The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook (Indigenous Foodways)

Price: $34.95 - $13.48
(as of Sep 10, 2026 07:46:33 UTC – Details)

In 15,000-year-old archaeological sites throughout Texas and Northeastern Mexico, records left by Coahuiltecan, Karankawa, Apache, and other Indigenous communities tell stories about their food practices, the roots of Texas Mexican cuisine. Author and chef Adán Medrano, a Coahuiltecan descendant, has made it his life’s work to document these food practices and the stories they narrate. In The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook, he honors the plant-based cooking history, traditions, and knowledge that make up the comida casera (home cooking) of today’s Texas Mexican community.

Each of the 90 kitchen-tested recipes includes detailed cooking instructions intended for contemporary home cooks. Headnotes for each recipe describe how the dish entered the region’s culinary traditions and became integral to the culinary act of meaning-making in the community. The book provides explanations of the origins of iconic ingredients like squash, cactus, mesquite, and sunflowers, as well as more recent, post-Conquest ingredients like watermelon, rice, and cauliflower. Texas ancestors ate pecans and black walnuts, along with acorns, grapes, berries, seeds, and tubers. Mesquite and cactus were central to celebrations.

Home cooks of all levels can discover and reclaim ancient ingredients and simple techniques in this volume and come away with a deeper knowledge of the agricultural systems that belie our current foodways.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Texas Tech University Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 26, 2025
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1682832732
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1682832738
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.65 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.9 x 1.3 x 11.1 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #89,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #6 in Native American Food #9 in Indigenous Food of the Americas #33 in Southwestern U.S. Cooking, Food & Wine
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