Chinese-Mexican fusion sounds like a joke until you understand where it comes from. In the late 1800s, Chinese laborers working on the railroads and in the mines of northern Mexico put down roots rather than returning home. Over generations they built communities — in Mexicali, in Sonora, in Baja California — and their food blended with the Mexican cooking around them in ways that produced something completely its own. Birria and dim sum. Chile heat and wok smoke. Tacos with fillings nobody in either tradition had tried before. It’s a genuine culinary history, and most people in Texas have never encountered it.
Continue reading
