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Comment by samatman | Hacker News Reader

"And when Latin American and Asian food also become American food, it will be a signal that the country has at last embraced a new generation of Americans."

I found this peculiar, given that the US has no fewer than four distinct regional "Mexican" cuisines, not found in Mexico. These are Tex-Mex, California Mexican food (e.g. the fabulous Mission burrito), New Mexican food, and American Mexican food (think chimichangas).

New Mexican cuisine is older than the US, and middle-white America has been eating tacos (with the crispy shell, itself a US development) for at least two generations. They're about as American as Chef Boyardee at this point.

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Excellent point. But perhaps they meant "Latin American other than Mexico".

Here in Silicon Valley, there might be Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean, etc. restaurants that I'm unaware of, but even including the north bay, surely very few.

And in most of America, predictably there'd be none in most towns and cities (aside from New York, Miami, etc.).

Which is pretty different than Mexican, which is indeed widely embraced in one form or another.

P.S. I did just see a new Cuban restaurant in the south bay the other day; I'm not trying to say these things are never here.

P.P.S. a fifth regional American "Mexican" cuisine is, I'm told, found far from the coasts and from the southern U.S. border (possibly especially in the Midwest), "Mexican" almost entirely in name only, which may e.g. use ketchup as the only red sauce, and is often denied to be Mexican at all by fans of the other 4 kinds.

I hear that something similar is what is usually, if not universally, found in e.g. London as well.

I'd argue that Brazilian food has gotten a bit more of a "higher class meal" distinction compared to its counterparts, but that's probably because they're often Steakhouses (which are often considered higher class), and it's offers a bit of a unique experience as people often come to your table and offer you all sorts of different cuts of meat that they carve for your right there. There's quite a few of those around the area, and they're not cheap places to eat. There's quite a few of those now in the Chicago area.

There's a Peruvian sandwich place near me now. I wouldn't say it's high class, but the sandwiches are more expensive than many other places around here. I just assumed it was due to it being more expensive to import the food they need, but now this article makes me think of the cultural aspects of it too.

I'm not sure why you'd go all the way to Marin, but I count 20+ such South-American-inspired restaurants in the east bay in a casual search. I don't really think of the north bay (or the peninsula) as culinary destinations, but SF and the east bay are great for food.

Your point is well taken that most of the US is unfamiliar with any cuisine further away than Mexico (and GP is right most of the Mexican is heavily Americanized).

(I meant "north bay" to include SF/Oakland/Berkeley, as opposed to the south bay; not so much to go to Marin.)

That's interesting. I would have guessed half that number -- although if you count each country in the central and south Americas, including island nations like Cuba, isn't that roughly just one restaurant per country?

Also, bottom line, I'm pretty sure that 20 is quite dwarfed by the number of Mexican restaurants in the Bay Area. Perhaps even if we only counted taquerias, which seem to pop up almost once per block in some areas.

Thanks for making an actual numeric estimate.

> I don't really think of the north bay (or the peninsula) as culinary destinations, but SF and the east bay are great for food.

Agreed, although note that some good restaurants (if not Michelin-starred) tend to be sparse, rather than nonexistent, in some of those more deprived cities.

And even Michelin stars can be found in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Menlo Park, Woodside, Saratoga and Los Gatos, which surprises many people.

FWIW I've never seen ketchup in a London Mexican restaurant. Most make the bulk of their trade on Mission style burritos and similar. It's Mexican viewed through a West Coast American filter.

And except for a handful they are all very, very bad. Whenever I travel from London back to the bay area my dining consists of maxican and sushi (London sushi has two modes: terribly sad or incredibly expensive.) As a simple example, the only way to get a corn tortilla that is not a deep fried hard taco shell is to either make your own (by ordering masa from Amazon) or arrange for delivery by a service, you cannot find them in the grocery store. In general, it feels more like Mexican viewed by a Brit who spent two weeks in San Francisco once a few years ago...

When I lived in London I would buy corn tortillas "that are not deep free hard taco shells" at least once a week, from the chain grocery stores you find everywhere.

Not real yellow corn tortillas you didn't. I am literally checking waitrose, tesco, aldi, and sainsbury online right now to confirm. Not a single one has a corn tortilla that is not deep fried or else a corn and wheat blend. Perhaps you do not actually know what a corn tortilla looks or tastes like, but there is not one for sale on the shelves in any major chain in London.

Are you look for "gluten free tortilla" or "corn tortilla"? Because gluten free should turn some up.

May eldest daughter has a wheat allergy so we ride the gluten-free train frequently. Over here the gluten-free fare generally uses rice flour, some tapoica starch or potato starch, and your standard stabilizers and thickeners. Gluten-free tortilla on the sites is also a fail, but in one case I found a gluten-free wrap that was a tortilla-like thing made from the same ingredients as the standard gluten-free baking mix. As I suggested in my previous comment, for most people in the UK a "corn tortilla" is actually a corn and wheat blend (usually less than 1/3 corn.)

As an example of the sort of corn tortilla that I try to find, here is the place I order from in London when I do not have time to pull out the press and make my own: http://www.coolchile.co.uk/mexican-shop/corn-tortillas

> middle-white America has been eating tacos (with the crispy shell, itself a US development) for at least two generations. They're about as American as Chef Boyardee at this point.

My dad likes to tell the story of his mother, who came from Durango, encountering the concept of "tacos" for the first time... in California. He's always had a hard time thinking of them as "Mexican food".

Tacos are derived from an aztec dish that was much the same, if filled with different ingredients.

They're as Mexican as moles.

Eh, "much the same as a taco, but filled with different ingredients" means a flatbread wrapped around any filling at all. They're considered quite innovative in the US now under the name "wraps", and can claim to be local to many different cuisines.

The fact that they're authentically Mexican won't change the fact my dad thinks of them as being less Mexican than tamales, or that 2-3 generations back their penetration was such that a farming community didn't even know the word.

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