Food and drink

The wine blog has more about wine in the USA, so this is mostly about other drinks.  When we were last in the States in 1998 a friend told us about the drive-through tequila bar she'd encountered in New Orleans!  When she said "isn't this a bit dangerous?" the bartender apparently said "what do you have seat belts for?"  Our consumption of tequila, in the form of the ubiquitous margarita, was less risky, but a regular feature of our visits to bars and restaurants in Texas and New Mexico.  Never more than one at a sitting - Mary has a long-remembered experience of falling asleep in the yard after a second at our home in Derbys ;-) - but delicious with or without the salt round the rim of the glass.  The sour of the lime juice is as important as the tequila and orange liqueur kick.

 

The big surprise was the good beer we found. Looking at the web since we returned there is a huge interest in locally brewed beers in Texas and in New Mexico, as well as a lot of imports from Mexico. The two we specially enjoyed were the Mexican Negra Modelo (described by Wikipedia as a 5.3% abv Munich dunkel lager first brewed in Mexico by Austrian immigrants, and was introduced as a draft beer in 1926) and the Albuquerque Marble Brewery's Red Ale ("brewed with caramel malts and balanced with a bold bright blend of Crystal Cascade and Simcoe hops").  Though we often drank good Californian and even New Mexico wines, the beers were a highlight with lunches of Tex-Mex food and quiet evenings in a bar!

 

The State question in New Mexico is apparently "Red or Green?"  The answer is either "Red" or "Green" referring to the colour of chili sauce you want with your food.  Red and green are not a reliable guide to hotness - either can be mild or alternatively blow your head off.  We ate so many variants of the local foods that it was hard to remember them all, so I am grateful to Wikipedia for much of the following.

First of all 'chili' or chili sauce: made from red or green chilis by a variety of recipes, and served hot over many (perhaps any) New Mexican dish.  Chili does not use vinegar, unlike most salsas, picantes and other hot sauces.  Green chili is made with chopped roasted chiles, while red chili is made with chilis dried and ground to a powder.  Thickeners like flour, and various spices are often added, especially ground cumin, coriander and oregano. Chile is one of the most definitive differences between New Mexican and other Mexican and Mexican-American cuisines (which often make a different green chili sauce from tomatillos - Alan told us about these knobbly tomato-like vegetables but we never saw one, whole at least!).

New Mexican cuisine uses chili sauce as taco sauce, enchilada sauce, burrito sauce, etc. (though any given meal may use both red and green varieties for different dishes). A thicker version of green chili, with larger pieces of the plant, plus onions and other additions, is used the same way as green chili sauce, as a topping for virtually anything, including American dishes. The term "Christmas" is commonly used in New Mexico when both red and green chilis are used for one dish.

Much New Mexican food is based round the tortilla, "a flatbread made predominantly either of unbleached white wheat flour or of cornmeal" according to Wikipedia. "New Mexico-style flour tortillas are typically thicker and less chewy than those found in Texas because they use lower-protein, more cake-like flour commonly available in New Mexico. New Mexican expatriates who travel back to the state for visits will often bring an extra carry-on to fill with New Mexico tortillas and frozen green chili."

From this basic bread base you get lots of variants:  burritos, small-to-medium white flour tortilla, filled with fried meat, beans, sour cream, green chili, or a combination of these, and rolled, often served smothered with green/red chili sauce and melted cheese. Breakfast burritos are smaller-sized versions typically including scrambled eggs, potatoes, red or green chili, cheese, and sometimes meat.  The word "smothered" is frequently used on menus to indicate the generosity of the sauce coverings - it can also make the food underneath difficult to identify! 

Then there are enchiladas - corn tortillas filled with chicken meat, and/or cheese, either rolled, or stacked, and covered with chili sauce and cheese. The stacked version is called a flat enchilada, (or 'Santa Fe-style enchilada'), usually covered with either red or green chili sauce, and optionally topped with a fried egg. In other parts of the States enchiladas are invariably each a discrete item; New Mexico-style enchiladas are often prepared fused together on a pan, assembled and placed in the oven, or in a casserole dish, rather like lasagna.  Flat enchiladas made with blue corn tortillas are a particularly New Mexican variation - we liked these.  Then again there are tacos or corn tortilla fried into a trough shape and filled with meats, cheese, or beans plus fresh chopped lettuce, onions, tomatoes and cheese, and the tostada: a corn tortilla is fried flat, and covered with meat, lettuce and cheese to make an open-faced taco.

Fresh vegetables and salad were not exactly uncommon, but you had to hunt them down.  Sometimes there was salsa, the kind of uncooked mixture of chiles/peppers, tomatoes, onions, frequently with tomato paste to produce a sauce-like texture - it usually contains vinegar, and the green chili variant also usually uses cooked tomatillos instead of tomatoes.  We also had avocado as guacamole.  However, several times Mary enjoyed spinach salad as a lighter but also fresher alternative.

 

We ate in a varieety of places - with Philip and Judi at the Fonda San Miguel in Austin, twice in the bar of La Fonda hotel in Santa Fe, whose restaurant looks well worth exploring (some other time!)  Some of the places Alan and Barb took us to, to see the variety of typical local eateries as well as only to find interesting food - included Cracker Barrel, and the seafood specialist Landrys.