In 15,000-year-old archaeological sites throughout Texas and Northeastern Mexico, records left by Indigenous communities tell stories about their food practices. Author and chef Adan Medrano, a descendant of these communities, has made it his life's work to document these food practices. With Medrano's expert eye, in this book we can learn about those ancestors' ingredients, infer their techniques, and cook alongside them. In The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook, each of the 90 kitchen-tested recipes includes detailed cooking instructions intended for contemporary home cooks. Headnotes for each recipe describe how the dish entered the region's culinary traditions and became integral to the culinary act of meaning-making in the community. The book provides explanations of the origins of iconic ingredients like squash, cactus, mesquite, and sunflowers, as well as more recent, post-Conquest ingredients like watermelon, rice, and cauliflower. These ancestors ate pecans and black walnuts, along with acorns, grapes, berries, seeds, and tubers. Mesquite and cactus were central to celebrations. Texas Mexican food is frequently called comida casera, home-style cooking. Home cooks of all levels can discover ancient ingredients and simple techniques in this volume and come away with a deeper knowledge of the agricultural systems that belie our current foodways.
Chef, food writer, and filmmaker Adan Medrano holds a Certificate in Culinary Arts from the Culinary Institute of America. He grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and in Northern Mexico, where he developed his expertise in the flavor profile and techniques of Indigenous Texas Mexican food. He is the author of Truly Texas Mexican: A Native Culinary Heritage in Recipes (TTU Press, 2014) and Don't Count the Tortillas: The Art of Texas Mexican Cooking (TTU Press, 2019). In his career as a foundation grant maker, he spent twenty-three years working throughout Latin America, Europe, and Asia and during his travels came to recognize the cultural importance of food.
"The foodways of Texas and Northeastern Mexico are connected by much more than a shared love of carne asada and flour tortillas. In The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook, Adan Medrano showcases culturally rich and healthful recipes--such as Pecan and Mesquite Mole and Pipian Ranchero with Jerusalem Artichokes--demonstrating that the home cooking of the Texas Mexican region has, for centuries, been deliciously rooted in a shared landscape and complex histories." --Maite Gomez-Rejon, Hungry for History (podcast) "This book is a revelation. Deceptively simple recipes showcase how Texas Mexican cuisine is rooted in the vibrant flavors of the land and Indigenous cooking techniques, enhanced by historical friendships with people from Oaxaca, Michoacan, Yucatan, the Southwestern Pueblos, the Great Plains, and the Iberian Peninsula. A few more involved recipes are included for special occasions (mesquitamal, herbed corn, and Jerusalem artichoke tarts). Most ingredients will be familiar, but notes above each recipe discuss some of the less common ones, often with stories of the author's personal experience and advice on where to find them. The notes also outline the nutritional advantages of important ingredients and the histories of particular plants, especially domesticated plants like corn, beans, and squashes that Indigenous people began cultivating millennia ago. Ultimately, this book is a revolution, a call to create healthy relationships to the land and other people. Chef Medrano argues that such alliances are the surest way to create food that enriches our bodies and our lives. The recipes are local, but they are universal in the way that good, healthy food always is. Chef Medrano has shared Texas Mexican recipes with friends and colleagues from Michoacan to Moscow. After making a few of these (maybe lentejas guisadas, avocado popsicle, toksel, or watermelon and jicama salad?) you'll want to share them too." --Leslie L. Bush, PhD, Archaeobotanist "Stunned to find an exceptional book celebrating the history and culture of this little-known area of Texas through food. These wonderful recipes are sure to fill your home with aromas, conversation, and memories." --Chef Bobby Gonzalez, El Capataz, Laredo, Texas "This book is a powerful and eye-opening tribute to the Indigenous plant-based traditions of Texas and Northeastern Mexico, reminding us that our roots run deep in the land, long before borders and colonization." --Chef Victoria Elizondo, Cochinita & Co., Houston, Texas
