I think its embarrassing that Americans squabble with one another one whether or not a restaurant serves authentic Mexican food.

I am delighted that people are concerned about getting the real deal–not some imposture food prepared by the kitchens of chain restaurants. Part of our insecurity comes from our fear that other countries judge American cuisine by our most famous ambassadors: Burger King and McDonalds. It’s natural that we would look across the street at Taco Bell and know that they’re not doing the Mexican thing right. To be clear, America is a better place because it’s citizens are concerned about authentic cuisine. Bravo.

Now the problem: we’re so damn obsessed with authentic cuisine that we can’t think straight. Consider our decades-long obsession with authentic Mexican food. This is of particular interest to me because I live in the Southwest, and everyone who comes into town wants to know where to get authentic Mexican food. Before I can even open my mouth, they usually go on to clarify what qualifies authentic Mexican food:

  1. Avocados come from California, not Mexico.
  2. Rice is an American addition to the burrito.
  3. The burrito is an American addition to Mexican cuisine. (Well, which one is it? Did we add the rice or did we add the whole burrito?)
  4. Mexicans don’t use tomatoes because they require too much water, which they don’t have a lot of.
  5. Tex-Mex is not authentic Mexican food.

Each of these sounds like reasonable qualifiers for what constitutes authentic Mexican food. True or not, I’ve patched these together in an attempt to shore up my understanding of authentic Mexican food. Before we try to check Yes or No next to each sentence, let’s consider this whole conversation from the outside.


Mexico is a big country.

How naive do you have to be to assume that the entire country eats the same way? I mean in America, you have different cuisine in every region of the country. Isn’t it reasonable that that Mexico is the same way?

Mexico has thousands of miles of coastline, and I guarantee that the ocean-side cooks in Mexico have a different authentic food from the inlanders. There are more fisherman in Baja Mexico than there are cowboys, and you can’t try to convince me they eat the same thing. So this whole pursuit of authentic Mexican food is a waste of time. But let’s keep thinking about this.

Texas was part of Mexico.

When you consider the lands of Texas used to be a part of Mexico, Tex-Mex food should have as much of a stake in the claim to authentic Mexican food as anywhere south of the border. It’s arrogant to dismiss their 120 yr-old Tex-Mex food today as anything less than authentic.

Here’s another point to consider: what if authentic Mexican food sucks? Maybe the reason Tex-Mex food has stuck around for over a century because the authentic Mexican Indians were tired of the same old stuff. What if they were amped that the Spaniards brought in good stuff that made their blah dinner taste better? And there’s no convincing them to do it any other way. Those first Tex-Mexers fixed this new food for their kids. Those kids did it for their kids.

I know I’ve just lost people here. This sounds implausible to a lot of Americans because it’s fashionable nowadays to disown the ocean-hopping Europeans that settled/took over North America. It’s popular to think that everything they brought (religion, culture, gun powder) was nothing but trouble. I’ll let someone more knowledgeable than me pick up that debate–I’m here to talk about food. All I’m suggesting is that you have to respect Tex-Mex, the Spanish-Mexican fusion that they still love in South Texas today. It’s here for a reason, and it’s here to stay.

Who cares?

I guess I’ve gone off for the last 45 minutes about this whole issue because I’m tired of being caught in the crossfires of the Authenticity Debate. I’m tired of being judged by people who think they know more than me. As a white man, I always defer to my close Mexican friends, only to realize that they were confused too. The only differnce between us is that they just quit caring.

There are better things to do than to cause all of this needlessly complicated, racially-contentious drama over very simple food. There’s no use wasting time trying to decifer authentic ingredients. Shut up and eat your taco.

When my out-of-town friends ask me where to go for authentic Mexican, I spare them the debate and get right to it: you’re in Arizona and you want authentic Mexican food? Go to Filibertos. It might be a low-budget chain restaurant. Every Filibertos looks like it was built in a building that once sold burgers and fries. But their menu doesn’t explain their numbered “value meals.” They don’t have sales or specials, they don’t introduce new food. Their salsa bar is poorly lit and looks unappealing to me. But regardless of how formidable the restaurants may be, they are everywhere. Mexicans work there and Mexicans eat there. What can be more authentically Mexican than that?

For my money, I’d rather eat at the sanitized chains like Rubio’s or Baja Fresh, but I’ll never try to convince you it’s authentic Mexican. It just tastes better and that’s all I need.