Food Wars: Mexican Food v. Italian Food

Yo si ley voy, ley voy a Mexico.

This is honestly one of the hardest polls in ILX history.

fuck that. manicotti automatically puts Italy over the edge

Mexican.

how dare you call me that

this is close, but I like really good mexican food more than I like really good italian food

Mexican, by far. We got history in our food, the Italians stole theirs from the Chinese.

Taking pizza out of the equation (because actual Italian, as opposed to Italo-American pizza is vile) it's Mexican all the way.

WRONG!

love mex but italian wins by default just because i've eaten that so much more in my life

No amount of delicious burritos and tacos could compare to tiramisu and gelato -- Italian.

hoos is mexican.

Italian every time. No contest. I could eat pasta every day of my life and have a different and delicious meal every time. And thene there's saltimbocca for heaven's sake!

Part of what I dig about Mexican food, other than it being the food of my life & childhood & nostalgia & home, is that it can so easily be adapted to a healthier lifestyle. Black beans substituted for refried, whole wheat tortillas subbed for flour, spinach enchiladas with skim cheese etc. The options are ridiculous. Salsa is a fucking vegetable.

Mexican food is my favorite cuisine tbh.

tamales alone cinch this for the Mexicans

^ otm, I'd include horchata as well.

I probably love Mexican food more broadly and would gladly eat even the most generic Mexican combo platter over some boring old spaghetti and red sauce. But really clean, simple Italian stuff - salumi, cheeses, wine, olives, olive oil, pasta with only a couple of really good ingredients - might be some of my favorite foods ever.

Based on this thread, about 60% of ILX is genuinely, certifiably insane and should take a long hard look at themselves before lashing out over what goes on a pizza. I say this as an entirely unbiased Mediterranean, of course, but come on.

A difficult choice, but in the end it's got to be Mexican for me. Ask me again in 20 years and I'll probably say Italian, though.

Mexican food is my favorite cuisine tbh.

^^^

i mean sure lol this guy likes asparagus or prawns on his stone-bake every so often, and hey he once had a brainfart and cooked fish with chocolate and cheese, but the madness herein is a madness of the soul. perhaps it is a cultural thing that i cannot comprehend. (please attach previous sentence to end of every post)

also

actual Italian, as opposed to Italo-American pizza is vile

x_x

I think I agree with everything joygoat said. But am abstaining because of the extreme difficulty of tasting good Mexican food in the UK (presumably except for Loldon).

i'm going to Wahaca in the week. i had a burrito from Tortilla earlier.

Based on this thread, about 60% of ILX is genuinely, certifiably insane and should take a long hard look at themselves before lashing out over what goes on a pizza. I say this as an entirely unbiased Mediterranean, of course, but come on.

― One idiot even called me "redcoat" because I'm (country matters), Sunday, August 2, 2009 9:45 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

based on this post you are an idiot

<3 <3

mexican, because beans

lol i think this thread demands an LJ chill, one internet discussion ain't gonna make italian food any less nice

Even with pizza counting, I choose Mexican.

lj have you even had mexican food? you can only get it in america

Wahaca is great, as is Taqueria on Westbourne Grove. I also had a fab Mexican meal at La Perla on Charlotte Street last week and just down the road from my office I can get a drool-worthy lunchtime burrito that weighs about a kilo.

In short, I can get very very excited about Mexican in a way I can't about Italian. Although that probably has to do with only having fairly cheap shonky Italian meals that do a disservice to that country's cuisine. Real Italian icecream is NOMMMMMMMMMMMM tho.

actual Italian, as opposed to Italo-American pizza is vile

truth bomb

okay vile might be over the top, but italian-style pizza just isn't that interesting

have only really had the fast-foody burrito/taco/quesadilla/whatever stuff, from some pretty authentic and reputable joints, and sure it's nice, and sure if i had a goat's cheese tostada i might cream myself a little, but *sigh* O Italian food. O. O.

goat's cheese tostada

so...you haven't had mexican food have you

it's okay to admit it

his mind is made up

i still voted yh

http://www.aintnosurfintexas.com/zz%20top%20tres%20hombres%20mexican%20feast3%20copy.jpg

http://www.dallasfood.org/photos/mexjefferson/lahechizerajefftlacoyo.jpg

http://www.lataco.com/taco/wp-content/uploads/tlapazola4.jpg

i'm going to Mexico some day

the fact that you guys are talking about a mexican place called WAHACA (as opposed to OAXACA, the real spelling) just shows that britishes can't talk anything about mexican food.

seriously, lj, i don't blame you for voting on ancestry etc etc., but you have no idea what mexican food is. no idea.

I can't believe there is even a question about this. Without a doubt Mexican. MOLE!!!!!!

http://toppayingideas.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/rick-bayless.jpg

italian

Guy I work with from Cali reps for Wahaca, table. Don't be such a priss,

most people from cali are morons, did you know that?

the best thing about mexican food is that you can have it in a HOAGIE

with CHEESE

whilst italian food is best in its country of origin (italy), you can eat half decent italian in many different counties. mexican however can sadly only be eaten in the one country that it came from (america)

xp Super-Rica is great, but I'd skip it if the line's out the door and down the street. Corazon and Mony's are good alternatives in the area. Los Agaves (one location is very near Super-Rica) has expanded within the city and down the 101 toward LA (Oxnard and Westlake). I have mixed feelings about it.

One of my favorite Mexican spots remains a place in upstate New York though. $6 margaritas and insanely good burritos.

