These are my own personal ramblings about my philosophy of
food, local restaurants and maybe even life in general. As the
old saying goes, your mileage may vary.
Possibly a lot. These are my
opinions based on my life and the tastes I have grown accustomed to.
I have spent most of my life in Texas and the majority of
that time in West Texas. I remember as a
young man when someone described a restaurant as being “Tex-mex” is was
intended to be a knock against authenticity of the food. Now it is its own style and a way to distinguish
eastern Chihuahua influenced Mexican food from western Baja influenced flavors. Tex-mex is my cultural back ground. It is a blend of traditional American foods,
Southern soul and spicy South West. It
is also heavily skewed towards the carnivore side where many people believe a
salad is an excuse to eat bacon bits and cheese. There is also very little seafood in the standard
diet in the Permian Basin area. Being some
500 miles from the closest coast this is to be expected. When most people judge fresh fish by the
clarity of its eyes, out here we are lucky if it still has eyes. Somewhere along the line you will say “how
can you say blah-blah is bad? You don’t
know what good fish is.” And I will say
you are right. I don’t. So one more time
let me say these are my opinions based on my influences from my food culture.
I was much more adventurous in what I would eat in the past. I stay away from raw oysters in Odessa now. I’ve also had reptiles of several species
before and I don’t care to revisit them any time soon. Turtle soup in Cancun has the same twang-y
under taste as Iguana in Caracas or rattlesnake in Sweetwater. I’ve eaten it; don’t like; others do. I have been exposed to other cultures and
given the chance – and money – there are some places I would love to explore
further. I could spend weeks eating my
way across Italy, for example, but no one is willing to pay me to do it.
So until I become a world famous red-neck food critic, I’ll
just toss out some ramblings and reviews here.
