Adán Medrano in a still from “Truly Texas Mexican” On numerous occasions, an (always white) coastal friend or acquaintance has said to me: “Tex Mex is gross. I like real Mexican food.” What they mean is that the cheesy, creamy, double-fried takes on Mexican food that fill San Antonio’s Riverwalk and travel the country through chain restaurants called Big Alamo or Cheesy Juan’s is what constitutes Tex Mex. And the process of the creation of this cuisine involves some porcine, Kevin James-like restaurant chain owner stealing recipes from an abuela and adding an avalanche of Velveeta to it. This is its own form of colonial thinking, one that demarcates everything — including food culture — with borders, and designates and exoticizes some ill-defined, vaporous indigenous entity, culture, or people as the