>>Presenter: Hi everyone, I’m Catherine
Eng and I’m on the Authors at Google team
here at Google Los Angeles.
It’s my pleasure, today, to welcome Gustavo
Arellano to our campus today to talk about
his new book “Taco USA: How Mexican Food
Conquered America.”
Gustavo is the editor of OC Weekly, an alternative
newspaper in Orange County, California, and
he’s the author of “Orange County: A Personal
History”, a frequent commentator for L.A.
Times and Marketplace, a lecturer with the
Chicana and Chicano Studies department at
Cal-State Fullerton.
Gustavo also writes the very popular and nationally
syndicated column “Ask a Mexican” in which
he answers any and all questions about America’s
spiciest and largest minority.
This award winning column has a circulation
of over 2 million in 39 newspapers across
the U.S. and was published in book form in
May of 2007.
Gustavo is a long, lifelong resident of Orange
County and is a proud son of two Mexican immigrants,
one of whom was illegal.
Please help me welcome Gustavo Arellano.
[Applause]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Thank you, thank you.
>>Michael Brown: Thank you.
I would first like to thank you for all the
contributions you’ve made to the understanding
of the Mexican culture and, you know, the
format that you’ve put it in is just really
unique and special.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Thank you, I appreciate
it.
>>Michael Brown: Thank you.
One of the first questions we have is why
are so many Mexican foods like chili and salsa
and tacos, of course, been turned into a national
and international money maker and yet, from
an outsiders view, not a lot of that money
is being filtered back into Mexico?
What are your thoughts on that?
>>Gustavo Arellano: What, the book, “Taco
USA” I address that.
There’s this misconception that it’s only
rapacious Americans who are making all this
money on Mexican food or Mexican food stuffs
like Tequila, like hot sauce, tortillas, Fritos,
Doritos and all these different things, but
that’s not necessarily true.
What happens is, when it comes to food or
the production of food, it’s a business
and business is capitalism and capitalism
is rapacious, so in the book you have everyone
ripping everyone off.
Mexicans ripping off Mexicans, Americans ripping
off Mexicans, Mexicans ripping off Americans,
Koreans coming in and ripping off Mexicans,
Mexicans coming in and ripping off Koreans
and when I first started doing this book,
part of me, you know, you have that sort of
jingoistic thing like no person other than
a Mexican can make Mexican food, everything
else is fake.
But that’s not the case, food is food is
food.
I think what matters, ultimately, is the foods
good, after that, I mean, you cannot ding
someone for ripping someone else off.
I mean, they’ll get theirs in the afterlife
but
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: here in the terrestrial
world, they would do it too.
One example I had was Taco Bell.
We all know what Taco Bell is, of course.
They got, Glen Bell, the founder of Taco Bell,
he got his idea for making these tacos from
a restaurant in San Bernardino that still
exists, Mitla Café, it’s on the corner
Mount Vernon and Sixth Street, now celebrating,
in San Bernardino, celebrating its 75th anniversary.
So that kind of sucks, okay, that’s fine,
but then at the same time I also interviewed
the founder of El Torito, Larry Cano, who
is a Mexican guy and he admitted to me his
business strategy was he would tell his trusted
employees, “Okay, you’re gonna find Mexican
restaurants around the United States that
are popular, you’re gonna get a job at those
restaurants, you’re gonna work there for
a month, you’re gonna steal all their secrets,
then you’re gonna get fired and then you’re
gonna come back to me and we’re gonna rip
em’ off.
So, you know, it goes both ways.
[Laughs]
>>Michael Brown: Nice.
That’s great.
Also, in “Taco USA” you talk about the
history of Mexican food in the United States
and its evolution.
Everywhere from the TamaleMan to the Chili
Queens to Taco Bell and Tex-Mex food that
you were saying, what are your thoughts on
authentic, on authenticity and how people
really kind of portray that theirs is authentic
and yet they’re doing it here in the United
States so how authentic could it be?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Exactly.
When it comes to food there’s always going
to be that question of authenticity.
What is authentic, what isn’t?
And the funny thing is, most people, they
really do care about that question and they’re
incredibly passionate about it.
I was one of those people, again, before I
started doing this book I was one of those
people that there’s real Mexican food and
then there’s fake Mexican food.
But as I started doing the research for the
book, doing the research for the book took
me about two years, well, a lifetime of eating
Mexican food with two years of actual intense
research via eating Mexican food all across
United States.
It quickly dawned on me that people’s idea
of what, quote unquote, Mexican food is, is
completely different, yet at the same time
everyone assumed that their Mexican food was
not only the authentic version but the version
that everyone else ate.
I’ll give you an example, I travel a lot
to Denver, Denver’s one of my favorite cities
to travel, it’s just a great atmosphere.
So, over there, the Mexican food is absolutely
crazy.
Chile Rellenos which we all know what they
are, here in Southern California they’re
stuffed chilies with cheese and you fry them
in egg batter and voilà, there you have it.
In Denver, you have that but instead of white
cheese it’s yellow cheese, instead of like
the big Anaheim Chilies that we use they’re
smaller squatter chilies from Southern Colorado.
They put the egg batter, sure, but then on
top of that they wrap it in won ton skin then
fry it and there’s your chile relleno.
That’s one dish.
A much crazier dish is something called the
Mexican hamburger.
A Mexican hamburger is a burrito of beans
and chicharrones, pork rinds, with a hamburger
patty right in the middle.
Then they serve it to you on a dish and they
cover it in chili, in chili gravy.
And there, we would call it a wet burrito,
over there they call it a smothered burrito
and it’s covered in this chili gravy that
is orange, bright, bright orange, for the
Broncos, they love the Broncos so much.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: It is an amazing dish.
It is an absolutely amazing dish, yet it exists
nowhere else in the United States.
So, when I first found out about the Mexican
hamburger, I asked, “What’s a Mexican
hamburger?”
They would look at me.
“You mean you don’t have them in Southern
California?”
I’m like, “No, guys.
You guys only have it in Denver.”
And then they got really sad about that.
They’re like, “Oh, we thought everyone
knew what a Mexican hamburger was.”
So you go all across the United States and
everyone has this idea of what’s authentic
and what’s not.
So, ultimately, we’re reduced to having
to acknowledge that there is no such thing
as authentic Mexican food.
It’s authentic if you say it’s authentic
but really it’s not authentic.
It’s like this existential morass that we
should never really get out of, right?
Similarly, what matter is, is the food good?
And if it’s good, good for you, and the
great thing, though, about, all this said,
that question of authenticity is what’s
driven American consumption of Mexican food.
There’s always been, in the mind of Americans,
they’ve always known that the Mexican food
in front of them, that it’s great, but there’s
better Mexican food somewhere down the path.
That’s been the course of Mexican food in
this country for over 125 years starting with
tamales, going with what we know now as just
chili in a can, it used to be called Chili
Con Carne, going through Taco Bell, at one
point people thought Taco Bell was quote unquote,
authentic food, or the most authentic food
you could find.
And, of course, every decade there’s a new
Mexican food stuff that comes in to be the
new authentic Mexican food.
In the '80s it was fajitas, now fajitas are
as American as Doritos.
>>Michael Brown: Absolutely.
And, you know, I’ve noticed in a lot, you
know, of the Carl's Junior commercials and
some of the brands that are out there now,
that the Chipotle Chili is like the end all
to chilies.
