In fact, American nachos in many parts of Mexico are often a “tourist food”. They are just less convenient to many Mexicans, some of whom want freshly made shells. Big bags of nacho chips are available, but hardly a best selling item.
Hard or Soft Shells are equally valid for Tacos, Fuck your "Only soft shells are Authentic" bullshit
The posted pics of tacos durado look exactly like the ones we made as kids. They don’t explode like Taco Bell tacos do – those shells are like the pringles of tacos. We always spiced the meat and fried them in the skillet. You could add what you wanted after it was cooked. I always put cheese in mine before it was fried so the cheese would melt.
Oh, and I meant to add Mexican food didn’t come to California. It was always here.
That’s more or less their origin as well. Gift link to NYTimes below
The tacos we had from an authentic Mexican immigrant used flour tortillas. And the way she taught mom to make them herself included store-bought tortilla. It wasn’t considered that big a difference–the big deal was that you had to make the refried bean filling by hand, using a different bean than normally is used in the store-bought stuff.
It actually made refried beans into something I enjoyed on its own. None that odd tang that the store-bought stuff always has.
Are you talking about tacos or burritos? I’ve never put frijoles refritos in a taco.
The lady we got them from referred to them as real Mexican tacos. She worked with my mom, and was from Mexico, so I assume she knew what she was talking about. Also, you didn’t fold them like burritos.
I’ve seen other authentic tacos that have other types of filling. I assumed the difference was regional.
Pretty funny. I’m sure they were authentic for her. Do you know which state she was from? Because in Sonora, corn tortillas are most typical.
Unfortunately, no. Just like I’m not actually sure which beans were used. Mom would probably know, but she’s no longer around to ask.
I had a coworker from Chichuahua, and she used to comment on slight differences between what she found in SoCal, as opposed to home.
Store bought tortillas (flour or corn) aren’t a disqualifier around here. Then again, grocery stores (especially HEB) make them fresh on site every day.
For refried beans, I’ve always heard one of the key differences for some places was lard. Pig fat has a way of making things taste good. But, yeah, never really heard of putting those in tacos but I’m sure it’s still tasty.
Ironically just today I thought of refried beans as a possible taco ingredient which I hadn’t considered before. I never tried them as a child because they reminded me of garbanzo beans which I had already tried and disliked.
This thread made me think back to the times I went to the southwest and bought tortillas, sour cream, shredded cheese, and salsa, with which to make uncooked tacos. Unfortunately at least one of the times, it turns out that I got corn tortillas. So yeah. I would at least agree that cooked corn tortillas taste better than raw.
But even with flour tortillas it was just missing that something without meat and preserved meat and probably cold cuts would just not taste the same in a taco. Then a couple of hours ago it hit me: I could add refried beans to the raw tacos. I will try that next time I am camping in the southwest.
(At least I’d call what I was eating a taco, since it is open ended on three sides except how much I can pinch the top with my fingers while actively holding it. If I had wrapped it it would have been something else.)
Absolutely. Chili is a perfect example. Its roots date back to the Spanish colonization of San Antonio in the 1700s. The founding families of the city were Canary Islanders, and brought with them a stew that was heavy on cumin, chiles, and meat, and apparently served in a communal fashion. Fast forward 170-ish years, and you’ve got chili vendors serving their stew (heavy on cumin, chilies and meat) in the market square, long before Tex-Mex became a thing.
So chili may have been Spanish, then Mexican, and then Texan, but it’s anything but inauthentic just because it originated in a Texas city.
I would (at least corn tortillas) but I refuse to pay the high prices for a good (read metal) tortilla press. I cruise thrift shops but have yet to find one there. I will point out that when I took store-bought corn tortillas and cut them into 6ths and deep fried them everyone said they were the best chips ever so I can only imagine if I did that with homemade tortillas.
Plenty of differences in the regions of Mexico and the southwest US. Phoenix was big on blue corn tortillas, the LA area had a mix of Baja and Acapulco styles (and more I’m sure). I’ve had Mexicans tell me about their local styles, seems like the type of cheese is important in some localities. I met a Mexican woman who was making her own cheese, but she didn’t speak enough English to explain to me what it was and her translating friend didn’t know enough about cheese or something to explain it either.
I suspect blue corn anything in Phoenix is a relatively recent import from New Mexico, specifically the Rio Grande Hopi. At least I never saw any when I was a kid here. The mainstay Mexican dishes were Sonoran, the state just across the border from us.
And speaking of frijoles in tacos, “Indian tacos,” fry bread with stuff on top, possibly folded, seem to always come with beans and might or might not include meat. It’s native American (Specifically Navajo or Hopi), definitely not Mexican and is also relatively recent, the ingredients being what was doled out to them by the Federal government after they’d been moved onto reservations that couldn’t support them.
Yeah, that’s why I asked which state the woman was from. For years, the only Mexican food you got in SoCal was Sonoran. The first Yucatecan restaurants were really welcome.
They’re only $15-20 for a good solid metal on these days.
I use a marble rolling pin, $2 at a garage sale.
I’m seeing that “commercial grade” presses (what a restaurant might use) are around $50, maybe that’s what @Saint_Cad means.
This one looks good to me at $20 for a cast iron press (you’ll see that the “HD iron” models are a lot more expensive). My guess is that the expensive ones last longer. But I doubt I’d be making them all day long every day like a restaurant.
I’ve tried with my marble pin. I’m not that skilled.