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I was born and raised in San Antonio. My grandmother wrote a locally-famous cookbook back in the 1960s, "The World of Mexican Cooking". [1] It's actually almost purely Tex-Mex, although she does have a chapter for "Mex-Mex" recipes. The recipes are fantastic, authentic, and most are easy enough fo r the average home cook to prepare. I asked my aunt, who now owns the copyright, if I could typeset the book in LaTeX and distribute it under an open-source license. She was cool with it and I started the transcription but never got beyond the second chapter--it's hard, tedious work! If anybody knows of some software that I can feed scanned pages into and get a PDF of OCR'ed text plus the artwork (it had wonderful art doodled in between the pages and paragraphs), please let me know.

By the way, Tex-Mex is the quintessential melting pot cuisine and one of the things that ties us San Antonians together. Tex-Mex has been embraced by many different ethnicities. My great aunt and uncle were children of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants who came to the US via Mexico. They opened up a restaurant, Karam's, that was one of the most famous and popular Tex-Mex restaurants in San Antonio for decades until it closed in the early 2000's.

If you're ever in San Antonio, skip all of the crappy tourist restaurants on the Riverwalk and head straight for the original location of the Blanco Cafe [2]. In my opinion, it's the most authentic and delicious Tex-Mex joint in town.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/World-Mexican-Cooking-Margaret-Curry/...

[2] https://www.yelp.com/biz/blanco-cafe-san-antonio

* EDIT: I just remembered that I did scan the book to PDF already. I have it here on my phone but I'm on a plane at the moment. Once I'm on the ground, I'll see about uploading it to Github for everyone to check out. The scanned version is sub-optimal and I think my grandmother would have appreciated my efforts to typeset this. If you're interested in helping out, we can figure out some way to divvy up the chapters and you can help me with OCR+proofing or doing the image->text manually. Thanks for your nice comments! I hope to get something for Show HN soon.

⬐ conductr

Life long Texan and agree San Antonio has the best Tex Mex. Houston & Austin are close enough to be very good (and where my expectations come from, first 25 years living there). I live in Dallas now, the Tex Mex here is just horrible (comparatively). It's more of a Cali/modern inspired style. I've only found a couple places that are close to what I consider authentic, but they're in odd locations that are difficult to patron. This, well the Dallas food culture in general (it sucks), is my biggest complaint about living in this city.

That said, I still eat Tex Mex 2-3 times a week, but always look forward to my visits back to Houston/Austin. Unfortunately don't make it to SA too often but will give that place a try next time I do.

⬐ friesen

El Paso would like a word with you.

Agree with you on the food situation in Dallas in a general sense. But you can find loads of great tex-mex in East Dallas and Oak Cliff.

⬐ conductr

LOL. I've actually never been to El Paso. I think it's a matter of Latitude so I'm sure it's great there too.

> great tex-mex in East Dallas and Oak Cliff

This is what is weird to me in Dallas. I have to go to certain parts of town to find decent tex mex. These are both 20-30 minutes away from where I live! I never had this problem in Houston or Austin. There was always some little cinder block building in/near the neighborhood run by owner pumping out great stuff.

I've tried a few of these places in East Plano or Harry Hines area that look authentic from the outside. All occasions they were actually Guatemalan or El Salvadorian which was a surprise to me.

⬐ bfuller

So the problem isn't dallas food culture. its that you dont want to drive 20-30 minutes (which is a common thing here)

Dallas has AMAZING tex mex. Dallas popularized tex mex to the world with el chico and el fenix. you are being insanely reductive. We have a great food scene.

And Dallas doesn't have very many Guatemalan spots (I wish we had more) so I sense you are being intentionally obtuse in your post.

⬐ conductr

Well yes, I do consider being widely accessible as a measure of culture. Without arguing over exact establishments, I will say IMO El Chico and El Fenix do not represent good tex mex. They represent the chained version of tex mex (which isn't good in my book). This is what Dallas loves to do and a reason I don't think the food culture is very good here. It's always corporate, with an eye toward expansion. Good food cultures tend to be locally owned, chef driven. There are a few bright spots (Lucia comes to mind).

