Tex-Mex food

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NORTH AMERICAN SAIJIKI

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Tex-Mex food

***** Location: America
***** Season: Topic
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation


"Tex-Mex" (combination of Texan and Mexican) is a term describing a regional American cuisine that blends food products available in the United States and the culinary creations of Mexican-Americans influenced by Mexican cuisine. The cuisine has spread from border states such as Texas and those in the Southwestern United States to the rest of the country. Tex-Mex is most popular in the Southern state of Texas. Tex-Mex is very different from the Southwest cuisine found in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah.

In these areas, the preferred southwest cuisine is New Mexican cuisine. The southwestern state of Nevada and West Coast state of California tend to lie in the middle as far the preferred style of Mexican-American food. In some places, particularly outside of Texas, "Tex-Mex" is used to describe a localized version of Mexican cuisine. It is common for all of these foods to be referred to as "Mexican food" in Texas, other parts of the United States, and some other countries. In other ways, it is Southern cooking using the commodities from Mexican culture. In many parts of the U.S. outside of Texas the term is synonymous with Southwestern cuisine.


Mixed beef and chicken fajita ingredients,
served on a hot iron skillet.

Some ingredients are common in Mexican cuisine, but other ingredients not typically used in Mexico are often added. Tex-Mex cuisine is characterized by its heavy use of melted cheese, meat (particularly beef and pork), beans, and spices, in addition to Mexican-style tortillas. Dishes such as Texas-style chili con carne, chili con queso and fajitas are all Tex-Mex inventions.[citation needed] Moreover, Tex-Mex has imported flavors from other spicy cuisines, such as the use of cumin (common in Indian cuisine, but used in only a few central Mexican recipes).
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Things found on the way


Cajuns
( French: les Cadiens or les Acadiens ) are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles (French-speakers from Acadia in what are now the Canadian Maritimes). Today, the Cajuns make up a significant portion of south Louisiana's population, and have exerted an enormous impact on the state's culture.

While Lower Louisiana had been settled by French colonists since the late 18th century, the Cajuns trace their roots to the influx of Acadian settlers after the Great Expulsion from their homeland during the French and Indian War (1754 to 1763). The Acadia region to which modern Cajuns trace their origin consisted largely of what are now New Brunswick and the other Maritime provinces, plus parts of eastern Quebec and northern Maine. Since their establishment in Louisiana the Cajuns have developed their own dialect, Cajun French, and developed a vibrant culture including folkways, music, and cuisine.

Cuisine
Outside Louisiana, and even within, some food writers wish to distinguish between Cajun and Louisiana Creole cuisine, maintaining that Creole dishes tend to be more sophisticated and continental while Cajun food is rural, more seasoned, sometimes spicy, and tends to be heartier. This distinction is based mostly on encounters with the cuisines as encountered in eateries in New Orleans. Outside the city, Cajuns and Creoles often intermingle socially and culturally, and chances are that the cooking of Cajuns and Creoles living in Lawtell for example, have more in common with each other than the Creole dishes of a Lawtell resident and one from Isle Brevelle.

Both cuisines tend to focus on local ingredients like locally available wild game (e.g., duck, rabbit), vegetables (e.g., okra, mirlitons), and grain (e.g., rice), which is where they remain distinctive, since many of these ingredients have never truly entered American mainstream cuisine and thus were available to displace local traditions.

Since many Cajuns and Creoles were farmers and not especially wealthy, they were known for not wasting any part of a butchered animal. Cracklins are a popular snack made by frying pork skins or fat and boudin is created from the ground-up leftover parts of a hog after the best meat is taken, which is mixed with cooked rice. It is usually formed into a sausage, but can also be rolled in a ball and deep-fried called a boudin ball.
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HAIKU - ZAPPAI

summer heat . . .
still the on the menu
Tex-Mex food

Shared by Elain Andre



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Related words

***** . WASHOKU - Japanese Food Saijiki .


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