Americanizing Mexican Food

America is undoubtedly the most diverse country in the world with communities from all over the world coming to live there. Among them, Latin Americans from across the globe come to America and set up families and businesses all over the country. 

The most prominent of these hispanic countries is Mexico because it is the closest to America. There are many aspects of Mexican culture that were brought over to the states and developed, one of the most obvious and most popular being the food. 

History of Mexican Food

Mexican dishes have been around for centuries and undergone many changes and advancement. For the most part like many hispanic countries, many of these dishes use ingredients that are regional to their respective areas. For instance corn, beans, and chillies are heavily incorporated in many dishes as well as a lot of regional spices. 

Before the Mexican revolution happened, causing many people from the country fled to America for a better life, their dishes had already been perfected. Having them bring in incredible food to a country that at the time was very much still  based on meat and potatoes. Such dishes include tacos, burritos, chili, enchiladas, and even tortillas.

The “Americanization” of Hispanic Dishes

As Mexican cuisine was brought over and implemented into American culture it gained massive popularity very quickly, Mexican dishes were especially popular in states closest to Mexico like Texas and Arizona. As this new form of ethnic cuisine grew in America, it unfortunately became subject to heavy americanization across the states. 

Mexican restaurants were opening up across the country, some with different variations of the classic dishes from its origin. The style “Tex-Mex” which is a blend of mexican styles with ingredients local to texas grew very popular. It seems that Americans could not handle such a radical change of what they eat and the tremendous flavor they are given so their solution was to use the same sauces and spices but add more meat, and “Tex-Mex” was born. 

Corn was a major part in many Mexican dishes as it could make tortillas or be used as corn starch when ground up. In America corn is one of the major crops within its agriculture as well. This made a very easy transition into many dishes popular in Mexico becoming easy to mass produce in America. This then resulted in growing Mexican foods into American foods almost seamlessly, into today with it being  commonplace in the American food scene. 

With companies like Taco Bell and Chipotle in nearly every corner of the country as well as thousands of other Mexican restaurants. In this case Mexico is just being used as a good example of this, but nearly every South American or Latino country is represented in America’s food scene.