Are you from Dallas? If so, I think your bias is likely too strong to sense how good this food culture is. Everyone I meet that grew up here thinks it's a great food culture just because there are a ton of restaurants and they are mostly pretty good. But, coming from Houston/Austin, I see;

1) too many chains (not a problem alone, but generally correlates to poor execution/quality) 2) restaurants rarely change their menus (good chefs change their menus!) 3) lacking depth of cuisine (we're not as international of a city as we think we are: the ethnic food options are lacking, there are some and I've seen improvements but generally people just want more burgers and more steaks) 4) we are copy cats; if you travel to other cities with good food culture it's easy to see food trends a year before they reach Dallas - I think this is related to not being chef driven, our restaurants have executive chefs that design a menu once a year, they are not driving new trends)

> doesn't have very many Guatemalan spots

I know several in Irving and along Harry Hines/Denton Drive between Love & 635

⬐ bfuller

El Chico and el fenix aren't good, but I didn't say they are, I said they introduced it to the world.

The term "authentic" tex mex is silly in the first place because it is regional (otherwise known as.. "authentic") food with replacement ingredients based on what was available here.

People that grew up here know its a good food city because... we know the spots. You'd only think Dallas has only chains if you only knew about chains.

⬐ None

None

⬐ djrogers

> I live in Dallas now, the Tex Mex here is just horrible (comparatively). It's more of a Cali/modern inspired style.

California would like a word with you...

To call Cal/Mex cuisine 'horrible' is patently ridiculous. If you can say that, haven't had a gordita from an L.A. roach coach, or a green corn tamale from El Cholo, or a Mission style burrito, etc etc.

Oh, and lest we not forget San Diego - a legit fish taco is sublime.

⬐ conductr

What does any of that have to do with authenticity of Tex mex?

Cal mex is great. Just don’t call it Tex mex.

⬐ pchristensen

Tex-Mex is the quintessential melting pot cuisine

Wouldn't that be fondue?

⬐ mkm416

Queso!

⬐ mieseratte

> Wouldn't that be fondue?

Assuming you're not cracking wise, that would be a reference to the American "Melting Pot," that is the mixing of cultures, as opposed to a culinary term.

⬐ pchristensen

Sorry, cracking wise.

⬐ None

None

⬐ mauvehaus

My wife and I made a cookbook for our wedding. We had people submit (hopefully "old family") recipes electronically, and collected them into a slim volume.

Recipes we got in text form we typeset directly with almost no editing, recipes we got in image form, we included in image form. I did the layout with Scribus, and then we got copies printed and handed them out as our wedding favors.

It was exhausting work.

I don't think I've ever underestimated the scope of a project quite as badly as that one. If it weren't for a substantial volume of bourbon, and the fact that I was between jobs at the time and could work on it full-time, we'd have never gotten it done in time for the wedding.

As it was, we were way too close to deadline to get the printing and binding done inexpensively from an internet vendor. We ended up using a local printer and binder, and while it was a lot more expensive than going with an internet vendor, they really pulled the project out of the fire for us[0].

All this to say: What you're doing sounds amazing. And as you've discovered, is an astonishing amount of work. If you keep it up, I promise that the results will be worth it, but it's a long way to go to get there.

I would caution you that even if you manage to OCR the text with relatively few errors, a lot of the work in doing a cookbook is in the layout. You may have discovered this already, and if so I apologize, but getting the text into electronic form is, at most, half the battle.

Good luck, and if you get through this project, please submit it to Show HN so we can all see it!

[0] Red Sun Press deserves a shout-out for their work and their willingness to deal with a print run of <100 copies a <100 page book. If you're in the Boston area, I highly recommend them: http://www.redsunpress.com/

⬐ unethical_ban

Blanco Cafe is pretty good - I've been there many times, drive by it several times a week. Chuy's is a good Texas chain for Tex-Mex as well. Taco Cabana... meh, but it does it. Pappasitos too.

