Austin and basic black beans

Now that SXSW is over and my non-Texan friends who attended the conference are back on the East Coast, all I hear from them is, “Where can I get a breakfast taco?” or “Who has the best queso?”

Austin food is addictive, isn’t it?

One of the things I love the most about Texas is its size. Because it spans across several geographical, topographical and climatic zones, naturally there are going to be variations in what people eat in each area. While I would say that the trinity of Texan food—Southern dishes, barbecue and Tex-Mex—is the same throughout the state, how each region within the state interprets these cuisines differs.

Take Austin and Tex-Mex. After spending years in the Dallas area and Houston, I was already aware that differences could exist between the two Texan cities’ cuisines, so I wasn’t that surprised when I arrived in Austin to see that it, too, did things just a bit differently than other places in the state.

The first thing I noticed was migas. I’ve written about migas before—Austin’s signature breakfast dish of scrambled eggs with cheese, chips and peppers. Every place in Austin serves migas, yet when you leave Austin you rarely see them, if at all.

Black beans are another Austin Tex-Mex distinction. It was in Austin that I first saw black beans served alongside your tacos or your enchiladas, instead of the more typical refried pinto beans. This isn’t to say that you can’t find refried pinto beans in Austin, because there are many fine, fine examples of this noble dish. But, I found that Austin’s Tex-Mex could be a little quirky and so black beans would be on offer more often than I’d see them in Houston or Dallas.
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Fish tostadas, Veracruz style

I spent part of my junior year of college living in Spain. I was in the southern part of the country, in Granada, which is not too far from the Mediterranean Ocean. Because of this proximity, my host family ate a lot of seafood. And during Lent, it seems that’s all we ate.

We had fish stew, shellfish paella, tuna pizza, fish mashed potatoes and fish croquettes. But one of my favorite dishes served was flaky white fish covered in a tomato sauce studded with green olives. All at once it was salty, acidic and sweet.

The Mexican state of Veracruz is on the Gulf of Mexico and is said to be where the Spanish first made their entry into Mexico. Because of this, much of the Veracruzana cuisine is still heavily influenced by Spanish cuisine.

The Spaniards introduced the herbs thyme, marjoram and bay laurel, which have become hallmarks of that state’s cooking. They also brought along olives and capers, so it’s no surprise that the signature salsa from that state uses all of these ingredients.
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Greetings from Texas!

Greetings from Texas! I have spent the past few days tooling around the state, reuniting with college friends in Dallas, visiting my grandmothers in McKinney, shopping for new cowboy boots in El Paso and relaxing in the big sky and vast landscape of far, far West Texas.

Of course, I’ve been eating myself silly—sometimes up to seven little meals in a day. For instance, one day started with a fried pie at Shirley’s Burnt Biscuit in Marathon, TX. I then had a mid-morning snack of a Frito pie at Alicia’s in Alpine. Next was the Marfalafel from the Food Shark truck in Marfa, followed by the Mexican plate at Alice’s. I gave my stomach a rest for a few hours, and then had a brisket sandwich at Mo’z in El Paso, a milanesa de res (Mexican chicken-fried steak) smothered in queso at Casa Jurado, and then concluded my eating day with a carne guisada taco from Taco Cabana. Needless to say, I slept very, very well that evening.

You may think I’m a glutton, but rest assured I do not eat this way when I’m back in New York. It’s just whenever I’m in Texas each meal and each bite is precious and I want to squeeze in as much good tastes as I can during my brief time at home. When I go to Texas, I have my usual places where I like to eat, but this time I branched out and ate at some new restaurants, too. Here’s a list of five new favorite dishes I sampled while I was at home:
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Pinto bean pie: sweet, not savory!

Vinegar pie, buttermilk pie, and corn meal pie—these are all desserts that were in vogue when my grandmothers were growing up in the Great Depression. Made with just a few inexpensive ingredients, these pies—which are all, at heart, a variation on chess pie—were refreshing and still presentable to good company.

But what about pinto bean pie? It’s another oldie but was it also a goodie? I decided to find out on my own.

I’d been curious about bean pie for quite a while. When I first heard of it, I assumed that it was a version of Frito pie that was made with beans instead of chili. But when I heard people talking about eating bean pie for dessert, I realized that I had been wrong and that bean pie is sweet not savory.

After a bit of research, I found quite a few recipes and from the spices added decided that bean pie was trying to approximate a pumpkin or a sweet potato pie, as often included were allspice, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. And even though some recipes insisted that pinto bean pie was a substitute for pecan pie, after making it I failed to taste how this could be the case.

At first, I was put off by adding mashed beans to my mixture of butter, sugar and eggs. The resulting color of the blend was a bit unappetizing (a less-than-lovely shade of washed-out beige), and, well, it just seemed odd adding mashed pintos to my dessert. Pintos are made for savory dishes, not sweet!

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