Leslie Brenner laid down the gauntlet today publishing a blog post that promises to inflame an entire state. "Queso is awful," writes Brenner saying she's ready to come out of the queso closet. She goes on to defend queso fundido, which often makes use of higher quality cheese, but that Velveeta based stuff that forms a skin as it cools? No bueno.
See Also: There Is Never A Good Excuse For Bad Guacamole Tex-Mex Sandra Lee-Style: Matt's Rancho Martinez's Bob Armstrong Dip
Last year, Robb Walsh defended cheesy Tex-Mex, and Velveeta in particular. His blog post spurred a video response by one of Robb's readers explaining the importance of Velveeta in Texan food history, particularly among low income families.
I've pointed out Matt's Bob Armstrong dip in the past as a particularly lazy version of queso, and also picked on certain guacamole presentations to the consternation of my readers, but Leslie's published distaste for all Tex-Mex queso seems particularly inflammatory.
Velveeta sure isn't fancy, but it's definitely traditional for many families. Whether or not the Tex-Mex restaurants in Dallas are honoring family tradition, or just leveraging a low cost ingredient to bump up their profits, declaring a distaste for the entire genre seems pretty brazen to me.
