Departures: NM99: Part 4

Why the Food Was So Bad... Border Patrol... Trouble on the Horizon...

The Tragic History of West Texan Cuisine (and People)

1999.03.20 SAT

I'd set aside time to make an overnight trip to Marfa, TX. There, in the decomissioned Fort D.A. Russell, the Chinati Foundation has put in various art installations. It sounded unlike anything I'd ever seen.

Getting there would mean catching a bus to Odessa, transferring to another bus and getting into town at 10 minutes after midnight. The museum wouldn't open until the afternoon, leaving me to spend the morning in the little town of Marfa. Then I'd have to rush to see the museum, less I miss the bus back to Odessa.

I decided to heck with it and spent the day slacking in El Paso instead. I started walking North.

Passing through the UTEP campus I visited their Centennial Museum. I learned a couple of things from exhibits there.

Many Chinese men had come to El Paso as railroad workers, laying track. The locals attempted to dissuade the Chinese from settling by forbidding any Chinese women (as San Franciscan locals had done).

Unlike the San Franciscans, the citizens of El Paso did not relent in their policy. And it worked. After the railroad was built, the Chinese men drifted away.
The original European settlers in the area were British. Non-British visitors were distressed when they came to visit. The settlers were quite willing to live on cornbread and salt pork for all meals. For variety one might heat up the salt pork or one might not.

The real emergence of the local cuisine came with the arrival of German immigrants. They knew about raising livestock for meat (instead of killing cattle for leather and letting the meat rot), and they soon set about inventing Texas barbecue.

El Paso, in its search for a local cuisine, turned to the Germans and shrugged away the Chinese. This, in my opinion, must have been one of the most boneheaded blunders of all time.

I should stop whining about the food of El Paso. It's not their fault that that stupid guidebook made me think the food was going to be so great.

I walked North a few miles to a Kinko's, where I read my email. I told my parents I was safe and said to wish my grandfather happy birthday. I whined at my friends about the lack of vegetarian meals that were not bland cheese enchiladas. I logged out, headed back South towards the motel.

That's when I saw it. The Singapore Cafe. The sign said Thai Food and the marquis promised VEGETARIAN DI HES TOO. I was certainly in the mood for some vegetarian di hes. I went in. Inside, it was dark. The venetian blinds were closed. Patrons seemed to be enjoying themselves; there was something of the air of a speakeasy. Here were vegetarians in the middle of cattle-raising Texas.

I ordered a couple of di hes which turned out to be free of meat. They also turned out to be free of basil or much of anything which I might have associated with Thai cuisine other than tofu, onions, and ginger. Still, there were some vegetables in there, and I supposed that this meal might replenish some vitamins not provided by cheese enchiladas.

To White's City

1999.03.21 SUN

I was on a TNM&O/Greyhound bus heading East by NorthEast, towards White's City, a resort town close to the Carlsbad Caverns. The bus went past some places with names like Hueco-this and Hueco-that. One of these places had what appeared to be a giant stucco flying saucer.

There was a Border Patrol station. A Border Patrol guard, armed with a pistol, boarded the bus. He checked the IDs of everyone who looked to be of Mexican descent. He just asked me if I was a US citizen. One Mexican girl was asleep on her seat. The guard paused in front of her. She looked like a nice girl. As the bus had pulled out of the El Paso station, some respectable-looking grown-ups had waved at her. Surely, the Patroller didn't need to wake her up just to check her ID. And he didn't. He looked up at me and said, "She's asleep." I smiled and nodded--that was fine with me. He walked away without waking her. The baggage compartments of the bus clunked as patrollers looked for suspicious suitcases. And then the Patrollers were done and we were on our way. I breathed a little easier.

The bus stopped at what appeared to be a gas station/junkyard in the middle of nowhere. Nearby signs announced something called "Dell City," but I saw no city here. One man of Mexican descent disembarked and walked towards the gas station, his feet raising dust with each slow step. The bus moved on.

I saw antelope out the window. I rubbed my eyes. They were gone.

A long line of little billboards announced that we were approaching White's City. The billboards announced the many services offerred. There sure were a lot of billboards. It occurred to me that I'd signed up to stay for a couple of nights in a tourist trap. Soon I was hopping off the bus, checking in to a motel.

White's City, Gateway to More Adventure than I'd Planned On

I got a bean burrito at the resort's fast food restaurant, known variously as "Cactus Jack's," "Fast Jack's," or "Jack's". Afterwards, I dropped by the resort office to ask about the vans. The vans which my Lonely Planet travel guide for the Southwest USA had said the resort had. The vans which could ferry me back and forth to the airport and/or the Carlsbad Caverns. The caverns which were seven miles away from the resort across the Chihuahuan Desert. The vans which I was sort of relying on, seeing as how this resort was the closest set of accomodations to the caverns.

The clerk let me know the deal with the vans and the caverns: "Oh, we don't do anything like that."

"Nothing like that, eh?"

"No, we don't do anything like that."

"Well, that's a good thing for me to know, thanks."

I don't want to badmouth the Lonely Planet guide. It, for the most part, steered me right. But it was a few years out of date (a new edition came out soon upon my return from this trip), and a few things had changed. The vans were, apparently, one of those things.

I asked, "So, it's seven miles from here to the Caverns?"

"That's right."

"Do you know if that's seven miles as the crow flies, or along the road?"

"Well, the road goes up into the hills there. There's lots of switchbacks."

"Yeah, so that seven miles, is that...?"

She shrugged. I thanked her. I started making plans. I got a sucky-top bottle of water from the convenience store. I rinsed out a Coke bottle to hold more water. I made a bunch of sandwiches using the organic hippie peanut butter I'd brought with me from California and the I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Whole-Grain bread I'd brought from El Paso.

I went to dinner at the resort's restaurant that was open for dinner, the Velvet Garter. (<mumble> Jack's wasn't open for dinner during this, the off-season.) The hostess (the same lady who'd taken my lunch order at <mumble> Jack's) sat me down and I looked at the menu. Nothing vegetarian, unless you counted the salad bar, which (having seen the salad bar) I didn't. I ordered pie and coffee. I ate, paid, left. Back in my room, I ate a couple of peanut butter sandwiches. I'd made them so that I'd have something to eat as I trekked through the desert tomorrow. But for vegetarians, the Velvet Garter was a desert of sort (except for their desserts).

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