Winner: “Best Documentary,” New York Independent Cinema Awards
Winner: “Audience Choice Award,” The Hill Country Film Festival
Over time and during conquest, Texas Mexican food (not tex-mex) sustained Native American memory and identity. Cooking nopalitos, deer, mesquite and tortillas, indigenous women led the cultural resistance against colonization.
15,000 years ago, Native American women domesticated the plants and cooked the same game and fish we eat today. It’s the “comida casera,” (home cooking) of contemporary Texas Mexican American families. Comida casera was made famous in the late 1800s by indigenous businesswomen, chefs, who operated outdoor diners in downtown San Antonio. Later dubbed “Chili Queens,” the chefs were harassed and forced out of business, victims of racism.
But other women followed in their footsteps throughout the state, they kept on cooking. Chefs, artists and community leaders in San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Brownsville and other cities share intimate food experiences that shape who they are today, prevailing over a history of discrimination, dispossession and violence.
The road movie weaves through Texas cities, reclaiming Native American history and celebrating the food that kept alive the community’s living memory and heritage.
Food narrates who we are, and indigenous Texas Mexican food underscores what it means to be “American.” This new movie offers a new type of encounter. One of understanding, building a table where ALL ARE WELCOME.
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