[Laughter]
>>Michael Brown: And that one is just really,
it’s got a great smoky flavor but as far
as depth of flavor compared to all the other
chilies like the Guajillo and Cascabel, you
know, is it ignorance on their part or is
it just lack of experimentation?
What is your thought on that?
>>Gustavo Arellano: I don’t think it’s
ignorance as much as they just haven’t been
exposed to it.
And, of course, I guess that’s ignorance
in a way where if there’s something in front
of you and you don’t know it that’s ignorance,
but at the same time, as you know, with foods
there’s different trends that come in.
There’s different trends that fall in and
out of flavor.
So, for the longest time the only chili that
Americans knew, well no, the first quote unquote
chili that Americans knew came from Mexico,
was a Tabasco pepper that they would eat in
their Tabasco hot sauce.
Then it became chili powder, just chili powder,
you created from, was it Tabasco pepper?
I don’t think it was Tabasco pepper, other
peppers from Northern Mexico.
Then it became hot sauce.
That, for them, was their perception of peppers.
Oh, then, of course, just chili peppers from
New Mexico.
Which we now know is the Ortega pepper or
Anaheim chili that came from New Mexico.
So these were all different traditions that
would come into the United States.
Then, of course, the Jalapeño comes in once
nachos became popular in the 1970s, all of
a sudden people were eating jalapeños.
Then Chipotle, the chipotle pepper not the
Chipotle burrito chain that really kicked
in, in the late 1990s and so forth.
But now you’re starting to see more peppers
come out habanero, people are starting to
realize what habaneros are, you’re having
these habanero eating contests.
Google YouTube there’s this great clip,
I think it’s this 13 year old boy he’s
like, “I’m gonna eat a habanero” and
he chomps, he bites into it full on and then
within 20 seconds his face turns crimson.
He’s like, “Ahh!”
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Well, typical teenager
going
[Makes monster-type noise]
>>Gustavo Arellano: But people are realizing
that.
Did these peppers become invented in those
decades?
Of course not, they’ve always existed in
the United States.
One big thing though that’s happened is
those peppers come up along with Mexicans.
Or, rather, get into the main stream so the
chipotle pepper, it’s most famous use is
around central Mexico with Poblano cuisine,
Chilango cuisine, food from Mexico City.
That, those traditions didn’t really penetrate
the mainstream of the united States until,
really, the 1970s and 80s with Rick Bayless
and Diana Kennedy and other chefs, you know,
here in Southern Califor--, or just here in
Santa Monica actually, the Two Hot Tamales.
But they really didn’t explode into the
American consciousness until Chipotle, the
Chipotle burrito chain, which interestingly
enough doesn’t use chipotles.
[Laughter]
>>Michael Brown: Right.
And that’s what leads me to my next question.
You know, you talk about the hot sauces and
sauces in modern day cuisine and, you know,
what is, you know, and the habanero we were
talking about, you know, at what point does
burn your insides out
[Laughter]
>>Michael Brown: and look how much heat I
can take supersede the flavor and the balance
of a well balanced salsa.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Exactly.
Americans, the world really, the world has
always been enticed by heat, by spices.
That’s what made Columbus, so they told
me elementary school, sail the ocean blue,
“Oh we need to get some pepper and salt
and what not.”
And then when it comes to the chili pepper,
Americans have always been entranced by it
but also scared by it.
So they’re like, “Oh my gosh!” like,
“It’s gonna kill us.”
In fact, the first, the very first write ups
of Mexican food in the United States, they
were negative.
They were from scouts who were going across
what’s now the American Southwest during
the Texan War for Independence and also before
the Mexican-American War.
They would write these dispatches that would
say, what was it, oh okay, that after the
Texan war, after one battle, that the vultures
or buzzards, they wouldn’t eat the corpses
of dead Mexican soldiers because Mexicans
eat chili pepper and if the vultures would
eat their corpses they would die because their
flesh was so spicy and so filled with peppers
that they would die.
And later on, through the 1850’s, 1860’s
you still had this urban legend that if you,
you know, in Texas wherever there were corpses
of dead Mexicans, you shouldn’t have your
cows eat on the grass there because the cows,
cause that chili pepper, it’s still there
and the cows are gonna eat it and they’re
gonna die.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: So Americans, so part
of that it’s like they’ve always known
that about Mexican food, that it’s super
spicy.
So that masochistic tendency in our culture,
you wanna eat the spiciest, hottest thing
alive.
That’s where you have your chili contests,
chili, you know, chili with beans or, no,
no not with beans, don’t talk to Texans
about that.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: But the, chili, you know,
chili cookouts and so forth, but at the same
time, again, Americans, when it comes to Mexican
food, they don’t just eat what’s in front
of them, they won’t just accept it.
They always want something more.
That’s one thing that critics of fast food
Mexican, they’ve never got the American
palate, the American palate is much more refined
than we give them credit for.
We used to, Americans used to eat something
called taco sauce.
Taco sauce basically tomato paste with vinegar
and a little bit of chili, it’s pretty disgusting,
you should not eat taco sauce.
But Americans ate that for decades and decades
until other consumer, or, other marketers,
rather, other producers started making better
hot sauce; Tapatio, Cholula and onward, and
those became multimillion dollar empires as
well.
And, you know, you taste Tapatio, it’s not
gonna fry you; it has a certain flavor to
it.
And then on top of that you skip over actual
fresh produced salsas, you know, freshly made
salsas, go to Trader Joes, go to Whole Foods,
you have whole aisles full of these really
tasteful salsas.
So, again, on one part, Americans do wanna
get fried by Mexican food but on the other
hand, you also want the best possible experience
imaginable.
And that’s the great thing about Mexican
food, that you have the whole panoply of experiences
all within this one cuisine.
>>Michael Brown: Yeah.
It’s funny you bring up the Tapatio and
one of the first questions I get, and you
touch upon this in your book a little bit,
is about the, about the charro who’s on
the front of the bottle and I always get the
question, “Why does he have blue eyes?”
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: They give him, Tapatio,
of course, is amazing hot sauce.
We all know it here in Southern California,
it’s a little Mexican with a massive sombrero
with a smile and yes, he has blue eyes.
And the reason he has blue eyes is, it’s
in regards to, the word Tapatio, Tapatio refers
to somebody, it’s a nickname for somebody
from the city of Guadalajara in Jalisco.
Jalisco, I like to describe Jalisco as the
Texas of Mexico.
It’s a place that, it’s a really great
place but people there, they think a little
bit too highly of themselves but at the same
time they have that right to do that.
Jalisco is that birthplace of Tequila, Jalisco
is the birthplace of mariachi and as it so
happens to be, Jalisco is also a place where
you have a lot of very light skinned Mexicans
with blue hair, or blue hair
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Blue eyes and blond hair.
So a lot of people say, “Oh, typical Mexicans
always trying to scrub off their brown skin.”
But you talk to the founders of Tapatio who
actually come from Mexico City but they spent
a couple years in Jalisco but they said, “Well,
no, this is how the people from Jalisco look
like so we’re just depicting what’s truthful.”
>>Michael Brown: Right.
>>Gustavo Arellano: But, of course, Americans
are like, “Mexicans don’t have blue eyes.”
So silly, so silly.