San Antonio also opened my mind to true Mexican, like Jalisco style food heavy on lard, onion and fried stuff like Carnitas.

⬐ fein

I might be missing something, but that tex mex eatery has food that actually looks worse than the Mexican places up here in the mid west.

⬐ kodablah

> I might be missing something, but that tex mex eatery has food that actually looks worse than the Mexican places up here in the mid west.

You're not missing anything, that is tex-mex and I promise you it is not worse. That is just how it looks but it's awesome.

⬐ kerkeslager

Food photography is insanely difficult: just like they say, "the camera adds 10 pounds", lighting and color differences between direct vision and photos make food look slightly off. Our brains are attuned from millions of years of evolution to see anything slightly off with our food to be gross. As a result, even food that looks delicious in person looks disgusting in photographs unless you're extremely careful to get the lighting just right. Professional photographs like this[1] are carefully lighted and highly edited, and even slight variations can make the lettuce look a bit off and the bun a bit burnt[2] or the pickles seem old and the cheese fake[3].

Long story short: people's low-res cell phone photos of half-eaten food taken under fluorescent lights basically indicate nothing about the food.

[1] https://www.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/usa/documents/newbigma...

[2] http://louiseroserailton.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mcdo...

[3] http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/10/article-2171302-13...

⬐ Moru

On the other hand, the third picture is what you get at M if you are lucky.

⬐ chrissnell

That's just the thing about Tex-Mex: it's a dumpy-looking plate. A truly authentic plate of chile con carne enchiladas consists of corn tortillas softened in hot oil, then filled with greasy cheddar cheese (never that white-and-yellow mix crap), then topped with enchilada gravy (a roux), and greasy all-beef chili (no beans!!!!) and more greasy cheese. It's assembled and then put under a broiler to melt the cheese. The result is a melted mess on the plate. Not fancy, but oh, does it taste good... Blanco Cafe is a dingy little hole in the wall with chipped tables and dirty fluorescent lighting on the ceiling but it's the best plate of enchiladas you've ever had. Order the Mexican Dinner plate.

⬐ Declanomous

Well, I don't know where the guy you replied to is from, but I have lived in Chicago my entire life and I found tex-mex pretty disappointing when I went to Texas since I've spent my entire life eating actual Mexican food.

I think it's just fundamentally different cuisine. I was pretty baffled when I went in to a breakfast place and they had breakfast tacos with eggs, sausage and potatoes. I literally thought that was something McDonald's invented to seem "Mexican." The Mexican breakfasts I get have smoked beef tongue and stuff like that. There isn't really that much cheese either.

Another thing, and I'm not sure it makes a huge difference, but, the Mexicans I know up here tend to be from southern Mexico. The few Mexicans I know from further north say that the food in Chicago is mostly from Southern Mexico.

Tex-mex is pretty good, but if you are expecting Mexican food it's not really the same. It needs to be appreciated on it's own merits.

⬐ cestith

Look at Gino's East and Giordano's. Now look at Imo's and Cecil Whittaker's. Now look at California Pizza Kitchen.

Now, look at a Chicago Italian beef. Look at Pat's, Geno's, or Ray's in Philly. Look at a New Orleans Po' Boy and an East Coast grinder.

You think there's no regional variety within a country? Are you going to tell a Philly guy his cheesesteak isn't authentic because it's different from what you're used to?

Texas, California, Baja California, the Yucatan, central Mexico, southern Mexico, the northern end of the Gulf coast in Mexico, and north central Mexico are all very different places.

⬐ Declanomous

I never said there wasn't regional variety. I said I'm probably expecting something from Southern Mexico when I eat Mexican. Either way, Tex-Mex isn't really "Mexican", it's definitely a fusion, so if you are expecting Mexican food you'd be surprised.

⬐ cestith

Texas was one of those regions. So was California. The borders moved. The Tejanos are still here. All border areas have mixed styles and ingredients. "Fusion" implies someone intentionally looked at two disparate cuisines and mixed them on purpose.

⬐ None

None

⬐ dragonwriter

> Tex-mex is pretty good, but if you are expecting Mexican food it's not really the same.

