Instructions: Tex-Mex has an identity crisis. The very name seems tentative, feeling out a definition instead of declaring one. It is surrounded by two cuisine regions - American southwest and Mexican - that overshadow it with countless cookbooks and trendy chefs. The similarities and proximity of southwestern, Mexican, and Tex-Mex styles makes a definition even harder to come by.

On top of all this (and because of it), Tex-Mex has a bum rap in the very places it should thrive. This scorn is acute enough to be mentioned in Jonathan Bartletts definition in The Cooks Dictionary and Culinary Reference: "A style of cooking popular in the Southwest and Mexico. It relies heavily on chili peppers and such standards as tacos and tortillas. The name reportedly is not welcome in the area it describes."

Is this what Tex-Mex has to offer? Standard food in vague locations?

Unfortunately, the definition may be accurate. There is no clear-cut answer, but the place to start looking for answers is the place where it is used: Texas.

"Tex-Mex is such an anomaly," says Chef Stephen Pyles of the Star Canyon restaurant in Dallas. "It has its base in a cuisine that is thousands of years old. When it crossed the border it became something in and of itself."

The roots of Tex-Mex are in the ingredients and dishes carried across the border from Mexico by settlers. Much of what went into these early foods were indigenous to Mexico, but these influences took on a life of their own in Texas.

Today, Tex-Mex is a style in its own right.

"It is not Mexican food, specifically," says Marilyn Tausend, co-author of Cocina De La Familia, a cookbook of Mexican-American home kitchens.

"You wouldnt recognize it if you came up from Northern Mexico."

Many of the classic Tex-Mex dishes also developed out of the trail food consumed by cowboys and other travelers in Texas during the last 200 years. The most distinctive of these is chili. Like most Tex-Mex cuisine, chili incorporated ingredients from Mexico (chilies) with some favorites of the Texan settlers (cheeses, beef, and shredded pork.) The Bowl of Red, a simple, fiery chili of beef and chilies, is a legendary dish in Texas.

The fajita is another dish that is Tex-Mex. Fajita was originally a word for a cut of tough beef used by ranchers. It has developed into the beef or chicken dish served with sauteed vegetables and tortillas. Again, the fajita qualifies because it is a Mexican-influenced dish developed north of the border.

The same policy could be extended towards ingredients. Cheeses and whole-wheat tortillas, both Old-World products flavored with Mexican styles, can be Tex-Mex foods. Extensive use of cumin, which is used in Mexico in moderation, is another sign that a dish originated north of the border. Even Mexican dishes, like tamales, become more Tex-Mex with certain touches - such as shredded pork filling. Like an Italian neighborhood in the United States, Tex-Mex reinterprets an ethnic food. But it has been around so long that it has become distinctive enough to merit its own name.

So what separates Tex-Mex from Southwestern cooking?

"Southwestern is a very young cuisine," explains Pyles. "It is a new breed of cooking established in the early 1980s by chefs who were using techniques and ingredients indigenous to Mexico but with an international influence."

Southwest incorporates many modern, American ideas of cooking with local ingredients and a broader set of techniques and influences. More health-conscious, southwestern cooking focuses on grilling, smoking, and fresh herb infusions, to name a few identifying factors.

The bad rap that Tex-Mex receives appears to be skin-deep. Thankfully, this dispute is hardly tarnishing the appeal of Tex-Mex food.

"Tex-Mex doesnt get a lot of respect," says Monica Greene, a restaurateur for more than 20 years in Mexico and Texas, "but if you go to restaurants, everyone seems to be using the ingredients."

"Let them slam it," said Pyles, "but theyre all closet Tex-Mex eaters."

Bartletts definition, it seems, might be made more accurate by simply adding five words: "But they love it anyway!"

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