Before we get into what everyone thinks about American Southwestern cooking--chilis, corn, spices--
let's talk steak. Although relatively new on the scene, beef and bison had been a staple of the
American Southwest. The diet of the Old West cowboys conjures up beans, coffee and thick slabs of
steak around the campfire. Although steak was served mostly at the long tables of the ranches, the
campfire legend still persists. The American Bison, after having been slaughtered to near extinction,
is making a comback on the plates of Southwestern diners. When one travels in New Mexico, Texas, and
Arizona, one finds cattleguards on the rural roadways indicating free-range cattle are out and about.
Now let's turn to what most Americans think of as Mexican food. There is no denying that American
Southwestern cooking borrows heavily from--even copying--the cuisine of Sonoran Northwest Mexico. There
is the taco, the American staple of Mexican food, is much more prevalent in America than in Mexico.
Another staple, the tamale (corn paste with shredded meat wrapped in a corn shuck) is more Mexican than
American, and is baked and used as a traditional Christmas entree throughout Hispanic communities in the US.
As for spices, we all know about chili pepper, paste, ground and whole. But the next time you pass the
spice rack at your grocery store, take a whiff of cumin (or "comino"). You will recognize the very essence
of Mexican food.
But these days chefs in the American Southwest have tried to make Mexican food uniquely American.
In Southern California, the fish taco is a staple, and is a theme for many franchised restaurants.
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, a bastion of culture in the American Southwest, chefs are using ingredients
of other cuisines--French, Greek, African, Asian--like capers, frog's legs, paprika, soy sauce and caviar,
to create a uniquely Southwestern American cuisine. This may sound ironic at first glance, but the
Southwest, has been an amalgam of different cultures for more than a hundred years: Chinese, Irish,
African American, Mexican, European and the list goes on and on.