To all the wokosos whining about @nytimes writing about carne asada fries: stop. A THREAD
First off, the author @juliamoskin is legit, and I don’t say this just because she did a profile on me in 2012 before the release of my Taco USA book. Julia knows that Mexican American foodways are varied and delicious, so her centering her carne asada recipe in Denver is smart
Den-Mex food is the type of cuisine where chile rellenos come in wonton wrappers, the tacos are hard shell w/melted cheese on the outside, and the most iconic dish is the Mexican hamburger: a bean-and-chicharrón burrito with a hamburger patty, and everything drowned in chile
Den-Mex cuine is so gloriously not “authentic”, wokosos would implode in their fury of cultural appropriation and eschewing of “tradition.” And, yes, among the Den-Amex menu is carne asada fries. But they didn’t originate in Denver. They come from San Diego
Carne asada fries originated from the -berto’s, an informal chain of fast-food taco shops that dot American Southwest (Roberto’s in SD and Las Vegas, Alberto’s in OC, Filiberto’s across Arizona, and so on). Chain was started by immigrants from San Luis Potosí—you know, Mexicans
It always amazes me how self-appointed defenders of Mexican food know SO LITTLE about Mexican food’s manifestations in the United States. They erase decades of foodways by Mexican immigrants and Chicanos every time they dismiss dishes that don’t fit their Baylessista rubric
And to the people who say the @nytimes carne asada fries recipe doesn’t “look” right? Same wokosos who whined about NYT’s guacamole recipe with peas. Experimentation, adaptation, and mestizaje defines Mexican food and is the reason why it’s been so popular in US for 140 years
But what do I know? I just wrote a book about history of Mex food in US, write a column about Mexican food in South for @southfoodways wrote epic road trip stories for @Eater, write for @latimesfood and run @kcrw #tortillatournament. I can back my shit up, unlike Baylessistas
Unless you can tell me where the DMZ is between Den-Mex and Pueblo-Mex food, your argument against @nytimes and #carneasadafries is as laughable as the foodie world swooning about Diana Kennedy, whom the wokosos always seem to leave alone because it’s easier to trash Chicanos
Anyways, time to go to my local lonchera, where they put mustard and ketchup in their tortas because they’re chilangos, the most inauthentic Mexicans of them all. As @MexicanKeto would do:
FINAL POINT: Few people take more glee in ridiculing @nytimes cluelessness (especially about Southern California) than me—you can look it up. But on #carneasadafries, they did nothing wrong—and to rage that they did says more about wokoso culture than NYT
YET ANOTHER POINT: if you want to ridicule San Diego for its Mexican food, go with their claim that they invented the all-meat burrito. Sonora has something to say about that!
Ok, I’m back—I tweeted so much that Twitter put me in timeout haha. Will go through everything eventually, but I’m busy with...something right now. As @paperandthyme would do:
