Hey, it's Francis, and this week we're revisiting one of our favorite episodes. It's all about the food of Mexico.

Fun fact, for one of the segments in this episode, we did a tortilla taste test in our very professional radio studio.

I hope to be in a studio again. And like our guest brought his own electric riddle. He plugged it in to heat up the tortillas.

We almost got kicked out in the studio because it turns out you really can't have a large

searing surface running on electricity when you're also running thousands of dollars of high-end

recording equipment right next to it. Anyway, here's the show and the sacrifice we almost made

for it. It's the Splendid Table from APM American Public Media.

I'm Francis Lamb.

Now, if you're listening to this, chances are that you love Mexican food.

And I know that because just about everyone in America loves Mexican food.

25 years ago, we found out that Americans spent more money on salsa than they do on ketchup,

and a study last year revealed that Mexican restaurants are the second most common kind of restaurant in America, edging out pizzerias.

So this week, we want to take a look at some of the ways Mexican food looks and tastes and feels in America today.

Now, what we don't have is a full tour of Mexican food across the country, and honestly, you might be a little appalled that we don't have a story from the Southwest or from Chicago, for that matter.

But that's kind of the point.

Because there are so many stories to tell and so many ideas of what Mexican food is in America.

There's no way we'd fit them all into an hour.

But we're thrilled about what we do have.

A fascinating story about the restaurant that inspired Taco Bell, a chat with a chef on how to make tacos with whatever you have in your fridge, a conversation about Mexican food in a surprising

corner of the South, and a pastry chef gives us a masterclass in Flan.

But if you want to talk about Mexican food, you kind of have to start with a tortilla.

In its industrial form, you know, a tortilla is basically an edible plate or like a super handy glove made out of food, which I'm not really going to knock.

...