I live in a small college town (OSU Technical School) and we probably have 10 - 12 Mexican restaurants, mostly dine-in, family places, and they are always quite busy. Tracy, my former aide, was Mexican and she scoffed at what we Gringos (what the Mexicans call us Northerners) call Mexican food. Our chili and cuisine is quite tame by comparison. Now, if you want HOT chili, go to Texas. Their chili serves double-duty as paint remover. Bobflatpicker from these forums posted The Texas Chili Cook-off last year and it was hilarious. As they say, good chili should "...burn at both ends!" Aka, Mexican (or Texan) After Burners!

We have a huge Native-American population which introduce their own delicious foods. Several of my aides are Cherokee, which are a very beautiful race, and their fry-bread is wonderful. You know you have eaten something when eat that.

To keep this thread music related, my story of how the term Gringo came about: Around the end of the Civil War (which is an excellent example of an oxymoron, btw) c1865, a popular song was Green Grow The Lilacs. The Texas cowboys would sing it to soothe the cattle through the night. Meanwhile, the Mexican cowboys were listening across the Rio Grande and learning the lyrics phonetically. They had difficulty with "green grow," which is a tongue-twister to the Spanish-speaking people. Consequently, "green grow" became corrupted to "Gringo."

That's my story and I'm sticking to it! What does Snops.com know? LOL

Here is the Civil War song: Green Grow (Gringo) The Lilacs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BCNSeDOqKw