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.

About the Author
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.


Book Information
ISBN 9781682832738
Author Adan Medrano
Format Hardback
Page Count 224
Imprint Texas A & M University Press
Publisher Texas A & M University Press