In 1968, when I was 12, I went to Mexico with my mom and dad. We drove from Los Angeles down to Mazatlan, which is on the mainland across from the tip of Baja California. My dad’s friend, a former co-worker, lived there and gave us a tour of the area.
This guy was Mexican, not American, and he took us to his favorite authentic local place for lunch. The place served crunchy tacos, which were folded-over corn tortillas stuffed with shredded beef and then fried until crisp. There was nothing else inside the tortillas except meat.
So I know that crunchy corn tortilla tacos were a thing in Mexico in 1968. I didn’t like them, BTW. I was a picky eater when I was 12, and the tacos done that way were very unfamiliar to me. Now, of course, I’d gobble them up.
I even remember the name of the place: El Palomino.
Pockets aside, the problem with all taco variation is that they’re either gluten-free (if they’re made of corn) or low-gluten (flour), which means that they have little to no stretch. That makes them, IMHO, very inefficient for wrapping things.
But seriously, give it a watch. American taco variants of all sorts are barely scraping the surface of what is out there. Not that I’d probably want to eat all of the options, but I’d certainly give almost all of them an honest try.
As much as I love pitas, I find the lightness of the taco starch (whether corn or flour) more to my liking, and the meat-to-starch ratio more enjoyable. Plus I like the smaller size, as well, so I can have two or three different tacos at one sitting (or more if they’re the even smaller tortillas about 4" in diameter.) They do tend to be messier to eat, though.
I’ve still got about 60 posts to read, but this is pretty much my angle on the situation. The border moved on the Mexican population of Texas, and they kept making food. No reason to hold it against them.
And to those who think a crunchy shell has to fall apart: My mom liked to fry them to the prefect ratio. The edges were crispy, and the center was still a little bit flexible. She would fry a few totally crispy for us kids, but as I grew older, I learned the shells the adults grabbed were the really good ones. She also had a damn nice spiced ground beef/pseudo picadillo mixture. Mmmm, mom tacos with orange cheese, tomatoes, onions and iceberg lettuce. I probably won’t ask to make them this weekend, but they’re on the menu soon.
I don’t understand how “everyone” in this thread seems to think that hard-shelled taco = Taco Bell-style compressed corn sweepings. There’s a wide variety in shell styles and even degrees of hardness (should we put them on the Moh’s scale?).
I tend to pan-fry tacos when making them at home. They are crispy, but not hard. Not that it matters, but there is a local and fairly authentic taqueria that has a birria beef taco platter done this way.
Both corn and flour tortillas are great, for different reasons.
One wouldn’t think that dusting the taco shell with Parmesan cheese would really work, and yet they’re still pretty good. No locations near me, sadly, but I often get them when visiting the parents.
Because that’s what it is popularly referred to as a “hard-shlled taco” in American parlance. If someone told me about a hard-shelled taco they had, I would assume pre-formed taco shells a la Taco Bell or Ortega or Old El Paso–like the ones everybody seemed to have at “taco parties” in the 80s. People don’t usually talk about, say, tacos dorados as “hard-shelled tacos.” At least in my experience.
In honor (dishonor?) of this thread, I have just made tacos for dinner. Not authentic, but still tasty.
Chicken breast marinated in homemade salsa (all garden ingredients, the last from MiL garden) - cilantro, roasted anaheim chiles (garden), minced shallots (also also garden), lime wedges (store), on skillet warmed 4" flat corn tortillas (store) and served with grated jack cheese. The cheese is a lacking store brand, but I had it in the house, and at least it’s not pre-grated.
I guess I have a different experience. Every Mexican restaurant I’ve been to offers tacos in hard-shell and soft-shell varieties. Soft is the default. Hard is most certainly not the pre-formed shells, though. From the menu of the taqueria closest to me:
At any rate, maybe my experience is different, being in California.
Huh. The Chicago Mexicans don’t do that. They may have some tacos dorados on the menu (quesobirria seems to be the trend the last couple years, and those are fried), but a hard shell is not a choice that I’ve ever seen here.
Here’s what you may see on a menu:
Though, you’re right, in that it is described as “hard shell tacos” in the translation. I don’t usually see that translation (more like “fried tacos”) but “tacos dorados” is what I generally hear people call them.
There will be specialty plates too, which might be done in a certain way–I haven’t heard of tacos dorados, but the pan-fried birria beef style is common. Regardless, if there’s an a la carte menu, you can almost always get hard-shell tacos, typically deep fried, in about 6-12 choices of meat.
