"It's Doing It A Huge Injustice": 7 Times TV Chefs Butchered Latin American Cooking So Badly I Actually Gasped

During Latine Heritage Month, it's important to celebrate the many Latin American dishes that have become beloved staples around the world — like tacos, fajitas, ceviche, empanadas, and tamales, just to name a few.

But somehow, some of the world's most famous chefs haven't figured out how to get this cuisine right, often falling into the trap of treating it as a spicy add-on to other dishes rather than a rich culinary tradition in its own right. In order to celebrate what Latin American food is, it's important to clarify what it is not. So, here are seven times when popular chefs and cooking shows got Latin American food so, so wrong.

1. Let's start with Fiesta Fondue and Mexican Pizza, two recipes that Chef Sandra Lee featured on an episode of her Food Network show, Semi-Homemade Cooking.

The jarring mix of culturally disparate flavors feels almost satirical — like the spaghetti tacos on Nickelodeon's iCarly, except that was a childhood sitcom and this is an actual cooking show meant for adults.

The fondue-resembling dish — a bubbling cauldron of shredded cheese mixed with cheddar cheese soup — earns its "Fiesta" moniker from the jar of salsa Lee dumps in at the end.

And the "Mexican Pizza" is neither Mexican nor is it pizza. Lee piles refried beans, chorizo, and a "Mexican cheese blend" onto store-bought pizza crusts, garnishing them with crushed tortilla chips and a drizzle of ranch dressing. The whole thing is a trainwreck of cultural misrepresentation — not to mention an unappealing mashup of flavors that were never meant to go together in the first place.

2. Next up: Food Network star Ree Drummond's take on Tex-Mex cuisine. Better known as The Pioneer Woman, the all-American ranch wife turned chef is best known for cooking quintessentially American comfort foods — a specialty that doesn't exactly translate to Latin American flavors.

Sure, those ingredients are common in Latin American cooking, but they don't represent the cuisine — especially when used out of context in completely unrelated recipes. A chicken pot pie isn't suddenly "Tex-Mex" because it has poblano peppers. It's just...a chicken pot pie with poblano peppers.

3. Up next is Rachael Ray's famously tragic take on pozole, a Mexican stew that is traditionally made with tender pork or chicken, hominy, and red chiles.

While Ray's recipe is called "Holy Smoky! Red Pozole," her version is vegetarian — a significant departure from the traditionally meat-based dish. Her stew would be inoffensive if it were labeled something like "Spicy Vegetarian Chili," which is exactly what it is — but calling it pozole is a blatantly inaccurate representation of the classic cultural dish.

The pozole controversy drew lots of criticism, and BuzzFeed even highlighted it in a 2020 video titled "Mexican Moms Roast Rachael Ray Making Pozole," posted to our Latinx-focused channel Pero Like. “If someone saw that video and thought that was what pozole was, that would not be representative of a centuries-old dish that we have made for our families," one of the featured mothers said. "It's doing it a huge injustice."

While her unfortunate pozole drew the most eyes, Rachael Ray's recipe catalogue also includes some nightmarish Italian-Mexican hybrids that deserve a mention. If you ever find yourself in the unlikely position of craving Mexican Meat-zza or Mexican Lasagna, she's got you covered.

4. Moving on to another instance of Latin American flavors being carelessly packaged in an Americanized way: this "Sloppy Jose" recipe, a variation of the classic sloppy joe with chorizo, charred poblanos, and avocado crema.

Like Ree Drummond's "Tex Mex" faux pas, the depth of Latin American culinary tradition is erased when its flavors are appropriated to enhance and exoticize traditionally American dishes — not to mention the insensitive play on words baked into this recipe's title.

5. Next, this Food Network recipe for "Nacho-rific Stuffed Chicken." I'm not a scientist, but I don't believe nachos retain their properties when the ingredients are stuffed inside a chicken. But maybe that's just me...

6. I have similar feelings about this Green Pea Guacamole recipe, which was featured in NYTimes Cooking. If peas are the most prominent flavor in a guacamole, isn't it just an avocado mash with peas?

This recipe caused so much controversy at the time that then-President Barack Obama even weighed in. "Not buying peas in guac," Obama wrote on X.

7. And finally, Great British Bake-Off's "Mexican Week," which went so atrociously that the show never did a national-themed challenge again.

Reddit user @dietcokecrack started a thread to discuss the show's poor execution of "Mexican Week." As you'd imagine, people had a lot to say:

"I still have nightmares about the stacked and fully iced tres leches. If you can stack tres leches cakes, you've made them wrong," one user wrote.

Someone responded, "I remember yelling at the TV when they said to make a multi-layer tres leches cake. I also yelled at the TV when they were griping about messy tack-ohs. DUDE. Tacos are supposed to be messy. WTF?"

"I can’t get over the fact that they call tortillas tacos. Like, it’s the bread part of the challenge and they couldn’t even get the name right," wrote another.

Another said, "I recently rewatched it and I was aghast in horror at how they butchered it sooooo badly. I'm in agreement with those who think certain "themed" bakes should be judged by actual experts in those cuisines."

Do you remember cringing at the screen while watching any of these culinary disasters? Or, do you have another cooking show fail that lives rent-free in your head? Let us know in the comments below.