A New Yorker — heaven forfend — has pronounced San Antonio as the world’s greatest Tex-Mex food city (in, of all places, the New York Times). We have had spirited discussions here about this subject in the past, so this will no doubt elicit even more. I will also check with our New York City correspondent, a native Dallasite, for his report.
One point that I do think is important: The reporter notes that food snobs think Tex-Mex is beneath them, and he launches a spirited defense of the cuisine. I have run across this constantly in my food writing as well — Tex-Mex seems to inhabit a rung somewhere between haggis and lutefisk. One highly respected food organization has repeatedly resisted my suggestions that it meet here, to discuss — and eat — Tex-Mex. It’s their loss.
I am not quite sure why the snobs feel this way, other than Tex-Mex tastes good and is cheap. Food snobs hate things that that taste good and are cheap. Expensive and bad is OK, but not cheap and good.
I will add that the Advocate, long before this Times fellow did his article, ran the ultimate Tex-Mex food story — starts on page 18. (I say this with modesty, of course, since I wrote it.)
