Just about any kind of taco is delicious. The only exception is bad fish tacos. Good fish tacos are the best tacos of all, but bad ones are disgusting. Sometimes they use frozen-fish-stick-quality fish and don’t use the necessary soft corn tortillas.
Tito’s Tacos anecdote: Last winter I went out to LA to visit my vegan sister & brother-in-law. We headed to Tito’s Tacos straight from the airport and waited in line about 15 minutes, but then my sister asked if the refried beans had lard, and they said yes. This meant that there was no vegan food at all, so we walked away without me getting to try the food.
And apparently my familiy’s taco recipe was taught to my Hillbilly Daddy by Mexican Migrants/Pickers from Tex-Mex (Northern border towns) out in the midwest countryside. 40’s and 50’s.
Steamed tortillas? Just about every taco truck I go to in Los Angeles [Echo Park, Highland Park, Boyle Heights, Eagle Rock, Silverlake, Hollywood…] the two small tortillas are cooked on the grill next to the meat that is being cooked. I’ve only seen steamed tortillas once, and that was years ago at a truck in Atwater Village. Grilled are the norm - it keeps the holding power of the tortillas; steamed are too soft and can get mushy. There is one taco truck in my neighborhood [actually it’s just a makeshift stand with a table and portable grill…quite common in these parts] that makes their tortillas by hand right there on the street and grills 'em up fresh.
Carne asada, al pastor, and carnitas are good, but a juicy lengua taco is awesome. A slightly sweet chorizo taco for dessert…yum.
But back then 40’s and 50’s - the standard taco was probably homemade Flour Tortillas, made with lard or crisco, and bleached all purpose flour, ground beef and old El Paso (since '38), fresh veg and maybe a homemade salsa or pico de gallo (picking season), sour cream (crema), cheddar or velveeta, the flour tortillas were lightly refreshed and fried in crisco.or lard. For a snack, they would usually have fresh flour tortillas and butter.
This post cost me money and probably nullified my workout.
Just stopped off for four truck tacos – al pastor, and three of the salty beef (what’s the name for that?), with radishes and spicy sauce and lime. Steamed corn tortillas.
And we weren’t the farmers exploiting them. My Grandpa was a coal miner that migrated and found work North in the Oil Industry, But he bought a country home and raised a Garden and livestock. These were neighbors that naturalized. I have always known migrant families that have evry right to be here. That is why I am quite disconcerted and sad with the current conservative militance and dickishness as concerns the current border wars… I believe this a secret Homeland Security mastubatory big brother push. This war wouldn’t be going on if not for the propaganda arm of Homeland Security. I think it should be abolished.
Would this be because they would seek to impose a certain kind of taco (say, carnitas because Muslims would refuse them) or because they would use taco consumption - or the lack thereof - in some kind of authoritarian profiling exercise?
Well, all I know is that My Grandpas’, my Dad, and Uncle’s family made great strides in worker equality and worth. We awere Origunal Miner Union Men and UAW Presidents. And I am ashamed of the propaganda and moneytalk that has set us into this tailspin and the sorry state of American Corporations. They blame us when really their unregulated, Republican, GreedBloodLust has led us here. The republicans wil be our undoing as a Nation in history and time. They destroyed the middle class.
I can certainly see that tacos induce greed. But I thought they were largely bipartisan. Though the thought of industrialists sending those poor children to work down the taco mines is certainly distressing.
I have to admit, when I use the term taco, without any qualifiers, I do mean the American variety with the hard shell. If I want the auténtico version, I say something that sounds to American ears more like daco.
Could Taco Bell be part of the plot? A local food blogger posted this last August:
Taco Bell changed its/their mind about Houston, no doubt because of the counter-demonstration planned. A Real Taco Truck was going to park nearby & sell Real Tacos–so people could compare & contrast. (The blog is called “Guns & Tacos” but no violence was suggested. Honest!)
I like to use my soft tortillas for curried rice or potatoes or other Indian dishes. Helps use up any spare tortillas and lets me set a serving size for the meal.
