differ by region, from North to South.

Tacos

Tacos are probably the most well-known dish in Mexican cuisine.

Street tacos are tacos sold on the street, the Latin-American form of street food. They’re smaller, using 4-inch corn tortillas. The fillings are often pre-cooked and stewed meats. This makes them ready to serve all throughout the day.

Larger 6-inch tacos can be found in Tex-Mex. Fish tacos are often served with these larger tacos, hailing from the Baja region.

Tacos can be made with either corn or flour tortillas. Corn tortillas are smaller, being either 4 or 6 inches. Flour tortillas are larger, being 6 inches and larger. It’s mostly a preference but many prefer corn tortillas due to the flavour. But the structural consideration tend to outweight flavour preferences.

Tacos can be filled with any and everything. It’s the same as a sandwich, there’s no limit to what you put inside: it’s about the construction and framework, more so than the contents themselves. Practical considerations are same as when you’re designing a sandwich: chewy foods should be cut down to bite-sized, match or contrast the texture of filling to the bun or toppings, etc. Common fillings include:

• al pastor (rotisserie meat, like gyro)
• carnitas (confit pork, fried pork)
• carne asada (grilled steak)
• pollo asado (grilled chicken)
• pollo verde (stewed chicken)
• camaron (shrimp)
• lengua (cow tongue)
• buche (pork stomach)

Likewise, a taco can be topped with just about anything. Onions and cilantro by themselves are great. Pico de gallo, for fresh chopped salad. Salsas for smoky flavours and sauce.

Burritos

The primary differentiator to a taco is structural, with burritos being more self-contained and holding more fillings.

Because of the requirement to roll, flour tortillas are mandatory. Corn tortillas are not pliable and elastic. At large sizes, they will definitely tear. 12-inch is the “burrito-sized” tortillas.

Fillings are a superset to taco fillings, with more options available:

• rice
• beans
• french fries
• big chunks or strips of meat
• vegetables

Now that I think about it, it’s all the things that are appropriate in other wrapped foods.

Another key element of a good burrito is the tin foil wrap. It’s integral to the wrapping step, to keep everything rigid. When eating, you unravel layers at a time, so as not to continue to keep structural integrity as you go. This does make it a less messy eating experience than tacos and more portable eating food.

Tamale

Tamales are a steamed dumpling, wrapped in corn husk. Further south, it can also be found wrapped in banana leaves. There are very similar dishes in Asian cuisines, where sticky rice dumplings wrapped in banana leaves are steamed.

These are served with salsas or moles.

Due to the labour involved, making and sharing tamales has become a holiday tradition. Many cottage industries will popup and sell tamales seasonally. This is the exact same situation as bánh tét at Tết.

Soups and Stews

Pozole is a pork broth soup with hominy. I’m not very familiar with this soup but it does seem like a rustic dish.

Birria is a spicy beef soup or stew. It’s just like the Vietnamese bò kho. Birria is the term used to describe intangible things without value. Like the term “worthless”. It originated from the use of goats for meat, and the Spanish colonizers considered it a poor meat.

Bean Dishes

Beans are a common ingrendient and have many dishes. Refried beans are typically made with pinto beans and are like mashed potatoes. Black beans are stewed and served as a hearty side on a plate.

Meat Dishes

Carnitas is a very common pork dish. It uses the tough, collagen-ful pork shoulder and braises it. The result is a related dish to pulled pork and kalua pork. This can sometimes be fried up to serve. I use this meat as my personal benchmark, as it’s very simple and clean flavours.

Carne asada is a steak chunks. This can be made with any steak cut. It’s traditionally made with skirt steak, which is marinated and beaten thin before grilling. This cut is chosen for the flavour it imparts. You could use strip steak or ribeye but their strengths are not displayed if you’re going to cut them up into small pieces.

Pollo asado is grilled chicken. The chicken is marinated or rubbed with a spicy rub and grilled. This is really good if dark meat is used.

Pollo verde is a tomatillo-braised stew. I’d be more tolerant of white-meat used here, as gentle cooking and saucy environment mitigates the disadvantages of dry chicken breast.

Lengua is cow tongue. The tongue is tender, fatty muscle. It’s typically braised and diced to serve.

Buche is pork stomache. This is also braised until tender, and diced to serve.

Al pastor is pork, cooked on a rotating spit. This is a Mexican take on Arab shawarma. Pork is marinated and layered into a giant meat-paste log. A broiler or flame element is on one side and the spit rotates vertically. The outside is shaved off to serve and the newly exposed surfaces then get a chance to brown. A pineapple is placed at the very top, which provides enzyme to break down proteins to glue everything together.

Cheese

Oaxaca cheese is a sibling to mozarella. It is stretched and kneaded into a string shape (identical to string cheese). This is a good melting cheese, used for quesadillas.

Monterey Jack cheese is the other common cheese used. When you see shredded cheese being added to a burrito or topping a taco, it’s likely got some Monterey Jack. Monterey Jack is a mild and creamy cheese.

Cotija cheese is a dry crumbly cheese. It is salty and pungent, serving a similar role as parmesan. It is notable milkier and not aged as dried as parmesan though. This can also top tacos, soups, or tamales.