By Mariana Alcaraz
For this exhibit, I will examine how Mexican cuisine and its “authenticity” can be interpreted differently among people coming from unique backgrounds. Growing up in a Mexican household, I feel like I have always been surrounded by Mexican cuisines, and even when I go out, I am bound to see restaurants, food trucks, and supermarkets advertising themselves as “authentically” Mexican. Because of my background, I always believed that I was able to distinguish what is and what is not considered authentic Mexican food by comparing a dish to how it was originally prepared, or so I thought, but after research, I come to find that what makes a dish authentic solely depends on our resources, prejudice, and tastes (Pilcher, Jeffery, ¡Que Vivan Los Tamales!, 14). Even the attempt to measure the authenticity of Mexican cuisines with statistics proves how challenging or impossible it is to determine how much of a Hispanic influence has specifically on the American Tastebud (Carr, Jhonni, The Quest for Authenticity in L.A. Mexican Food, 11). Through my primary sources, I will shine a light on three individuals from different areas within the United States, all have something in common in which they reveal what their definition of authenticity means to them. In this exhibit I will argue that when it comes to “traditional” Mexican food, it is defined solely on a person’s individual definition of authenticity, not necessarily based on their ethnicity or cultural background.
Categories and classifications that this exhibit could potentially be associated with would be globalization, Mexican culture, “Tex-Mex”, gastronomy, culinary tourism, home-cooking, and adaptation.
Works Cited:
Carr, Jhonni. “The Quest for Authenticity in L.A. Mexican Food: A Preliminary Study.” Food Studies An Interdisciplinary Journal, Research Gate, Jan. 2013, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282615795_The_Quest_for_Authenticity_in_LA_Mexican_Food_A_Preliminary_Study.
Pilcher, Jeffrey. ¡Que Vivan Los Tamales!: Food and the Making of Mexican Identity. University of New Mexico Press, 1998.