>>Michael Brown: I did notice, I’m married
into a Mexican family and I do notice that
the way that Americans use Tapatio compared
to the way a lot of Mexicans use it, in my
wife’s family, they just use it to put on
the popcorn or maybe on some sort of potato
chip but not necessarily as a salsa you would
put on your taco or anything else.
Has that been your experience as well?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Absolutely.
For Mexicans, hot sauce, it’s really a condiment
to use on just, on snacks.
So, of course, on Doritos and Fritos and now
you have Tapatio flavor Doritos and Fritos,
and what do Mexicans do?
They put Tapatio on those Tapatio flavored
Doritos and Fritos and popcorn, just little
snacks.
But the great thing with a Mexican family,
usually you have somebody there who knows
how to make salsa.
And let’s face it; salsa is much more tastier
than hot sauce.
The reason why the founder of Tapatio created
Tapatio in the first place was because he
couldn’t bring his salsa to work because
they said, “It’s not in a bottle so it’s
unsanitary.”
So he needed to create something that he could
package in a bottle so he made Tapatio.
And, of course, Americans, some Americans
do know how to make salsa but most Americans
don’t so they’ll just buy, they’ll just
go with what’s at the store and they’ll
just get Tapatio and pour it.
Hey, Tapatio’s great, it’s.
My favorite hot sauce right now, though, is
Gringo Bandito.
Gringo Bandito is a hot sauce made by Dexter
Holland of the Offspring, you know the famous
punk band?
And I kid you; well I’ll tell you the story
of Gringo Bandito.
The first time someone gave me a bottle of
Gringo Bandito, it has Dexter just like the
charro on Tapatio, so imagine, you know, big
old sombrero, big old [inaudible] but instead
of a Mexican it’s Dexter Holland, you know,
blonde hair punker with sunglasses going like
this with guns.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Somebody gave me the bottle
and I threw it in the trash can immediately.
It was that, “Oh, dumb Americans thinking
they can steal Mexican food.”
But then I became smart, I got smart so about
20 minutes later I fished it out of the trash
can, I opened it and it’s great sal, hot
sauce, you have to have it here at Google.
It’s an amazing hot sauce.
I would dare say it’s better than Tapatio.
>>Michael Brown: Wow, that’s a bold statement.
>>Gustavo Arellano: It is a very bold statement.
I’ll stand by it.
>>Michael Brown: You touched upon Tequila,
um, you know, that’s a huge, huge moneymaker
and I know there are specific limitations
on where it’s produced, how it’s produced
and other things about, you know, how you
can call it Tequila.
Can you touch upon that a little bit and,
again, how come a lot of the other Mexican
spirits didn’t take off like the Mescal
and the Tepache and stuff like that?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Oh, I love Tepache.
Tepache is this fermented pineapple drink
that’s cut with brown sugar, it’s absolutely
amazing.
You have to, you can only find it here locally
at Mexico City style restaurants but you have
to try it, it’s absolutely good.
In my book there’s a whole chapter devoted
to Mexican alcohol and the reason that Tequila
is, the reason Tequila took off the way it
did, again, going back to the Jalisco methods.
Why did, you know, Mexico has so many musical
traditions, why is it that mariachi got associated
with Mexico more than any?
It’s because there was a concerted effort
in the 1930s in Mexico with the Mexican government
when they were basically branding themselves
to the rest of the world, they made a conscious
effort that were gonna use most of the culture
of Jalisco because in their mind Jalisco,
people from Jalisco, they never inter married
with Mexicans, with Indians, they were all
proud Catholic capitalists which, not necessarily
true, but those were the myths that were created.
That’s why Tequila exploded the way it did.
Of course the Mexican government and the Tequila
producers in Jalisco, there were more than
just Tequila producers period.
They were very, very zealous.
No, zealous isn’t really the right word
but they’re very protective of Tequila.
So, technically, it can’t be called Tequila
unless it’s made in 5 states in Mexico;
Guanajuato, Tamaulipas, in I think Navolato
>>Michael Brown: Novaleo?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Novaleon and another one
I can’t remember.
90 percent of them are made in Jalisco which
is the birthplace Jalisco, or, the birthplace
of Tequila.
Tequila is great, don’t get me wrong, I
love it, but as you know, that came at the
expense of so many other Mexican alcohols.
It’s interesting that you mention Mescal
cause if you go to the more popular hipster
bars right now, you’re starting to see this
influx of Mezcal.
Mezcal, Mezcal is basically the angrier cousin
of Tequila.
It’s made the exact same way except Mezcal’s
distilled once and Tequila’s distilled at
least twice.
So Mezcal’s much smokier, I think it’s
better than Tequila, frankly.
So that’s just taking off but Mezcal, the
first famous Mexican restaurant in the United
States was a rest--, was a pop up restaurant
operated by Buffalo Bill of Buffalo Bill’s
Wild West Show, and on his menu he was serving
Mezcal in 1886 in New York City.
So hipsters who think, “Oh I created something.”
Uh oh, Buffalo Bill beat you more than a century
ago.
But other great, other great alcohols; Sotol.
Sotol is this, oh my God I can’t even describe
it but it’s this amazing liquor, or not
liquor but it’s amazing alcohol from Chihuahua
made from, basically made from this dry shrub
from the desert of Chihuahua.
There’s one I think that’ll never take
off, Pulque, Pulque is the oldest, one of
the oldest alcohols known to man that’s
made from fermenting the sap of the maguey
plant where Tequila comes from and I don’t
think it’ll ever take off cause it’s basically
like drinking alcoholic spit.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: It’s very frothy.
It’s really good, it’s an acquired taste.
It’s very frothy but it’s never gonna
take off, then again, I guarantee you if not
next, if not this year but next you’ll start
seeing Pulquerias or some Pulque up here in
the United States in the hipster bars.
>>Michael Brown: That’s amazing.
I, you know, hand in hand with drinking Tequila,
like you mentioned, is mariachi music.
And growing up in kitchens myself, you know,
listening to La Nueva
[Laughter]
>>Michael Brown: And K-Love and going home
and watching Novelas, that’s how I learned
Spanish and I learned it in a very kind of
rude way.
And when I married into the Mexican family
I was very, very timid about speaking Spanish
to my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, but
they were just happy I was trying.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, yeah.
>>Michael Brown: And you touch in your book,
and mention how a big attitude of Americans
is like, “How come they’re not learning
how to speak English?”
To where back in the day the immigrants would
definitely learn how to speak English and
try to get the accent down.
And now it seems to be almost the opposite
like we wanna know how to speak Spanish the
right way.
[Laughter]
>>Michael Brown: All the cool words and stuff
like that.
What’s your thoughts on that?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, I talk about that
a lot in my 'Ask a Mexican'' book.
This idea of how Mexicans, they never simulate
into the United States, that the only part,
that the only part that Mexicans, that simulate
into the Mexi-, into the United States is
food because Americans love Mexican food.
They might not like Mexicans all the time
but they love their Mexican food.
But that’s false.
I mean, that’s demonstrably false.
I’m the child of Mexican immigrants like
in my bio, my Dad came to this country in
the trunk of a Chevy in 1968 and that was
the first time he came here illegally.
He knows how to speak English but he lives
his entire life in Spanish.
I’d say 95 per, 95 percent of the time,
he’s speaking in Spanish, although, he’ll
only speak English if he absolutely has to
which most of the times he doesn’t have
to.
The first language I spoke when I entered
Kindergarten was Spanish.
