Mexican food is DELICIOUS. Mexican food is SOPHISTICATED. Mexican food has UNESCO recognition for its unique contribution to humanity. Sweet potatoes, yams, tomatoes, vanilla, cinnamon, cacao, amaranth, chiles and maize are just a few of the food groups the originated in Mexico and people have been cooking with them for a VERY LONG time. In fact, Mexico probably scores higher on "food introduced to the world" than any other country. THE SECRET WASN’T TOUGH to figure out: ingredients. The maize in the tortilla shell was local. The chilies in the red and green salsa were yanked out of a garden maybe fifty feet away. So was the cilantro.
The pork—dark enough to qualify as “the other red meat”—didn’t spend its days on a metal grate eating industrial feed. It rooted around in someone’s back field. It wasn’t braised in industrially refined corn oil, either, but lolled for many happy hours in the saturated bliss of rendered pork fat. deliciousness isn’t the product of high-end chefs and their wizardly techniques. It rests, rather, on the army of everyday cookers and eaters who not only inhabit the countryside but are the countryside.