In 4,200 words, Robb Walsh valiantly searches the Lone Star State for old-school Tex Mex. We're talking chili con carne before Velveeta was ever a thing, third-generation tamale carts, and what tacos used to be: tortillas dipped in oil, filled with smoked brisket, and then griddled. If anyone can build a Tex-Mex time machine, Walsh can....
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This month's Esquire has a willfully ignorant piece by Iraq war veteran, blogger, and writer Colby Buzzell about the Mississippi Delta Tamale Trail. All the piece does is reinforce the worst kind of racial, regional, and cultural stereotyping that occasionally still goes on when "serious" writers deign to write about things like barbecue and tamales and fried chicken. Southern Foodways Alliance oral historian Amy Evans of Southern Foodways's Tamale Project had this to say in response to Buzzell's piece: While it's impossible for this guy to have missed our project online—or anywhere—and unprofessional and unwise to not make the slightest mention of us and our Tamale Trail, the thing that gets me the most is his portrayal of the Delta....
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