Mexican Food Quotes

“María was out of the blocks the moment she heard the doorbell jangle. She came rushing from the kitchen to greet her childhood friend with cilantro hugs and chipotle kisses.”
― Kevin Ansbro, In the Shadow of Time

“Flushed with the explosive shit of a sumo wrestler who ate Mexican food.”
― Hillary Frank, I Can't Tell You

“I was always crazy about any Chinese takeout since everything on those long menus is so tempting, but when the craving really hit, the folks at Panda Delight over on Richmond almost knew without asking to pack me up an order of wings, a couple of egg rolls, shrimp dumplings, pork fried rice, and the best General Tso's chicken this side of Hong Kong. When my friend at the shelter, Eileen Silvers, got married at Temple Beth Yeshurum, I had a field day over the roast turkey and lamb and rice and baked salmon and jelly cakes on the reception buffet, and when me and Lyman would go out to Pancho's Cantina for Mexican, nothing would do but to follow up margaritas and a bowl of chunky guacamole and a platter of beef fajitas with a full order of pork carnitas and a few green chile sausages. And don't even ask about the barbecue and links and jalapeño cheese bread and pecan pie at Tinhorn BBQ. Just the thought still makes me drool.”
― James Villas, Hungry for Happiness

“Really, who doesn’t like Mexican, though?”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Eating a burrito is like eating a living, breathing organism - you can feel the burrito's ingredients sigh inside with each bite, each squeeze.”
― Gustavo Arellano

“I torture people in my own way. La Casita de Fuego has the hottest Mexican Food in Houston. Jalapeño peppers are a demon's tool. But the humans keep coming back." Celia shook her head at the wonder of it all. " Who pays to have their stomach lining burned away?”
― Nina Bangs, Eternal Pleasure

“She knew she was delaying the inevitable- trying to locate Agnete's address- but decided to make a list of things to buy first, looking for shops close to the hotel and purposefully ignoring her uncertain finances. She dunked a sopaipilla in her coffee and brushed powdered sugar from her lips, the plate of chile-flecked fried polenta, chorizo, and eggs already finished. It might not have been a vacation, but it felt like one. She was on her own, eating strange foods, planning to spend money she wasn't sure she had, and no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to her. She had fallen down the rabbit hole.
It was easiest to come up with ideas for Saisee, whose pride in her cooking shone in everything she concocted, tossing in a pinch of this and a smidgen of that. Alice had even watched her hold crushed spices in the palm of her hand and blow them gently over the pot. 'My momma taught me that. Best way to get flavor to every part of the pot.' For here there would be white posole and blue cornmeal, a collection of chile powders, and piloncillo, the little cones of unrefined Mexican sugars Alice imagined she might use to make caramelized custard.”
― Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds

“Grace rolled up her sleeves and joined the group in the kitchen, where Gladys, Pablo's wife, had worked all day directing many other women who kept food pouring out the front and side door, onto a long series of folding tables, all covered in checkered paper table cloths. While some of the women prepped and cooked, others did nothing but bring food out and set it on the table- Southern food with a Mexican twist, and rivers of it: fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, chicken mole, shrimp and grits, turnip greens, field peas, fried apples, fried calabaza, bread pudding, corn pudding, fried hush puppies, fried burritos, fried okra, buttermilk biscuits, black-eyed peas, butter bean succotash, pecan pie, corn bread, and, of course, apple pie, hot and fresh with sloppy big scoops of local hand-churned ice creams.
As the dinner hours approached, Carter grabbed Grace out of the kitchen, and they both joined Sarah, Carter's friend, helping Sarah's father throw up a half-steel-kettle barbecue drum on the side of the house. Mesquite and pecan hardwoods were quickly set ablaze, and Dolly and the quilting ladies descended on the barbecue with a hurricane of food that went right on to the grill, whole chickens and fresh catfish and still-kicking mountain trout alongside locally-style grass-fed burgers all slathered with homemade spicy barbecue sauce. And the Lindseys, the elderly couple who owned the fields adjoining the orchard, pulled up in their pickup and started unloading ears of corn that had been recently cut. The corn was thrown on the kettle drum, too, and in minutes massive plumes of roasting savory-sweet smoke filled the air around the house. It wafted into the orchards, toward the workers who soon began pouring out of the house.”
― Jeffrey Stepakoff, The Orchard

