The United States is a land of eclectic dining, but Mexican food is among the most popular cuisines. According to Pew Research , Mexican restaurants make up about 1 in 10 restaurants in America. While they’re very common in California and Texas, about 85% of all U.
S. counties have at least one Mexican eatery. Pew also reports Mexican-Americans are the largest Hispanic group in the U.
S., which could account for the popularity of Mexican cuisine. While it’s typical for casual Mexican restaurants to offer chips and salsa to every table, the ethnic, vibrant cuisine is much deeper than a complimentary appetizer.
What Defines Mexican Food? Ask, “What is Mexican food?” and you may be met with varied answers. There are common, almost stereotypical Mexican foods, like tamales and pico de gallo , but Mexican cuisine encompasses a wide variety of flavors and ingredients. According to Moon , the roots of Mexican cuisine could be as old as the 15th century and primarily featured ingredients like squash, corn, beans, and chile peppers.
When the Spanish settled the area, they introduced new ingredients and cooking methods, including onions, cheese, and rice. What we consider Mexican food today slowly emerged from the fusion of those two cultures. Tex-Mex is a specific variant of “authentic” Mexican food and evolved as Texas residents discovered unique and flavorful dishes served south of the border and adopted them into their cuisine .
They used items commonly found in local grocery stores, giving way to dishes like nachos, fajitas , and flour tortillas. The Evolution of Mexican Food Mexican food changes with the region. Southern Foodways points out dishes like “hot tamales” or “Delta tamales” became popular in the Mississippi Delta region in the early years of the 20th century.
Theories on how such an iconic Mexican food reached the isolated Delta vary. Some food historians even say they’ve been in the Delta since the mound-building Native Americans lived there. Others believe soldiers brought the recipe with them after the Mexican-American War.
Perhaps they arrived when Mexican laborers worked the cotton harvest alongside the resident African Americans. The recipe has changed a little in the intervening years, but hot tamales are still popular in the area, and “tamale stands” can be found from Vicksburg to Tupelo. New Mexico’s version of Mexican food features dishes like green chile sauce made from patented Hatch chiles bred in New Mexico State University in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Arizona has Sonoran-style Mexican, focusing on beef and producing dishes like the chimichanga. Nevada combines styles, as found in the Reno eatery, Bertha Miranda’s , and its recipes from Chihuahua in northern Mexico. California Mexican is more health-conscious, with avocados, fish tacos, and more vegetables in the mix .
Ultimately, the styles reflect the local culture and readily available ingredients. Fast Food Fuels Mexican Cuisine Popularity According to historians at Ohio State University , the popularity of Mexican food in the United States spurred the first Taco Bell restaurant in 1962 in San Bernadino, California. Owner Glen Bell took influences from California-Mexican dishes to create his version of Mexican fast food, which eventually blossomed into more than 8,000 Taco Bell restaurants worldwide.
Taco Bell’s food caters to white customers’ tastes otherwise unaccustomed to spicy traditional Mexican dishes. It also offers familiar ingredients like ground beef, lettuce, and cheese, packaged in the then-exotic crispy taco shell. American diners were already familiar with rice and pinto beans, but Taco Bell offered refried beans, prepared differently with a similar taste.
After Taco Bell succeeded, more chains followed. El Chico opened its first restaurant in 1940 and expanded to 16 restaurants. The now-defunct Chi-Chi’s started in Minnesota in 1975, opening the same year as the Tex-Mex chain Chili’s .
Authentic, traditional Mexican cuisine tends to be reserved for smaller family-owned restaurants, which tend to find their home in cities, where cultures are more likely to stand out than blend. The National Restaurant Association reports there were more than 749,000 restaurants in the U.S.
in 2023. Based on Pew Research’s report claiming that 1 in 10 American restaurants is a Mexican eatery, that adds up to an estimated 74,900 Mexican restaurants nationwide. However, that figure likely doesn’t include Mexican food trucks and small Mexican grocery stores offering takeout.
Making Mexican at Home As the popularity of Mexican food increases, homeowners replicate their favorite foods in their kitchens. Book retailers offer a range of Mexican-themed cookbooks, including works by celebrity chefs Rick Bayless and Pati Jinich, who specialize in Mexican cuisine. Many towns either have Mexican grocery stores or grocery stores with an aisles dedicated to Latin foods and ingredients.
Home cooks can now access more esoteric ingredients like nopal cactus, achiote seasoning, or masa harina. Stores also offer different dried chiles such as ancho, guajillo, Anaheim peppers, serrano, and more. When asked about their favorite dish, Tiffany McCauley with Slappy Toad shares, “My favorite thing to order in a Mexican restaurant is queso for an appetizer and then enchiladas for my main meal.
But my favorite Mexican dish to make at home is taco salad served with corn chips.” In many ways, that’s the essence of Mexican cuisine: cook what you like with the authentic ingredients you may have on hand. This article was produced by Media Decision and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks .
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