Good point about the shredded meat. Hamburger is not exactly ‘authentic’, depending on your standards. And pork would be used more often than beef. Slow cooked pork shoulder may be the most common, although the dish may be made at home with any ingredients available. It is just a type of sandwich.
Hard or Soft Shells are equally valid for Tacos, Fuck your "Only soft shells are Authentic" bullshit
That’s a lot of steps to go through for something whose taste is merely different and no better or worse than the soft version. So soft is still superior on account of being simpler and faster.
This is so bizarre. In California and Mexico soft tacos are almost always made with corn tortillas.
I can’t find the article, but years ago I read an article suggesting that Chinese-American food was adapted for the tastes of Chinese immigrants, who adored the easier access to sugar and other ingredients and were thrilled to incorporate them into dishes. It’s part of what got me thinking about what a canard “authentic” was in talking about food.
Also, @Elmer_J.Fudd, do you ever get our avatars confused? Because I sure do.
I have a variety of color blindness that makes these tiny avatars almost useless as a form of identification.
Adds very little time to my Mexican meal prep. I make my own tortillas from scratch too, that takes a lot more time that steaming my hard shells.
Ah, fair enough! I just have old eyes that make things a little fuzzy.
Worst Mexican food I ever had was a little place deep in the heart of Texas. Best fajitas ever? Topeka, Kansas.
Heresy! Crunchy corn tortillas taste SO much better than limp wheat tortillas.
Interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever had those. I’d give it a try.
From what I understand, that’s exactly what happened with Americanized Italian food. Stuff like pork, milk (and by extension cheese), and other ingredients that were expensive in Italy were dramatically cheaper in the US, so the style of food that developed among east coast Italian immigrants was heavy on all that stuff, while the “authentic” stuff from the old country wasn’t.
To some degree, Tex-Mex was something similar- it’s a sort of culinary mash-up of Mexican food using local (i.e. Texas) ingredients and Mexican dishes adapted to be sold to Anglos in “Mexican” restaurants.
My daughter and I ate there a couple months ago. Was pretty good.
As for the food served at “Mexican restaurants,” I’ve never been a fan of it. I call it a “plate of slop.” So many dishes are nothing but a big, sloppy mess of cheese, low-grade meat, more cheese, more low-grade meat, more cheese, etc. Yuck.
I have only been to one Mexican restaurant that I was genuinely impressed with. It was in Albuquerque, and was called La Guelaguetza. I got the impression it caters mainly to the locals. Food was very good, and not a “plate of slop.”
I confuse you two, all the time.
My eyes also have inexplicably gotten less reliable.
I’ve always used corn for a taco. Usually the crunchy ones. As has been mentioned the breakage can be dealt with.
I love a flour tortilla, but taco fixings in a flour tortilla to me is basically a burrito. I guess it depends.
Same here in Chicago. The default taco tortilla at a tacqueria is almost always a corn tortilla, griddled to get soft and warm. Standard topping is onion & cilantro (with lime on the side), or you can get them “gringo” with lettuce, cheese, and tomatoes. Flour tortillas are available upon request, though some places may default to them for certain types of tacos, what region theyr’e from, and stuff like that. But 95% of the time if you ask for, say, a steak taco with no other information, you’ll get two soft corn tortillas, a big pile of meat, onions, cilantro, and lime, and usually a red sauce and a green sauce on the side.
I agree. But I have never heard anyone claim otherwise. However, I would guess plenty of opinions about “authentic” Mexican food proffered by non-Mexicans might be ignorant, or worse. It’s a big country with many different regions. Some Mexicans like spicier food than others.
Still, the real question is whether it is sabroso. I know places which serve very mediocre, authentic food - and ones that stretch tradition in amazing ways or cleverly mix Mexican with other great cuisines.
Absolutely. Luckily, here in Chicago, we have reasonable selections of Mexican food, so we can be more specific and go to restaurants that speciailize in, say, Oaxacan, or Jaliscan, or Sinaloan food. And, no, you shouldn’t comment on what is “authentic” or not unless you actually have real experience with the region you’re talking about, preferably are actually from that region. (Although, even there, within a region, there may be much arguing.)
And here in NC. They’re usually white corn tortillas, and I wonder if folks used to yellow crispy taco shells are confusing the white corn tortillas for flour tortillas?
I usually only see flour tortillas with burritos and fajitas.
Edit: huh. Just did an image search for “soft taco,” and almost all the images look like they’re made with flour tortillas. Maybe it’s a fast-food thing?
Doesn’t Taco Bell use flour for their soft tacos? It’s been awhile since I’ve been there. I suspect a lot of fast-food Mexican might default to soft flour tortillas, as in my experience, they tend to please more people than soft corn tortillas (which is beyond me, as a good corn tortilla is so heavenly. Not to diss flour – they can be fantastic, too – but that earthy flavor makes me happy.)
It could be that we also just don’t call it a “soft taco.” It’s a “taco.” “Soft taco” would, I’d think, be mostly used with fast food restaurants where there usually is a hard taco to contrast against it. Now, there are fried tacos at some taquerias here, but they’re called “tacos dorados,” not hard tacos and, as has been discussed, they are not made from pre-formed “hard taco” shells. (Potato ones are my favorite.)
I fell in love with Mexican food as a child eating TV dinners. I had one opportunity to eat some very good quality Mexican food when I was around 12 and then for years afterwards it was TV dinners and a place called Tippy’s Taco House. Tippy’s was an extension of TV dinner type Mexican, and lacking alternatives seemed pretty good. As an adult when I moved to NY top quality Mexican food became available. At first it was better versions of the common taco and enchilada platters but over time I found excellent restaurants with a variety of genuine dishes including seafood dishes and pork in pipian sauce that became a favorite. It wasn’t until I was in CA and other southwest areas that I found better Mexican style. But to this day I eat canned tamales and would love a Mexican style TV dinner if I could find one. Genuine and authentic are good, but there’s plenty of room for food that borrows the style.