Food, Glorious Food

Food, in the end, in our own tradition, is something holy. It’s not about nutrients and calories. It’s about sharing. It’s about honesty. It’s about identity. -Louise Fresco

I’ve grown up hearing a lot of people tell me how much they love “Mexican food,” only to realize they don’t mean the food I grew up eating. What they usually mean is bastardized assimilated dishes that have lost most of their connection to the traditional dishes of the native land.

This might be why I actually typically hate going to Mexican restaurants with friends. The food is never quite what I hoped it will be. I crave the colors and flavors I get whenever I visit family back in my home state of Jalisco. Usually the restaurants around New York, the ones that can pass for authentic, have Oaxaca or Puebla origins and it is just more disheartening for me. Those foods are usually sweeter and make me feel even more alienated. It took a while for my friends to get it. They thought all Mexican food should be the same. Expecting the homogenized image of Mexico the media always displays. But it’s like when you leave New York and try pizza somewhere else. It looks recognizable in most places (except maybe Chicago, what even is the deal with deep dish?) but the heart of the pizza, of what makes it true New York pizza isn’t there.  That’s what it’s like for me to go to Mexican restaurants.

When I visit Mexico, I have to load up on the tastes and looks of my favorite dishes. I document my meals whenever I visit, and hold onto those memories and carry them with me between trips like little amulets warding off any assimilation. I do it so I don’t lose that little bit of me that I can never quite find here in New York, except in my mom and brother.

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