Now I’m bilingual but I prefer English over
Spanish and I’ll only speak Spanish if I
have to.
And I want my children, if I ever have children,
I want my children to speak Spanish but I
know they’re all gonna speak English and
they’ll probably have a name like Brittany
or Jonathon.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: or something like that.
But that’s the great thing about modern
day America is that in the past you might
have had that nasty, that really xenophobia
where people would be made fun of if they
can’t speak one language or another.
But nowadays at least people, our generation,
we’re cool.
Like, if your parents don’t speak English
that’s fine.
In fact, you wanna learn other languages.
Like me, I’m in Orange County, I’ve learned
just cobbling together bits and pieces a little
bit of Vietnamese, I’ve learned how to read
Korean, I don’t know what I understand,
what it means but I know how to read the Hungul,
the Hungul script.
I wanna learn Arabic, I think it’s perfectly
fine and so more and more people are starting
to become like that.
We’re, you guys know this at Google, especially,
we’re in a global society, this day of like
borders, of cultural borders just closing
and never opening, they’re done and we’re
for the better.
>>Michael Brown: Yeah.
And in the news recently they’ve come out
with some stats saying that now the Asian
population is now the largest immigrant movement
more than the Latino movement.
I find that very interesting.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Oh yeah, that’s awesome.
The great thing with immigrant culture in
this country is you have all these hybrids.
Today we had Dos Chinos.
Dos Chinos was created by two Vietnamese guys,
they’re not Chinos but they grew up in Santa
Anna which is a very Mexican city.
So they grew up their entire lives with Mexicans
calling them Chinitos.
Because, of course, for Mexicans, no other
Asians existed except Chinese, doesn’t matter
if you’re Laotian , Hmong, Thai, you’re
Chinito.
So, instead of being all bitter about that
they’re like, “Hey, we’re Vietnamese
but we’re also Mexican and we’re also
American so we’re gonna create this food
truck and we’re just gonna put all those
combos together.”
And, so, you see their menu, there’s tacos
and burritos but it has like Thai fillings,
Korean fillings, they just create, and the
great thing about them, they name it, they
check, basically check off all the Asian enclaves
of Orange County so when they’re talking
about the Bolsa Pork, they’re referring
to Bolsa Avenue, the heart of little Saigon
where they’re talking about Irvine, no it’s
their Irvine Chipotle Pork.
Irvine, we have a huge Chinese population
there so they’re referring to Chinese style
roast pork, Korean taco, Garden Grove tacos,
that’s the huge Korean population Garden
Grove and when they have their taco, their
lunch truck set up you have everyone going
in there.
Asians and Mexicans and everyone’s getting
along and under the auspices of great Mexican
food.
>>Michael Brown: How do you think the gourmet
taco truck scene has really affected the original
luncherias and, you know, have they brought
more of a spotlight to them or have they kind
of pushed them out of the way?
>>Gustavo Arellano: What’s happened, I mean,
I have my own criticisms of what some people
call the gourmet food truck, what I call the
lux luncheria scenes, some people might criticize
them but I think it’s actually been the
opposite.
What these trucks have done is legitimize
the traditional luncherias.
It’s unfortunate that sometimes it has to
be that way but at the same time it’s great.
So, of course, here in Southern California
we’ve had food trucks, in one way or another,
since the 1880s, Mexican food trucks.
The first food trucks they were tamale carts,
they would be these tamale vendors who would
get their horse on a wagon, go all across
Southern California, set up their shop at
the end of the day and just start selling
tamales.
If you read the news accounts from like the
1890s and 1900s in Los Angeles Times, it reads
exactly like the news accounts of these news
accounts of these food trucks today.
“Wow, there’s all these food trucks and
the lines are long!
But don’t eat at some of them because they’re
really nasty and they’re roach coaches and
so forth.”
So we’ve always had a, Americans just in
general, but specifically in Southern California,
there’s always been that bifurcated response
where one part of the populati--, historically,
one part of the population didn’t wanna
eat at them but they always were popular cause
eventually people realized this is really
great food.
So what’s happened with these gourmet food
trucks is that they’ve, they’ve told,
they basically showed Americans, “Look,
you can have great Mexi, great food out of
a food truck and it’ll be perfectly fine.”
So those traditional luncherias, they’re
not losing their customers at all, if anything
they’re getting more customers now.
There’s this amazing food truck in Santa
Ana, on the corner of Main and Cubbon, it’s
called Alebrije’s, just use your Google
Maps of course, just go Main and Cubbon, Santa
Ana California.
When you get there you’ll see this humongous
pink food truck, it’s pink, pink, pink,
pink, like Cadillac pink.
And now, half of the customers is traditional
Mexican working class space, the other half
is everyone else who over the years have discovered
this is an amazing food truck.
He’s become so, and this guy’s an immigrant
from Guanajuato in Mexico and he’s become
so successful that now he has three of these
food trucks coming along.
Again, eventually, what happened with American,
with Mexican food in this country, it eventually
gets mainstream and then people, once they
realize, “Hey, this is great food.
My neighbors are eating it, why shouldn’t
I?”
Then they go and start digging in for more.
>>Michael Brown: Right.
You know, like you mentioned, the tamale that
was the original food from the history of
Mexican cuisine that instead of tortillas
and stuff, it could travel.
So that’s why a lot of people carried it
with them and it was a very popular food source.
One of my favorite books is called, 'The Food
History in Mexico', and it talks about the
staples, the food staples of the pre Hispanic
era and it was basically corn, beans, squash
and
>>Gustavo Arellano: Cactus.
>>Michael Brown: Yeah, and cactus.
And then, you know, the Spanish came in and
introduced dairy and cows and sheep and goats
and stuff like that.
What is your take on like how that’s evolved
and more specifically about Mole
>>Gustavo Arellano: Oh, yeah.
>>Michael Brown: And how Mole came in through
the mores in Spain and then brought all those
spices and everything and kind of made this
hodge podge of flavors which is now one of
the most famous dishes in upper Mexico.
>>Gustavo Arellano: What we consider to be,
quote unquote, Mexican food, even, quote unquote,
authentic Mexican food by definition is inauthentic.
That’s, so talking about, talking about
Mexican food that’s just another bullet
in the arguments of people who have this authenticity
debate because what we know as Mexican food,
it’s a combination of everything.
As you, you know, as you pointed out, corn,
squash, beans, cactus, that’s been part
of, and chili peppers and tomatoes, that’s
been part of Mexican food since the Aztecs,
since the Mayans, since the Olmecs.
But everything else that we consider Mexican
food, carne asada, al pastor, Tequila, that
only came into being cause the Spaniards came
in and brought the sheep and the pork and
the chickens and the dairy and the distillation
that created all those dishes.
All those great Mexican beers, Corona, well,
maybe not Corona
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Tecate, Bohemia, for instance,
you see those labels and you read the names
and you wonder, “Hmm, Bohemia beer, I wonder
who made that?”
It was Czech, German and Austrian immigrants
who came in during the, after the 1880s, 1890s,
and they created the Mexican brews.
For the Middle East, you have the Moors who
introduced to the Spaniards rice who then
brought it to the new world.
Al Pastor came from Lebanese immigrants who
were sheep herders, Al Pastor refers to sheep
herders style, or shepherds style, and they
brought it to central Mexico during the turn
of the 20th century.
So all these traditions all get mixed up into
what’s Mexican food.
One of the great ones, of course Mole.