It's most related to northern Mexican cuisine, but pretty distant from that of, say, the Valley of Mexico or the Yucatan or Mexico's Pacific Coast, among others. Mexico has diverse regional cuisines, often influenced by the cuisines of the different pre-colonization local cultures (but also influenced by different post-colonization immigration patterns and other factors.)

⬐ AdmiralAsshat

I have no experience with LaTeX, but if you setup a GH repo for the open-source chapters and privately send me a scan of the book, I and/or others could submit PR requests on a chapter-by-chapter basis with some plaintext transcriptions. Someone could mark up the recipe sections to LaTeX from there.

⬐ jimktrains2

Ditto on this! LaTex also isn't too terribly difficult, so it might be possible to get 90% the way there just by copying what's been done for the first chapters already, and then @chrissnell can do the fine formatting how he'd like it to look.

⬐ matthewmcg

I, for one, would love to see a "TeX Mex" cookbook.

⬐ nikanj

Fiverr.com, mechanical turk or something similar should get these typed in for less than $5 per page. Throwing money at the problem might be easier than sacrificing time.

⬐ cicero

LaTex-Mex?

⬐ the-pigeon

Authentic Mexican cuisine means Mexican food in the style of someone's favorite Mexican restaurant. Typically one in their hometown.

⬐ skxx

Hey there fellow Texan. If you're planning on releasing it on a permissive license I'll help with what I can. Do you already have high quality scans of the pages you could upload to GitHub?

⬐ chrissnell

I'm on a plane right now but I will try to get it scanned when I get back. I'll edit my top level post when I do. Thanks!

⬐ mmagin

I can't be the only one who would donate to a Kickstarter (or similar) to fund this. :) If you've already got it scanned, it would be easy to outsource some of that work.

⬐ jimmaswell

There are book scanning machines on Amazon of varying price and complexity, some advertising coming with OCR capability of their own.

⬐ bg4

As a resident of Dallas, thanks for this :) Looking forward to trying the recipes.

⬐ bg4

Wow, is this really going to 1-2k a copy?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0931722462/ref=tmm_p...

Bought a copy off of eBay for $10. Not sure what the above is about.

⬐ jriot

I would also add that Cajun food is a quintessential melting pot cuisine.

⬐ xingped

Would love to help you out with the book! Let me know!

⬐ ARCarr

I want to help with transcribing this.

⬐ dragonwriter

> By the way, Tex-Mex is the quintessential melting pot cuisine

Not really; it's not any more of a melting pot than south-of-the-border Mexican cuisine is, or than California cuisine is (among many others.) It's just a melting pot with different sources and biases.

⬐ tptacek

Quintessential means "perfect example", not "most".

⬐ dragonwriter

> Quintessential means "perfect example", not "most".

Yes, but the definite article “the” is exclusive and indicates a unique status, as opposed to the indefinite article “a” which is inclusive and admits a potentially shared status.

Tex-Mex is perhaps a quintessential melting pot cuisine, but it's not the quintessential one.

⬐ tptacek

You're saying he said Tex-mex was a "uniquely representative example" of melting pot cuisine?

⬐ dragonwriter

You've changed from “perfect” to “representative"; while quintessence can mean either, the latter makes little sense with “the” [0] only “a”, the former makes perfect sense with “the” to refer to the concrete example best approximating an abstract ideal, and this is exactly how the construction “the quintessential X” is generally used.

[0] except in the context of some feature where the example perfectly represents the aggregate in a way no other single example does.

⬐ njarboe

Nice to hear you feel that Tex-Mex as a melting pot cuisine. I would concur. The article itself is so focused on the race, sex, nationality, and class of the cookers of the food I find it unreadable. The author is definitely not interested on how food can tie us together.

⬐ nubianwarrior

Another thing that will not tie us together is continuing to ignore conversations that are uncomfortable, or as you put it unreadable, to you.

⬐ i_am_nomad

But if those “conversations” are predicated on racial gatekeeping, then they are indeed dividing us, and the parent poster is quite right to avoid them.