“A fanfare of plastic flags with cutout patterns of skeletons flapped noisily in the air and overhead a piñata swayed, waiting for the hard blows of the breaking ceremony. He searched through the crowd lined up for the puppet show, then glanced down Olvera Street. The street had been closed to traffic for a long time now and looked like a Mexican marketplace, with stands selling boldly colored ceramics and paper flowers. He didn't see Serena, but her brother, Collin, had said she had gone to the Día de los Muertos celebration with Jimena.
He turned to see candy skulls with green sequin eyes and frosting lips staring back at him from a stall. When the vendor looked away, he grabbed three and tossed one into his mouth. The sugar dissolved with tangy sweetness.
He spun around, sensing other eyes. An old woman shook her head at him as she placed a bowl of spicy-smelling sauce on her ofrenda. Orange flowers, white candles, and faded snapshots of her dead relatives covered the altar. Stanton liked the way some people waited for the spirits of their loved ones to come back and visit, while others were terrified at the thought.
The old woman placed a sign on the table: SINCE DEATH IS INEVITABLE, IT SHOULD NOT BE FEARED, BUT HONORED.
"Not for everyone," he said softly.
She looked at him. "What's not for everyone?"
"Death." He smiled.”
― Lynne Ewing, The Sacrifice

“We've reached that point in the night when we're slinging more drinks than tacos, and the Frankenstein monsters on our menu- which I'd created specifically for the inebriated- are flooding the line. There's the fried egg pork carnitas perfect for a pounding headache, and the barbacoa with bacon and refried beans that soaks up alcohol like a sponge. I watch as one of the waitresses carries out a stack of corn tortillas filled with tripas and potatoes smothered in queso blanco- the holy grail of hangover remedies.”
― Laekan Zea Kemp, Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet

“On Thursdays, they come here for the best palomas in town, thanks to my substitution of Jamaican tangelos and blood limes for the traditional grapefruit. And on Fridays, they come for half-price pork carnitas, legendary thanks to my addition of sweetened condensed milk, which caramelizes the meat with a sweet coating.”
― Laekan Zea Kemp, Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet

“I'm not sure why, but my instinct today is to go with the taste of home. Some chicken thighs, some poblano peppers, a bag of rice, Mexican crema (I'm surprised to find the real stuff, not that whipped-cream-looking shit they serve in Tex-Mex restaurants). Tortillas and Oaxaca cheese. I lose myself in the aisles, fingers trailing over heirloom tomatoes, herbs and produce and packets of exotic spices I can never find at home.”
― Adi Alsaid, North of Happy

“ISLA FLOTANTE


4 eggs
2 tablespoons cornstarch
6 cups whole milk
1 2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons rum
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lime juice”
― Adi Alsaid, North of Happy

“I am half-Mexican and half-Chinese. Major used to joke that I believe in reincarnitas.”
― GLEN NESBITT

“Elena came up with the idea of a fusion elote, taking her beloved Mexican street corn and adding Pakistani and Filipino twists to match with Adeena's and my respective backgrounds. Not only did Jae gave us his mother's recipe for the oksusu cha, or Korean corn tea, but he'd also volunteered to handle all elote duties: slathering the corn with thick, creamy coconut milk before rolling it in a fragrant spice mix that included amchur powder and red chili powder, grilling it, then squeezing calamansi over the corn before sprinkling it with your choice of kesong puti or cotija cheese. It was a simple yet laborious task, but he seemed to enjoy himself ( I wasn't one for gender stereotypes, but what was with guys and grills?) and I'd caught him sneaking more than one smoky, salty treat as he worked. The benefit of being the cook.
Meanwhile, I arranged the sweet offerings I'd prepared: mais ube sandwich cookies, mais kon keso bars, and two types of ice candy--- mais kon yelo and ginataang mais. Corn as a dessert ingredient may seem strange to some people, but Filipinos absolutely love and embrace corn in all its salty-sweet possibilities. My first offering sandwiched ube buttercream between corn cookies, the purple yam's subtle vanilla-like sweetness pairing well with the salty-sweet corn. Cheese and corn are a popular savory pairing, but guess what? It makes one of my absolute favorite Filipino ice cream flavors as well, and I channeled that classic combo into a cheesecake bar with a corn cookie crust.
Mais kon yelo, literally corn with ice, is a Filipino dessert consisting of shaved ice with corn, sugar, and milk, while ginataang mais, a simple porridge made with coconut milk, glutinous rice, and sweet corn, is usually served warm for breakfast or meryenda. My take on these simple, refreshing snacks utilized those same flavors in a portable, easy-to-eat ice pop bag. However, if you wanted to try the traditional versions, you could just pop down a few booths over to Tita Rosie's Kitchen, the restaurant run by my paternal aunt and grandmother. While my aunt, Tita Rosie, handled the savory side of the menu, offering small cups of corn soup and paper cones full of cornick, or corn nuts flavored with salt and garlic, my grandmother, Lola Flor, reigned over the sweets. The aforementioned mais kon yelo and ginataang mais were the desserts on offer, in addition to maja blanca, a simple corn and coconut pudding. Truly a gluten-free sweet tooth's paradise.”
― Mia P. Manansala, Guilt and Ginataan