― omar little, Monday, November 5, 2018 12:14 AM (sixteen hours ago)

what? where?

Mexican prepared meat is vastly superior to any American prepared meat.

xp

Viva Cantina/Viva Taqueria in Ithaca, and to be fair I’ve only been there once in the past twenty years since I moved to L.A. so take this with a grain of salt. I’m not going to make claims for its authenticity; there was lots of nostalgia involved. But last time I went (in summer 2015) I was pleasantly surprised that I still thought it was good, and the $6 margarita ($5 happy hour) was great. Maybe also due to its cost but it did the trick.

― omar little, Monday, November 5, 2018 8:21 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh duh thanks

Mexican prepared meat is vastly superior to any American prepared meat.

― Yerac, Monday, November 5, 2018 1:32 PM (fifty-four seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is just "burgers are bad" again? anyway, I'm not sure how people decide what American cuisine would be. the menu at the Liberty Inn in Epcot? powdered eggs and processed cheese? does "american prepared meat" include barbecue?

Yeah, I was thinking of barbecue especially for the american prepared meat category.

I like vinegar based bbq and brisket but man, mexican meats are just so complex and layered and delicious. My mouth is watering thinking of it.

I probably would still vote for Italian cuisine over mexican though.

I love El Indio in San Diego

Mexican food is not quite as great as Italian food, but what is??

Chinese food

God I started thinking and came up with Japanese Chinese Spanish Greek Indian -- food is good

Italian food in general is kinda dud

But I don’t really like noodles or pasta

I feel like noodles/pasta are such calorie robbers for like nothing in return

I feel like someone here once said that they could jack it to bowls of pasta (this was when people were no carbing it a lot). Same.

xp for pleasure in return!

Xp

That’s hot

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=43091
appears it hasn't been updated since 2016 tho
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Monday, 5 November 2018 16:15 (six days ago)

Thanks so much, def want to check some of these out (partner is vegan which hopefully won't nix too many).

Tonight, the goat's cheese tostada becomes a reality

an emphemeral one, I expect

ephemeral even

The “Acceptable To Italians Index” is my new favorite set of metrics pic.twitter.com/AaaVXMownP

— Mountain Lion In My Backyard 🦁🌇 (MLIMBY) (@ArmandDoma) February 4, 2022

Italian food is so easy to cook it is a crime to do it badly.

Pretty sure as a kid there was one time I put ketchup on newspaper and called it spaghetti. How would that rate with the Italians?

Idk there is quite a bit of skill & technique in Italian cooking, including some of the most famous dishes. Cacio e pepe and carbonara are both famously tricky to get right consistently.

who the fuck is starting pasta in COLD water

the good people of Hong Kong, who are much more familiar with their own rice-based noodles than with durum-wheat-based pasta

Cheese with seafood is good.

yes, but they don't really complement one another. it's more of an uneasy truce between two good things to eat.

It always strikes me as an arbitrary rule taken up by snobs on Top Chef.

Idk there is quite a bit of skill & technique in Italian cooking, including some of the most famous dishes. Cacio e pepe and carbonara are both famously tricky to get right consistently.

Oh, sure, cacio e pepe being a particular bugbear for me. But there are oh 500 other pasta sauces/dishes you can make that are extremely forgiving.

That's true. I finally wisened up and don't buy any jarred sauce. Yeah you can go all out and make a "Sunday gravy" if you want, but I can make a pretty tasty tomato sauce in 15 minutes with pantry items. And I actually prefer the rawer tomato taste to the one that develops after simmering them for hours.

cacio e pepe isn't so great

Minus the time it takes potatoes to bake ( a "set it and forget it" step), one can make, say, gnocchi alla sorrentina from scratch in 40 minutes. Can't believe it took me til I was in my 40s to realize how quick and relatively simple something like that is to make.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4eaNqTbDDA
The 1st version shown here is best method I've encountered.
You really have to like pepe to enjoy cacio e pepe. But you can use the same concept to make cacio e qualunque.

cacio e pepe is a LIE the italians can keep it
i cant make it correctly no matter how much i try & life is too short to cry over fkn noodles & cheese

*DO NOT TELL ME HOW TO MAKE IT SUCCESSFULLY OR I WILL CUT YOU*

i am personally done w it

I think low effort defines success. It will never deliver on the hype.

I've had great cacio e pepe, just never by my own hand.

But how great really?

Sitting in an alley in Rome it was pretty fucking great. As great as any three ingredient pasta where one of the three ingredients is water. It's super simple, which is what makes it hard.

Sitting in an alley in Rome was the magic 4th ingredient.

(pasta + cheese + water) x (scooters + accordions)

Well, yeah.

I've eaten some delicious cacio e pepe. I've made some miserable pasta wrapped with inedible grey ropes of claggy pecorino.

I'm a dab hand at recreating Roberta's' pizza approximation of Cacio E Pepe, the deathless Cheesus Christ.

Carbonara is American. Most Italians hadn’t heard of pizza until the 1950s. Panettone is a modern invention.

Meet Alberto Grandi, who has dedicated his career to debunking the myths around Italian food – FREE TO READ👇https://t.co/yQMdhNULts

— FT Weekend (@ftweekend) March 23, 2023

Fascinating article. I knew I liked carbonara too much for it to be anything other than an American creation, built for filthy American palates.

The chart in the thread is misleading. Carbonara (and Amatriciana) are not Cacio e Pepe with guanicale (and tomato) added.