By Hometown Pasadena – Hometown-Pasadena.com – Photo Staci Valentine/L.A. Mexicano
Pocho cooking is the original L.A. Mexicano, the food that many second- and third-generation Mexican Americans grew up eating, and the dishes that everyone in L.A. considered truly Mexican until we started knowing better in the 1990s: the enchiladas and tostadas that L.A.-born college kids craved when away at college, the trays of taquitos served at Cinco de Mayo parties, the huevos rancheros inhaled by surfers after an early morning session. Are these dishes authentic? Absolutely—they are authentically L.A., created in L.A. by Mexican-born cooks with the ingredients they had available to them from the 1920s through the 1970s.
—Bill Esparza, L.A. Mexicano
