Tenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Today, the General Mills brand “Old El Paso” represents a style of industrialized ‘ethnic’ food engineered for convenient, inexpensive home-cooking. The brand’s US ambassadors claim that the products are not authentically Mexican; regardless, these labor-saving ingredients (salsas, canned chiles, refried beans, seasonings, taco shells, dinner kits, etc.) are massively popular with American consumers. The name-recognition of the Old El Paso brand is a source of bemusement for residents of El Paso, the west Texas bordertown that with its sister city Ciudad Juárez forms a bi-national metroplex - a region where showing discernment in ‘traditional’ Mexican food is a major component of local identity. Despite the incongruities between El Pasoan identity and the brand’s current image, Old El Paso actually has roots in its namesake region, where it began as a tomato and chile canning operation in the Mesilla Valley in the early 1900s. This paper uses discourse analysis and archival methods to study how public perception of Old El Paso became removed from that of a local canning company and instead became emblematic of corporate American placelessness and Big Food. Interrogating how a rhetoric of the ‘local’ and the ‘authentic’ can be highlighted or selectively sublimated in international food branding, this paper demonstrates that the Old El Paso brand has consistently framed Southwestern foods with an outsider’s perspective. This paper discusses the tensions between local culinary identities, corporate branding, and the enduring power imbalances of Anglo businesses adapting and profiting from Mexican foods.