Mexican cuisine fires on many of the culinary cylinders that drive restaurant traffic these days. It can be bold-flavored, exotic without being threatening and even comfort food to some.


But Mexican cuisine as Americans tend to know it has evolved north of the border, with regional differences ranging from the brightly flavored fish tacos of California-Mexican cuisine to homey and rich dishes, such as the chile con carne and Frito pie of Tex-Mex. 


Some dishes commonly thought of as being Mexican, in fact, likely originated in the United States. Food historians believe burritos were invented by migrant workers somewhere between Los Angeles and Tucson, Ariz., who wrapped beans in flour tortillas to take into the fields. Flour tortillas have long been the wrapper of choice in Texas and the Mexican states just south of the Rio Grande River. Corn tortillas are more common further south.


Burritos don’t traditionally contain rice, either. That addition was made in San Francisco’s Mission District, where Steve Ells sampled them and fashioned a menu around them at his Chipotle Mexican Grill chain.


Meanwhile, Arizona claims to be the state in which burritos were first deep-fried, creating the chimichanga.


Residents of New Mexico also have had a hand in shaping Mexican food as we know it in the States. New Mexico, in fact, has an official state question related to its distinctive Mexican-style cuisine: “Red or green?” 


The question refers to the two chile sauces that can top dishes in the state. One is prepared with the completely ripe, usually sweeter red chiles, while the other is made with the generally spicier, earthier greens. 


Green chile also can refer to a stew similar to the Tex-Mex chile con carne — the forebear of the chili that tops hot dogs across the United States.


The New Mexican version is prepared with green chiles simmered with onions, garlic and often Mexican oregano, usually thickened with a roux, and cooked with pork stock and chunks of pork.


Fred Muller, executive chef of El Meze Restaurant in Taos, N.M., serves a green chile sauce with his buffalo tamale. The tamale itself is made from the trim of his Buffalo Short Ribs Adovada. 


To prepare that dish, he marinates the ribs in a classic red chile sauce of puréed Chimayo chiles, garlic, water, salt and Mexican oregano.


“Some people use a roux in that chile; I do not,” he said.


Muller said Chimayo chiles recently were awarded their own appellation, similar to wine designations, requiring that a chile must be grown in the area of Chimayo, N.M., to earn that distinction.


He marinates the buffalo meat in the red chile overnight, and then bakes it for about five hours at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.


With about 32 million Mexican-Americans living in the United States, according to 2010 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the cuisine has continued to evolve and find new expressions across the country.


At Seviche in Louisville, Ky., executive chef Anthony Lamas, who grew up cooking in his family’s Mexican restaurant, gives the food a distinctive twist by employing local ingredients, Southern tradition and his own sensibilities. 


For example, he prepares what he calls an open-faced tamale by cooking local grits with green or chipotle chile, local Cheddar cheese and, sometimes, Indiana sweet corn. 


He scoops the grits into a cornhusk and tops them with meat from short ribs that have been braised for five to six hours with a classically French combination of carrots, celery, onions, leeks and garlic, along with some chipotle chiles.


Lamas garnishes the dish with chipotle demi-glace and a pico de gallo made of yellow tomatoes.


Erwin Ramos, the chef-owner of Olé Mexican Grill in Cambridge, Mass., and Zócalo in Boston, was born in the Philippines and developed a passion for Mexican food from his Mexican friends while in culinary school at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I. 


When he opened Mexican restaurants in New England 14 years ago, though, he says he had to adjust to the New England palate.


“New Englanders love creamy food, seafood and meat,” he said.


So he serves a sea bass with buttery polenta and tops it with a sauce of spicy chipotle pepper and mild red bell pepper, emulsified with olive oil and sweetened with honey.


His langosta con camarones — shrimp and lobster — is a seafood soup with lobster, shrimp, scallops and tomato sauce that also contains some guajillo chiles. 


“It really reflects the New England palate,” he said.


So does his variation on a dish from the Mexican port city of Veracruz, prepared with lightly fried local fish — such as haddock or whatever is in season — stuffed with a cilantro-flavored seafood mousseline. The fish is braised with capers, olives, onions, red bell peppers and poblanos.


Ramos also features a fairly classic carne asada, but instead of using a thin, flavorful cut such as skirt steak, he uses a New York strip.


Ramos gets $26 for his bass dish and $28 for his seafood stew. But Alex Stupak got pushback from guests when he started charging similar prices at his Empellón Taqueria in New York.


Stupak was the pastry chef at avant-garde restaurants Alinea in Chicago and then wd~50 in New York before striking out on his own with the hope of stretching his creativity and bringing to Mexican cuisine the respect he says it deserves.


However, once something is called a taco, pricing it at more than $3 tends to put people off, he observed. 


Stupak charges $39 for three lobster tacos.


“It’s actually underpriced for what it is,” he said. “It’s a 1 1/2-pound lobster. The only reason people say it’s expensive is because it’s on a tortilla.”


Stupak said he sources the best ingredients he can find — including pork, which is raised in Washington and fattened up on hazelnuts. He makes a taco out of the loin, paired with braised pine nuts, and charges $24 for two of them and $36 for three.


“I can’t look my cooks in the eye and tell them how to work, and then hand them the worst pork I can find,” he said. “But [customers aren’t] thinking that way. They’re thinking: ‘It’s a taco. What’s on it? Gold? I don’t care; it should be $3.’”


Stupak does offer lower-priced items, however, such as a taco of pork tongue braised in beer onions with allspice and cumin, paired with smoked potatoes and a salsa of arbol chile, pumpkin seeds and sesame. That’s $12 for two.


“In the long term, I hope I can get people to think of a taco as a way to appreciate flavor, like sushi,” he said. 


Contact Bret Thorn at bret.thorn@penton.com
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Follow him on Twitter: @FoodWriterDiary.