Gift guide: Local fare for the foodie in your life
Just don’t call it Tex-Mex
By Kim Pierce, Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
For the cook who’s also a history buff, Houston chef Adán Medrano’s Truly Texas Mexican: A Native Culinary Heritage in Recipes (Texas Tech University Press, $29.95) is a wonderful journey into the culinary history of the border region encompassing parts of Texas and Mexico before the border existed.
It’s a carefully researched, easy-to-read narrative interwoven with Medrano’s own family heritage. The recipes include lots of insider tips on how to coax the best from each ingredient, from chiles to avocados. Also, the recipes aren’t hobbled with the kind of authenticity that makes you reluctant to try them, yet they honor the past and help us understand why we cook the way we do.
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