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Gloria Perez, who owns 102-year-old Rutledge Hamburgers, in Brownsville, serves the platonic ideal of the hamburguesa mexicana in the U.S. The beef patty (seared on a flattop here as opposed to grilled over the more traditional mesquite coals) is dressed with American cheese, a slice of salty ham, crisp lettuce, and sweet tomatoes and served on a buttery bun. It’s the addition of the processed pork product (and, usually, the mesquite grilling) that makes the result a Mexican burger. It’s not clear when borderland chefs first put their spin on the hamburger, but a 1948 edition of the Brownsville Herald mentioned that Mexican burgers were being sold at a market in Matamoros. The following year a column in the Abilene Reporter-News noted them in a…

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