Mole being this impossibly rich, I guess technically
you would call it at stew, I think?
>>Michael Brown: Yeah the cooking method would
be
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, like a cooking method,
it’s an impossibly rich sauce and every
state in Mexico has their own traditions and
that, of course, depending on what the tradition
is, it’s gonna have other influences.
Some of the best Moles, they have pomegranate,
pomegranate, which we call Granada, that came,
again, from Spain from the Middle East.
Oranges come from the Middle East.
So, I think it’s wonderful.
I think that’s why Mexican food has been
able to travel as far as it has because it
morphs into whatever the regional traditions
are.
Here in Southern California, right now, we’re
all gaga over the Korean taco as Kogi Korean
Barbecue famously made.
But, before that, the big ethnic fusion was
the, was something called the Kosher burrito
which we now know as the pastrami burrito.
The pastrami burrito came from East Los Angeles
in Boyle Heights during the 1950s because
then Jews lived alongside Latinos, which Jews
like Pastrami, Latinos like burritos, they
both like each other’s food, voilà, the
pastrami burrito.
So it’s that mezclar, you know, we called
it in Mexico mestizaje, that mixing and matching
of all that.
That’s what makes food as great as it is.
And you know, as a chef, you know that if
you make, if you cook the same dish again
and again and again people are gonna get bored
of it.
Humans when it comes to food, yeah we wanna
be satiated, we wanna be well off nutritionally
but we also want our palates to dance and
Mexican food, it’s a perfect way to do it.
>>Michael Brown: What is the street food scene
like in Mexico City?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Mexico City is one of
the great cuisine, great food destinations
in the world, Mexico City and Tijuana.
Mexico City you basically have all these stalls
and a million, what do you call it, a million
manifestations of Masa.
Yeah, I’m trying to be alliterative here.
So, basically you have, not just tacos, you’re
gonna have, not just sopas which you better
get after this talk you better get the sopas
at the kitchen right now, but also you have
Huaraches and Mulitas which is half gordita,
half quesadilla.
You have something called the tlacoyos which
is basically an elongated gordita with fava
beans inside of it.
You have these; you have quesadillas that
are as long as my forearm, absolutely magnificent.
But since you guys are here in Southern California,
the place to go eat right now is Tijuana.
Don’t believe what the media says about
all these narco wars happening in Tijuana,
right now the Tijuana food scene is one of
the best food scenes in the world.
In fact, for the, shameless plug, for the
OC Weekly, we have a column called Tijuana
Sí, every Thursday we review a new place
in Baja California where you have to go eat
Mexican food.
According to my food critic, they have the
best olive oil in the world right now in Baja
California, they have amazing seafood, you
have amazing tacos going all over the place,
it’s a place where, consider it a day trip.
Go down there, it’s a two hour, well from
here two and a half hour drive, spend the
day there just gorging yourself.
That’s a place where you can go on a winery
estate and get a ten course meal for 50 du,
for 50 dollars, that’s the place to go right
now.
>>Michael Brown: Does it get your hide when
people pronounce it “Tiawana?”
>>Gustavo Arellano: “Tiawana?”
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Just like here in Long
Beach you call it what?
Juan Perro?
Instead of Junipero or whatever?
You know, as long as people try it’s okay.
People sometimes mispronounce my name, like
Arellano or whatever, it’s okay, I tell
them like this is how you pronounce it but
that’s fine.
As long as it’s done with no malice, that’s
fine.
But if you’re doing it on purpose then the
fist.
[Laughter]
>>Michael Brown: Talking about Masa and how
important was corn, originally, in Mexican
society?
I mean, it was cultivated from something that
looked like a wheat and then they grew and
cultivated it, you know, dedicated, I mean
they had Xilonen which is the goddess of corn.
I actually have a holy corn tattoo on my hand.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Oh, that’s awesome.
Right on his thumb.
>>Michael Brown: you know, how important is
corn?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Corn
>>Michael Brown: In Mexican culture?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Next to the Virgin of
Guadalupe, corn is the most important thing
in Mexican society.
You wouldn’t have Mexico or a Mexican people
without corn.
More specifically than corn, though, is masa.
And the invention that connects corn, when
you harvest corn, turning into masa is something
called Nixtamalización which is essentially,
you get these corn kernels, you let it sit
in a live foundation along with ash and then
all this, you know, and then you let it ferment.
Some of the most important food discoveries
have come from people just letting food rot.
Because if you eat corn that’s not processed
again and again and again, you’re gonna
get poisoned, you’re gonna get poisoned
with something called Pellagra.
But the process of Nixtamalización, what
that does it takes out the poisons from the
corn kernels and also it releases from each
corn kernel, niacin and all these other nutritious,
all this other nutritional value that was
locked there before.
So next time [inaudible] and then from there
you can mix up the corn and make masa and
from masa, of course, you get tortillas and
tamales.
Corn and the virgin of Guadalupe that is Mexico,
without those two you would not have Mexico.
>>Michael Brown: Right.
I’ve noticed, not only in Mexico, but in
other countries, India, for example, that
a lot of the population who live in the South
are, they have less money than people who
live in the North.
So the food is very, very different from the
South to the North and like in Mexico it’s
a very, in the North like in Chihuahua and
the Charros and everything it’s basically
a protein based meal, you know, lots of protein.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah.
>>Michael Brown: And in the South there’s
not a lot of money for proteins and stuff,
you know, they’re using nuts and chilies
and spices and other things to kind of make
these meals.
I’ve noticed that, do you have any
>>Gustavo Arellano: Oh yeah, yeah, this, a
lot of Americans, historically, they thought
Mexican food is tacos, burritos, enchiladas,
you know, just very limited.
But Mexico, like the United States, each region
has its own tradition.
If you go down South all the way to Oaxaca,
one of the Southern most states in Mexico,
there they’re eating grasshoppers.
They dry grasshoppers, they put some salt,
chili and lime and they pop them like popcorn,
it’s really good, they’re really, really
good.
And there their tortillas, they’re as big
as basketball hoops and they’re called tlayudas
but then you go up to Northern Mexico and
yeah, it’s very, it's beef.
Beef is king there.
Cheese, not yellow cheese, not processed cheese
but Queso Menonita made by Mennonites, Mennonite
colonies in Chihuahua.
Seafood in Baja California, of course, cause
you’re right next to the Sea of Cortez.
Mexico City, you have all this great street
food.
My parents were from Zacatecas so there we
like the stew called birria.
Birria's a goat stew except we make it with
beef, we call it birria de res and we love
gorditas and we love cactus, you know, one
question I always get in Ask a Mexican, “How
can Mexicans eat cactus, don’t the spines
prick them?”
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: And I tell them, “No,
we take them off.”
But cactus is really, really good.
So, yeah, that’s the great thing with Mexican
food right now in the United States, you have
Mexican immigrants for all over Mexico, now,
historically most of them, historically most
Mexican migration came from central Mexico,
from Michoacán, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Mexico
City, Sonora also, so what we considered Mexican
food, those are really the traditions of those
regions, tacos, burritos from Northern Mexico,carne
asada from Northern Mexico, Manchaca, Sonora,
those are the traditions that historically
came to the United States cause those were
the Mexicans that were coming.
Now that we have Mexicans from everywhere,
we can taste all these different traditions,
especially here in Los Angeles you have such
a great food scene here with Mexico.
