This session will be streamed, recorded, and archived on the site until June 25th, 2023

Curated Track: 

Description:

The Mexican restaurant is a form of ethnic food dining found across the United States in cities and towns. It is an expression of popular cultural consumption but also a business enterprise historically engaged by families of Mexican ancestry. This presentation explores how Mexican restaurants came to be part of the American dining experience. The presentation examines the restaurant as a form of material culture, a venue of cross-cultural contact, an ethnic enterprise, and a culinary business of surprising regional variation. The story of the Mexican restaurant is revealed through conventional sources, including field investigations, and an archive of historic ephemera that includes postcards, matchbook covers, and menus. The Mexican restaurant can be traced to late nineteenth-century outdoor dining in San Antonio, TX. The popularity of Mexican food was driven by a nationwide early twentieth century “tamale craze.” In the post-World War II era, Mexican ancestry families opened dinner houses in selected regions. The family restaurant transformed in late twentieth century to a corporate enterprise, which exploded the appeal and geographic extent of Mexican restaurants. Mexican restaurant food evolved from recognized American regional varieties of the cuisine—Tex-Mex, Cal-Mex, Arizona-Mex, and New Mexico-Mex—to embrace regional varieties from Mexico such as foodways of Oaxaca and Jalisco. Today, selected restaurants highlight celebrity chefs who assemble menus that feature the native roots of the cuisine. In all these time and place transformations, the restaurant, originally constructed for non-Mexicans to experience Mexican food, persists as an institution of American dining enjoyed by many and located in every part of the country.

Non-Presenting Participants