The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook

In 15,000-year-old archaeological
sites throughout Texas and Northeastern Mexico, records left by Coahuiltecan,
Karankawa, Apache, and other Indigenous communities tell stories about their
food practices, the roots of Texas Mexican cuisine. Author and chef Adán
Medrano, a Coahuiltecan descendant, has made it his life’s work to document
these food practices and the stories they narrate. In The Texas Mexican
Plant-Based Cookbook, he honors the plant-based cooking history, traditions,
and knowledge that make up the comida casera (home cooking) of today’s Texas
Mexican community.

Each of the 90 kitchen-tested
recipes includes detailed cooking instructions intended for contemporary home
cooks. Headnotes for each recipe describe how the dish entered the region’s
culinary traditions and became integral to the culinary act of meaning-making
in the community. The book provides explanations of the origins of iconic
ingredients like squash, cactus, mesquite, and sunflowers, as well as more
recent, post-Conquest ingredients like watermelon, rice, and cauliflower. Texas
ancestors ate pecans and black walnuts, along with acorns, grapes, berries,
seeds, and tubers. Mesquite and cactus were central to celebrations.

Home cooks of all
levels can discover and reclaim ancient ingredients and simple techniques in
this volume and come away with a deeper knowledge of the agricultural systems
that belie our current foodways.