>>Michael Brown: Yeah.
I know in Chicago is probably the second largest
Mexican population in the country and then
Los Angeles and it seems that, like in Chicago,
a lot of Mexicans from Michoacán have settled
up there and a lot of the Mexicans here in
Southern California are from Oaxaca.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah.
>>Michael Brown: And I work with a ton of
Oaxacan guys in the kitchen and, by far, they
are the hardest, most dedicated working group
of people from Mexico and yet they get ridiculed
a lot because of their stature and stuff.
Have you noticed any kind of, uh, has anyone
ever asked you about that in your column?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Oh sure.
And, actually, in the book I talk about this
famous restaurant here in Los Angeles called
Guelaguetza, they’re the most famous Oaxacan
restaurant in the United States.
And Oaxacan cuisine is acknowledged as the
best Mexican food from Mexico.
That, restaurants, I think next year they’re
gonna cele--, no '94, they’re gonna celebrate
their 20th anniversary.
When they first opened here in Los Angeles
no one would eat at this place except two
types of people; Oaxacan who wanted a taste
of home and their bosses who worked here and,
you know, lived here in Santa Monica on the
Westside cause a lot of these Oaxacans, they
worked in the kitchen, they worked as nannies,
they worked as janitors, they worked as gardeners
and so, they would bring their food to their
bosses and say, “Hey, there’s this great
Oaxacan restaurant you can eat the food of
my home, of my homeland down in Korea town.
So the founder of Guelaguetza, or the owner
of Guelaguetza, Fernando Lopez, he would tell
me, he told me the story for my book that
he would see, he would just bewildered, his
tiny little restaurant was in Korea Town when
it was sketchier than it was today and he
would just see this parade of BMWs and Audis
and Mercedes and I wondered, “Why are these
people coming to my restaurant?”
And they were the bosses.
So those are the only two people who wanted
to eat there.
Americans weren’t gonna eat at Guelaguetza
because they still didn’t know what Oaxaca,
what Oaxacan food was.
And Mexicans weren’t gonna eat at Guelaguetza
because, for them, Oaxacans were just dirty
Indians because Oaxacans, the state of Oaxaca’s
always been different from the rest of Mexico
number one because their mount--, there’s
a mountain range that basically isolates them
from the rest of Mexico and as a result they’ve
kept on to their indigenous traditions.
So a lot of Oaxacans have darker skin, they’re
of shorter stature, a lot of them, their first
language isn’t even Spanish, it’s whatever
their indigenous language is.
>>Michael Brown: Zapotec
>>Gustavo Arellano: Zapotec or Trique or Mixtec
or whatever so they get made fun of in the
rest of Mexico.
So, again, this authenticity debate, these
Mexicans, they didn’t think Oaxacan food
was authentically Mexican which is such bull
and to me that just shows that a God does
exist and he has a great sense of humor because
now Oaxacan food, everyone knows Oaxacan food
is the best Mexican food in Mexico and in
the rest of the world.
And, yeah, Oaxacans are some of the hardest
working people and greatest people you’ll
ever meet.
>>Michael Brown: Yeah and I really regret
it, guys like, chefs like Diana Kennedy and
Rick Bayless, and, you know, Two Hot Tamales
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah.
>>Michael Brown: And they really took Oaxacan
cuisine because I think it was so different
from what they originally understood and brought
it to the forefront and put it in their books
and put it on their television stations.
What do you think of chefs like that or like
Rick Bayless who, you know, is a white boy
from Oklahoma, worked in his parent’s barbecue
spot and then really just fell in love with
Mexico and everything Mexican and now he is
basically the leader forefront of Mexican
cuisine.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, he just got an award
from the Mexican government for his contributions
to Mexican food, or to the promotion of Mexican
food.
I have my problems with Rick Bayless but only
because of an incident that happened between
me, him and Jonathon Gold the pulitz--, the
Pulitzer Prize winning food critic where he
essentially called Jonathan Gold a liar because
we both criticized him for him insisting that
there was, you know, he was coming into this,
he was gonna create this restaurant or he
was gonna consult on a restaurant here in
Southern California called Red O where he
was gonna say, “I’m gonna bring the real
flavors of Mexico to Southern California.”
And we’re like, “Really, Rick?
You’re really gonna introduce Mexican food
to Southern California?
Come on, you’re a little bit full of yourself.”
All that said, I’ve been to Frontera and
Topolobampo, they’re great foods, or they’re
great restaurants.
He is a great promoter of Mexico.
I’m not, you know, I’m never gonna hold
it against him because he’s a white man
who’s promoting Mexican food.
A lot of people do have that problem against
him, that’s not my problem at all.
And same thing, you know, with the other great
ambassadors, Diana Kennedy who also believes
in this authenticity thing, the Two Hot Tamales
Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, you know,
they’re all promoters, they’re all very
strong promoters of Mexican food.
America needs those ambassadors, I mean, really
this is sad to say but it’s true, Americans
are more likely to pay attention to what a
white person’s gonna say about Mexican food
then they would a Mexican chef who doesn’t
know how to speak English, it’s just the
reality.
Are you gonna hold it against Kennedy and
Bayless and the Two Hot Tamales?
I’m not.
And, frankly, it’s racist to hold that against
them.
I mean, you can have your criticisms of people
for, say there business practices or their
pronunciations, like Diana Kennedy, for instance,
despises Tex Mex food, she basically calls
it glop, which I think it’s elitist in its
own way.
I’ll criticize her on that but the fact
that she’s a British woman who loves Mexico
and has done more to, you know, promote these
regional traditions and other folks, I’m
not gonna hold that against her at all.
And, again, more importantly for me it boils
down to the food.
Kennedy never opened her own restaurant but
Bayless did, great food, never ate at Red
O, though.
Frontera Grill, uh, Border Grill, I love that
place.
Too crowded for me most of the times but I
love it.
>>Michael Brown: Yeah.
You know, Diana Kennedy was, is very specific
on, you know, you eat this on this day and
you serve it like this and really, like you
said, it’s a great educational tool because
otherwise I would’ve never known those traditions
unless she wrote about them.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Exactly.
>>Michael Brown: Yeah, well I thank you very,
very much.
I would like to open the floor up to anyone
who has a question for Gustavo.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Don’t be shy.
Yeah, and if you could go up to the mic so
the people at home could listen.
>>male #1: How has the availability of produce
and other ingredients and, actually, particularly
food regulations, how has that affected Mexican
food in America?
>>Gustavo Arellano: A lot of, only until very
recently, a lot of Mexican food in this country
was made in a certain way cause you didn’t
have all the ingredients that you had in Mexico.
So, for instance, chili powder, chili powder
was actually created by a German immigrant
by the name of William Gebhardt who wanted
to, he wanted to make, he wanted to make his
chili with Mexican chil, uh, chili peppers
but he’d have to go all the way down to,
uh, Mexico in the 1880s.
So, instead of doing that he’s like, “Instead,
I’ll just buy all those chilies and they’ll
rot on the way, instead I’ll just create
chili powder.
It’s not gonna be the same flavor, it’s
not gonna be the exact same flavor but I’ll
still get those instances.”
Same thing with yellow cheese, you know, a
lot of people hate yellow cheese, they’re
like, “That’s not real Mexican food if
it’s covered with yellow cheese.
Mexicans don’t eat yellow cheese.”
