Tex-Mex Food

Also see: Tex-Mex Dining Dictionary

The designation Tex-Mex refers to the particular style of Mexican food found in the Lone Star State. Unlike New Mexico's Mexican food, which might include blue corn tortillas, or California Mexican food which relies on avocados and black olives, Tex-Mex depends heavily on ground beef, cheese, and chili sauce.

You can find great chicken enchiladas with a flavorful verde tomatillo sauce as well as vegetarian dishes, or even shrimp enchiladas. But the real Tex-Mex favorite, often known affectionately as "Regular Plate No. 1", is an order of beef enchiladas, refried beans, and Spanish rice. If you're lucky, leche quemada, a sugary pecan praline, will be brought out with your check.

Tamales, both mild and spicy varieties, are also found on every Tex-Mex menu, but they're most popular during the Christmas season. Making tamales at home is a time-consuming job, one traditionally tackled by large families.

As you venture further south in Texas, you'll find a larger variety of Tex-Mex dishes, including some that are sold primarily in Hispanic neighborhoods. One of these dishes is cabrito, tender young goat usually cooked over an open flame on a spit. Cabrito is a common dish in border towns, where you can often see it hanging on spits in market windows.

Another Tex-Mex specialty is barbacoa, a spicy barbecue that's usually served in tacos. It's one of those dishes that tastes great until you discover what you're eating. Barbacoa starts as a head of beef, with eyes, brain and tongue intact, that's buttered then wrapped in cheesecloth then a burlap bag.

The traditional way to prepare barbacoa begins by digging a pit or pozo and filling it about one-third full of hot coals covered with pads of the prickly pear cactus (to add moisture).

Traditionally these spicy dishes are washed down with cold cerveza. If you go overboard, the Tex-Mex cure the next morning is a bowl of menudo. This spicy soup, made from tripe, is a popular hangover remed

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