Mex Without the Tex

At the end of a tiny strip mall in Memphis’ Wolf River basin is Las Tortugas Deli Mexicana, where the Magallanes family brings authentic Mexican food to a city in which most so-called Mexican restaurants serve up things a citizen of that country would never recognize as his homeland’s cuisine.

Forget the Tex-Mex, the nachos and the cheese dip. Forget the mediocre entrée flanked by too much rice and flavorless refried beans that most likely came from a can. This is the real stuff, prepared by a personable family who love sharing not only their native food but the back-story of the food as well.

Small but clean and bright (and with a lunchtime line that trails out the door), this eatery serves up freshly-made specialties that anyone from Mexico City would recognize.

Pepe, the patriarch, explains that the twice-cooked pork ribs are made from his grandmother’s recipe. How can I not try them?! and have them on the second visit? and on the third? They’re superb, the meat falling off the bone so cleanly I can accomplish my post-meal lipstick reapplication in my reflection. Superb mole in homemade mini tortillas, fresh, wonderful tamales, both chicken and pork. And corn on the cob that you wouldn’t believe, beginning with fresh—not frozen—corn, that’s perfectly cooked, then coated with a thin layer of mayonnaise and sprinkled with grated cotija, an aged cow’s milk cheese, and red pepper.

Pepe and his son Jonathan are warm, friendly and hospitable hosts. As I trot to the pick up area when my number is called, Jonathan reaches across a case filled with cheeses, chili peppers and long curls of cassia bark to explain each item I’ve ordered.

Of course, you need a real Mexican beverage to go with your feast. Their agua fresca, fresh fruit drinks, will make you forget all about your favorite soda. Horchata, jamaica, mango, watermelon, limonata and tamarino are just a few, all made fresh and all made really, really good (hey, I’ll shove a clean straw into the glass of anyone who will allow me a taste!).

Tomorrow Andy and I venture to Mexico City to spend a week visiting friends, seeing the sights and enjoying the local cuisine. We look forward to learning more about authentic Mexican food. Of course, just as Italy’s food is regional, so is Mexico’s. But as happens everywhere, folks from the country venture to the city, and some of them open restaurants where their fellow transplants can go for a taste of home. So we anticipate finding at least a smattering of the country’s regional dishes to enjoy while we’re in its capital.

So until our return, hasta luego!

Home again, home again, piggity pig

It’s good to be back home in Memphis. As I stepped from the plane onto the jetway this evening, two scents blended in my nose—jet fumes and barbecue. Right next to my gate was an Interstate Barbecue restaurant. If my family hadn't been waiting to have dinner with me, I’d have just rolled my bag right in there and gotten myself a healthy dose of pork barbecue before ever leaving the airport. Thanks for the welcome home, Neely family!

The next few days will involve spending time with family and friends, enjoying the old haunts and sighing over the lovely green Tennessee landscape that’s so very Ireland in its uncountable shades of green. And it will involve making sure to have all those foods that nourished my past—catfish, country ham, pork barbecue, cornbread, fried chicken and a variety of vegetables cooked in bacon drippings.
This field, the view from the back of our family farmhouse, has housed its share of hogs and cattle over the years, as well as the current corn crop. There we've raised both food to eat and food to sell. I've caught innumerable catfish in its pond--and we've even gigged a frog or two there for those lean, meaty legs!

Of course, when I head back to Los Angeles in 10 days, the last thing I will smell as I board the plane will probably be the same, a blend of jet fumes and barbecue. And then I’ll say, thanks for the farewell, Neely family!

p.s. I’d like to apologize to Rob Reiner for staring at him on the flight to Indianapolis today. I wasn’t staring at him because he’s Rob Reiner, but rather because I was thinking, “Gee, that man looks just like Rob Reiner.” Then later I heard someone say, “Yeah, Rob Reiner’s on this flight!” And then I knew why the man I was staring at looked so much like Rob Reiner. What an uncanny resemblance . . .

Hog Wild

At Sunday night’s Epiphany party our group convened to cap off the Christmas season with a potluck and to catch up on everyone else’s holidays. My good pal, Chuck Taggart of Gumbo Pages fame, brought his amazing Pork & Pork & Pork & Beans to share. Have this even once, and you’ll never settle for mere pork and beans again. In fact, if I ever find myself on death row, that dish will be one of the components of my final meal.

As Chuck and I compared notes on the contents of our luggage when we returned to Los Angeles after Christmas, he from New Orleans and I from Memphis, we concurred that an awful lot of pork was involved. My suitcase was stuffed with packages of country ham and bacon and a big ol' hamhock. His haul was similar, but included tasso, the secret ingredient in many fine Cajun and Creole dishes, along with Zapps potato chips and lots of booze.

In case you’re wondering, yes, you can buy pork in Los Angeles, but those mass-produced packages of Uncle Tater’s or Little Willie’s bacon will be essentially flavorless and injected with water, which is why it shrinks to nothing when you cook it and tastes like nothing when you eat it.

As we cooed over our devotion to pork, I said, “There’s only one thing better than bacon.” Chuck looked at me as if I'd lost my marbles. I paused for effect, then said, “Bacon topped with bacon.” He sighed and said, “Thank God! I was about to ask, ‘Who are you and what have you done with my friend, Carol?’”

The challenge is in reconciling a love of pork with the need to eat more healthfully, and this is where the good stuff comes in. Andy and I refuse to cast out pork like some demon bent on our destruction. Instead, we hold to the wisdom of Pete Wells, who contends in the pages of Food and Wine magazine that bacon isn’t a meat but rather a condiment.

He certainly has a point, especially as it relates to good quality bacon. The flavor is distilled smoky, salty, sweet porkiness, which we savor as we would any fine wine or food: a tiny bit at a time, over a long period of time. In fact, since Christmas we've been sharing one strip of bacon about every other morning.

Half a strip?! That sounds rather spartan, but when you eat the really good stuff—like what Chuck and I packed back to Los Angeles from home—and enjoy it over the course of a meal, it's amazing how satisfying a mere half strip of bacon can be, how the flavor lingers and how the aroma and the memory goes with you. Truth be told, I enjoy a smaller portion much more, because I don’t mindlessly wolf it down.

According to Aesop, “Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear.” He must have been buying his bacon at a chain grocery.

There’s a fable in there somewhere, I’m sure.