Speaking of fuck you, fuck anyone who has corrected my pronunciation of pho, including my friends.
Hard or Soft Shells are equally valid for Tacos, Fuck your "Only soft shells are Authentic" bullshit
Yeah, growing up in Houston, specifically near Bellaire @ Wilcrest, I grew up eating pho from the late 1980s onward. I had no idea there are kits.
There are a fair number of Vietnamese immigrants in Dallas as well; not quite as many as Houston, but enough to where good pho places aren’t particularly tough to find.
I am disappointed though; my local pho place has changed ownership and format- by the menu, I’m guessing less grungy and less pho-oriented. So I’m a bit skeptical about whether the pho will be as good as it used to be.
I cannot make myself pronounce it to rhyme with “duh”, even though I know that is supposedly more correct.
Dayton, OH has a restaurant called “What the Pho”. I’ve eaten there and it’s quite nice.
These two excellent posters pretty much sum up my opinions on the subject. I think it’s viable to consider something either more or less ‘authentic’ or more or less Americanized when talking about regional food. And I think it can be healthy to discuss it in light of if the food is adapted by immigrants or by the ‘host’ society as an appropriation, but when it’s all said and done, I, like most, will eat the food that tastes good to me.
And I grew up in Las Cruces NM, so trust me, while I won’t debate on authenticity with randos on twitter (as opposed to randos here! 
) I will have very, very strong opinions.
Stacked vs rolled enchiladas, green salsa, thin batter rellenos, green chili pork no beans, and on and on and on…
Who the hell cares how “authentic” they are? I certainly don’t.
But hard-shell tacos are worth pitting because of their tendency to crack or shatter. And because you have to turn your head sideways to eat them. And because of the way they’re commonly filled, you get just meat in some bites and just lettuce and/or cheese in other bites.
In fact, this can happen with soft tacos, too. So you know what? Screw tacos. Tacos are overrated. Burritos are underrated.
To the extent we should care, it’s really about respect for the cultures involved.
As above, taking Chinese people to the popular, local “Chinese” restaurant may be interesting. Likewise, taking Mexican people to the “Mexican” restaurant might also provoke interesting reactions.
We get this in reverse as well. Going to “American” restaurants in some countries is often an exercise in comedy. Sure, at the end of the day, the important thing is getting a decent meal, but the cultural expectations and assumptions are kind of important as well.
I have a friend with a Vietnamese husband who corrected me, and I was like fine, I’ll say it that way. Then my friend with a Vietnamese mom corrected that pronunciation, and then I’m like fuck it… just like words in the US there are apparently regional pronunciations, and I’m just gonna say it the way I want to.
The article below does say that my pronunciation might mean “lady of the night“, but I consider that a feature, not a bug.
You tilt the taco 45 degrees one way, and your head 45 degrees the other way. Like you’re gonna make out with the taco.
Cue the sexy taco-eating music. (Barry White Mariachi?)
I live in a heavily Hispanic/Latino neighborhood. For what it’s worth, the local Taco Bell is just as popular as any of the “authentic” Mom & Pop taco joints that are everywhere here.
Exactly - sometimes people just want Taco Bell.
But that has little to do with authenticity or whatever. People go crazy over McRibs, after all.
There are Italian-Americans who go to Olive Garden, but that doesn’t make it authentically Italian.
People are free to eat what they want. But the line we should be careful of crossing is when we get huffy either way - of something being authentic when it’s not really (especially to people coming from that culture) or that it’s not authentic when it isn’t even trying to be (e.g. Tex-Mex is now its own thing and not purely Mexican or Anglo).
I like hard shelled tacos. I don’t give a shit what’s authentic. The crunchy corn tastes delicious and adds a nice texture.
And it’s not as if it’s possible to eat the soft shelled ones without making a mess.
Agree that burritos are underrated as compared to tacos, though.
I had a Vietnamese co-worker who took me for pho in the early to mid 80s, where I learned it was more about “making” your own version at the table. They must have given us 20 add-in ingredients. I can’t imagine trying to make it with a kit…beside the fact that the fresh bits are the parts that add the personality.
Been eating both hard and soft tacos since I was a little kid, and I’m an old. Both are fine. But occasionally I get a craving for a Taco Bell taco. They’re not authentic anything, but they satisfy a particular itch.
But the only reason we think of Tex-Mex (and related Southwestern cuisines) as “Americanized” is because of a tendency to whitewash the history of the American Southwest, which has always been Hispanic. It’s not and never has been an attempt to adapt what “real” Mexicans eat for Americans, the way Chinese restaurants adapted Chinese food. The Southwest has always had an Hispanic food tradition. Yes, its different than various cuisines of Mexico, which also vary from each other, but it’s not less authentically itself.
Yep. Some of the best tacos I’ve ever tasted are from this ratty looking taco truck just up the street from our school. In fact, you guys have inspired me to get a couple today for lunch! 
Yes, I know. That’s why I said Texmex and Americanized, treating them as distinct things.
Same here. 85% Hispanic neighborhood, plenty of tacquerias, posolerias, birrierias, etc., but the Taco Bell and Chipotle still gets plenty of business
I do care about authenticity if someone is advertising authenticity. If the place doesn’t claim to be authentic, I don’t care. But I do like going to places that try to stick to tradition so I can get an idea of what food from other cultures tastes like. I don’t want it catered to my tastes — I want to explore their tastes.
Nothing wrong with either type of taco except the hard ones breaking apart and making a mess.
Wait, isn’t seasoning the ground beef a standard part of making tacos at home? We made tacos from the Old El Paso stuff we bought in the supermarket, and a packet of seasoning mix was part of the kit.
Lot of ethnic Hispanics in the PNW and the norm for tacos here is “street tacos,” two small corn tortillas heated on a griddle with the meat piled in (never ground beef, always some sort of spiced shredded/chopped meat–beef, pork, chicken) and topped with a mixture of fresh onions and cilantro. Salsa is on the side and the plate usually comes with slices of lime to squeeze onto the tacos, some random veg like radishes and NO cheese. I’ve gotten to the point where this seems to be the default form of the taco in my head, although I do have a sneaking fondness for the Jimboy’s style taco (Jimboy’s is a Sacramento small local chain) which is a corn tortilla flopped onto a greasy griddle, with a mound of shredded cheese and spiced ground beef in the middle, folded and fried that way then it’s pulled apart and iceberg lettuce and more shredded cheese added to the top. Jimboy-oh-boy!
For all of those whining and crying about their hard taco shells breaking. There is an answer and I got it from my first wife’s grandmother. She was born and raised in Mexico by a family of restauranteurs. I watched her make a feast once and learned a lot. I noticed she had a pan of water simmering on the stove with a metal rack covering the top. She started by putting her home made tortillas on the rack and putting a towel over the top. After about 20 seconds, the towel came off and we had nice hot tortillas. Then she took boxed hard taco shells and placed those over the simmering water and put a towel over the top. It took about 15 seconds for 3 shells. She would take those, fill them with meat, beans and cheese. The shells stayed mostly crisp but did not break like normal shells. I adapted this for my family, instead of a pot of water I used a crock pot with a rack that held the shells above the water. Throw in some shells, steam for a bit, then fill. Nice and warm, crisp and tasty and no random breaking when eaten.