Historically, no, but I wasn’t the one that
did this research it was actually Robb Walsh
who’s the dean of Tex-Mex or the dean of
Texan Cooking of food historians and so he
interviewed these chefs in Texas who go back
to the '40 and '30 and he asked them, “Why
do you use yellow cheese?
Why do you guys use yellow cheese instead
of white cheese?”
And he said, “Well, because we followed
what our customers wanted.
They didn’t want white cheese they wanted
something that melted and yellow cheese has
a faster burning, melting point than white
cheese does.”
And as a result that changed the food.
Again, that said, though, anyone who thinks
that food should stay in a bubble they’re
deluded because that’s not how food has
ever operated.
Why do we eat a lot of cactus in Zacatecas?
Because there’s a lot of cactus, if we were
in, say, Mexico City, you’re not gonna find
as many cactuses, cacti there as you would
in Zacatecas.
So food is always evolving.
In the present day nowadays, though, everything
has changed because now you have Mexican produce
within a day if you went, “Hm, I want this
really exotic herb from Veracruz, well then,
I’ll just go to my local Mexican market
who’s getting it now.
Like, now there are no borders, now you can
cook just like Mexicans do in Mexico using
their ingredients, anyone can do that now.
I mean, some people still say, “Oh, well
you didn’t make it in Mexico so it’s the
water.”
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: But it’s like that debate
that Guinness tastes different in Ireland
than it does here in the United States and
you do a blind taste test and no one could
tell the difference.
Myths, a lot of myths.
>>Michael Brown: Yeah.
New York Pizza.
>>Gustavo Arellano: New York Pizza, too.
>>male #1: And you wouldn’t say that regulation
has affected much?
>>Gustavo Arellano: No, regulation has historically
played a big role, also, in Mexican food.
In a bad way in the sense that you can’t
get some food stuff like, for instance, if
you try to, you can only take over so many
wheels of Mexican cheese right now across
the border, I think.
I think you have to declare three and then
after that you can only take like 10 and then
you have to pay a tariff on it.
So it does limit some of the food stuffs but,
again, what do Mexicans do?
You get a whole bunch of them, hundreds of
these wheels and then you pay people, “Hey,
be my cheese smuggler across the border.”
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: We do that so, sh.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Or what happens is we
have all this regulation then an underground
economy starts up.
I actually just wrote about this for the OC
Weekly how in California, food is so regulated
that you can’t have what’s called, you
know, cottage food.
In other words, the small, small batch chefs
or producers of food who want to say, like
they wanna make jams and jellies and they’re
not gonna make a huge, huge profit off of
it but they do wanna sell it like at a craft
fair or whatever, under California law you
cannot do that, you have to cook in a commercially
licensed kitchen, you have to get these permits
this and that.
Mexicans, we’ve never paid attention to
that.
So we’ve been buying food and chorizo from
people who make it out of their own homes
for decades.
So people will say like, “Oh, can’t you
get poisoned off of it?”
Well here I am and look at me I’m perfectly
fine.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, so thank you.
>>male #2: Um, thanks for coming, so actually
there’s a bill in committee on cottage industry
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yes.
>>male #2: You know about it?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Absolutely.
>>male #2: I don’t know the number.
So I was gonna say I’m a native Californian
and other than several episodes with Chilies,
Mexican food has really only brought tears
to my eyes twice.
[Laughter]
>>male #2: Once was when I left in the late
'90 to go to the Midwest to go to graduate
school and I went to Chi-Chi’s.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Ugh.
>>male #2: That brought tears to my eyes.
[Laughter]
>>male #2: And I thought it’s gonna be a
long dark time away from good quality fresh
food.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah.
>>male #2: The other was when I came back
to California and went to a Oaxacan Restaurant
in Santa Monica.
I don’t remember the name of it but it was
amazing and I just thought, “Wow!”
It’s not just generic Mexican food but it’s
really, really good Mexican food.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah.
Thank you.
Really quickly Chi-Chi’s was a competitor
to El Torito during the 1970s and '80s and
it came from a guy from Minnesota.
And you might wonder like what do Minnesotans
know about Mexican food?
Well, they know a little bit, but not Chi-Chi’s.
First of all, the name, which of course is
Spanish slang for a woman’s breast.
Like, no way on earth could a Mexican restaurant
succeed with a name like that in California
and it didn’t so that’s why it proliferated
in the Midwest and the East Coast.
Now it no longer exists because the food was
atrocious and yeah, it was absolutely atrocious
food.
But that’s the great thing about Mexican
food, some people love Chi-Chi’s, some people
love Taco Bell, I can’t stand Taco Bell,
I’ve tried to, I’ve given it so many chances
in my life and it’s never worked.
Del Taco, on the other hand, their burritos,
99 cent burritos, absolutely amazing, for
what they are.
But Oaxacan food, oh, it’s a whole other
level.
So you could have all this, all these different
types of traditions within the panoply of
Mexican food.
>>male #2: For Chi-Chi’s, I’m glad that
you put it in the book.
I was trying to figure out like the marketing
concept behind it.
I thought, “Okay, a guy went to Taco Bell
and he thought let’s serve alcohol and have
people sit down and there you go.”
[Laughter]
>>male #2: Right, like that’s it.
It was awful and there’s probably people
that had really good times there and I feel
bad kind of like slamming on it but
>>Gustavo Arellano: No, no.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Chi-Chi’s will never
be remembered for their food, where people
had the good time was because of all the margaritas
that they drank.
So in the 1970s you had Taco Bell and Del
Taco and all these other fast food taco chains
gaining in popularity and teaching people
what Mexican food was or what Mexican food
could offer.
The next step was the sit down Mexican restaurants
like El Torito, El Coyote here, El Cholo Café,
those types of restaurants where you have
a combo plate, you drink your margaritas and
you eat out on the patio, that was a type
of Mexican restaurant, those restaurants have
really gone, at least that genres no longer
as popular as, as, as they were.
Chi-Chi’s no longer exists, El Torito, their
parent company declared bankruptcy last year
and now there’s about 50 of those left.
I predict within 10 years they’ll be completely
gone because people have evolved, now you’re
going to go eat that great Oaxacan food, now
you’re going to those great food trucks,
now you’re going to these hole in walls
or you’re going to these higher end Mexican
restaurants like Frontera Grill in Chicago
or Rivera here in Los Angeles, there’s different
traditions and different experiences where
people can get their Mexican food or you can
just cook it at home.
Yeah, thank you.
>>male #2: Thank you.
>> Michael Brown: Do you think the frozen
margarita’s gonna go anywhere?
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: The frozen margarita’s
not gonna go anywhere cause in the book I
talk about the creation of the frozen margarita
machine, so there’s always gonna be a market
for people who just wanna get drunk and, you
know, drunk and frozen as fast as possible.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: But what’s happened,
though, Americans, they haven’t gotten tired
of the frozen margarita but they’ve realized
there’s better margaritas.
Before, there only used to be two Tequila
companies that would serve, you know, sell
Tequila here in the United States; Sauza and
Jose Quervo.
In fact, the reason Tequila tastes the way
it tastes today was because during the 1960s
you had all these Americans going on vacation
to Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco and they would
drink the margaritas there and then go back
home, bring bottles of Tequila as souvenir
gifts and then try to drink it and they’re
like, “oh, it’s too harsh.”
So these companies, they changed their recipe
of Tequila so it could be more palatable to
the American palate, now you have hundreds
of Tequilas.
My God, you have Michael Imperioli doing these
horrible commercials for 1800 Tequila like,
you know, like Spider from Good Fellows knows
what good Tequila’s about.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: So there’s always gonna
be different, there’s always gonna be different
levels of Mexican food.
And that’s, I think that’s a great thing.
>>male #3: Um, I really like Menudo and one
time when I was in Mexico I had a white Menudo,
haven’t been able to find it here.
[Laughter]
>>male #3: Do you know where I could find
that?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, I laugh because
it’s amazing the fights people will get
in over food.
And so here I’m thinking of Mexican food,
so in Arizona, white Menudo, that’s actually,
that’s a tradition, you have white Menudo
Posoles.
So Andrew Zimmer in a Bizarre Foods, he went
to Tuscon and he didn’t like the white Menudo.
He basically nearly started a riot for telling
people like, “I don’t like white menudo.”
“Oh my gosh, how can you not like it?”
Where can you find white menudo?
Um, you are gonna have to find regional restaurants.
One example, oh God, I wonder if you guys
have them here in Los Angeles, I don’t think
you do, but you would try to go to restaurants
that serve the cuisine Guerrero, the Mexican
state of Guerrero.
In Santa Ana there’s a place called El Fogon
which is basically, yeah El Fogon, F-O-G-O-N,
it’s off of Edinger and Standard, Edinger?
Yes, Edinger and Standard in Santa Ana, El
Fogon is really good.
So there they serve red Menudo, white menudo
and green menudo.
Green menudo is the best menudo of them all,
it’s absolutely amazing.
So, but, yeah, white menudo, you’ll find
it at household but in terms of restaurants,
there are few and far in between because that’s,
the red menudo that’s much more popular.
The reason being because that’s more of
a tradition of Jalisco which, again, govern
most of what we know as Mexican food and still
does, to a certain extent, in this country.
But go to Tuscon, white menudo all over the
place.
>>female presenter: Um, Gustavo, so you talk
about, I think, I agree with you about food
and cultural borders there should, there are
no borders.
It’s very, we mix a lot and it’s a great
thing.
So what do you think about our country’s
constant efforts to actually build a border?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Uh-huh.
>>female presenter: And then the recent legislation,
especially in states like Arizona, or Louisiana,
or Alabama where it’s actually quite scary
to be a Mexican in those states.
And then President Obama just signing the
Dream Act last week.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Oh, so political and so
many questions.
Starting off with Obama, Obama, what Obama
did in terms of basically allowing undocumented
youth, in other words people who came to this
country illegally when they were children
and not making them citizens but making sure
that they don’t get deported, it was a political
ploy.
I mean kudos to him for doing that but it’s
all politics cause he was getting criticized
so much by Latino activists on it and he’s
gonna be in a very tough election, so he decided
okay I’m gonna say this, they’re not gonna
be citizens but, you know, Latinos will support
me now.
But it was purely political, whatever, I’m
still voting for Alfred E Newman in the fall
election.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: That’s number one.
When it comes to all this proposed, or all
this anti legislation, this country, it’s
an amazing country, I love this country, but
we’ve always had this xenophobic streak
in our minds that gets disproven again and
again and again.
One of my all time favorite questions for
'Ask a Mexican', somebody asked me, and actually,
'why don’t Mexicans learn how to speak English?
Why don’t they assimilate', blah, blah,
blah.
So then I said, “You know what, the United
States government shares your concern, they
just created this new study that’s showing
that this new wave of immigrants, that they’re
absolutely dumb, that they don’t assimilate,
that all they wanna do is make money and send
it back home, and we should really just clamp
down on these borders and not allow these
immigrants in.
They’re not like the immigrants in the past
that were absolutely awesome and did it the
right way.
The problem with that study is that it was
written in 1911, it was called the Dillingham
report and the idiot immigrants at the time
were all Southern and Eastern Europeans; Italians,
Jews, Czechs, Poles, Greeks, Bulgarians and
the lionized immigrants, the immigrants that
did it the right way were the Swedes, the
Germans, the Irish, all those, you know, all
those immigrants and, of course, those immigrants
were also trashed on.
You had Ben Franklin, before there was even
a United States, Ben Franklin railing against
German immigrants and going to Pennsylvania
saying, he used this really nas--, it’s
not, it’s not a curse word now, but it’s
like this really nasty ethnic epithet against
these Germans and saying, you know, within
a generation were all gonna speak German because
all these Germans, they’re not assimilating.
So, of course, Mexicans, all immigrants, they
all immigrate or they all assimilate and yet,
at the same time we always have part of our
culture.
That’s why China Towns have been around
for, gosh now, a hundred and fifty years or
Little Italys and all that.
So whenever you try to build borders, whenever
you try to keep a country static, when you
don’t allow a country to breathe freely
and just allow people to mingle, you’re
really spelling your demise.
And, again, in this country we always get
proven wrong so I’m an optimist, we’ll
get proven wrong all these, all this anti
immigrant legislation, it’ll be defeated
one way or another and then we’ll move on
and then in 20 years we’ll do the same thing
again.
So, we always forget but we’re, our better
angels always win, eventually, it takes time
but eventually we do.
>>female presenter: Well, hopefully food will
help us all get along.
>>Gustavo Arellano: And, again, what’s the
one, what’s the one language we all speak
here in Southern California?
Mexican food.
What’s the one part of Mexican soci, Mexican
society that Americans accepted?
Mexican food.
And that’s really the great, that’s a
great indicator that yes Mexicans will eventually
be fully considered Americans or blah, blah,
blah.
Because Americans already love their Mexican
food, they always have and they always will
and that’s a good thing.
That is absolutely a good thing.
>>female presenter : Last comment, I just
read your most recent 'Ask a Mexican' question
and the question is, you know, are a lot of
Mexicans going to Canada now?
>>Gustavo Arellano: Oh.
Yeah.
[Laughter]
>>female presenter: And I just wanted say
No!
Stay here!
We love your food and we love the people.
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: Yeah.
More Mexicans are starting to go to Canada
because of that, first of all there’s no
jobs here, in Canada it’s boom time and
Canadians are so damn nice of course we wanna
go up to Canada.
One of the weird things in my column, it has
a big Canadian audience and so I get a lot
of questions from Canadians and one question
that I’ve been asked more than anything
from those Canadians, they always go, “Us
Canadians, we’re nice.
You Mexicans, you’re nice.
Those Americans are a bunch of jerks.”
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: “Why don’t we get
our countries together and take over the United
States?”
[Laughter]
>>Gustavo Arellano: And these aren’t just
random people.
It’s a question that, or a concerted effort
by these Canadians.
This has been asked of me again and again
and again.
And Americans are nice, again, we go through
our fits and fits, our growing pains but we
do grow out of it so I’m always an optimist,
again, when it comes to food, that shows the
path, that shows the way, everyone will love
us one way or another.
And no, we’re not going anywhere, trust
me.
We’re not going anywhere.
>>Michael Brown: Gustavo thank you very much.
>>Gustavo Arellano: Thank you so much.
Thank you, thank you all.
[Applause]
>>Gustavo Arellano: And then, I guess, yeah
I’ll be over at that table if you guys want
me to sign your books I’m more than happy
to and, again, thank you so much for being
able to be here and I hope you guys like the
Dos Chinos cause they’re one of my favorite
food.
