Hehehe, wow, your mother somehow was cooking the same thing my mother would cook in Texas in the same time period. My brother still refers to them as “Mom Tacos”. I still make them sometimes. They’re good, and I’ll stand by my assertion that Texas (and well, most of the western US) used to be part of Mexico until Santa Anna made a long series of bad decisions. Large parts of cuisine and smaller parts of culture kind of escaped his squandering of power, though. Tex-mex, New Mexican and other cuisine from the southwest are alien to some Mexicans, but less so the closer you get to the border, and they have some of their roots in the same place.
Even that said, I still remember the first breakfast taco that was served to me by my best friend’s mom before kindergarten one day. I probably got over to their house in time for breakfast 10 times, but Mrs. Martinez had an amazing way with heating a fresh flour tortilla on a gas stove. Just a little bit of onions and salsa with the eggs (I was the little blond kid, after all), been chasing that dragon (including making my own tortillas) for decades now. Still haven’t gotten it right, but it’s a good journey. Thinking about that still brings memories of how the house was laid out and decorated, and how his dad would rightly tease me for being an idiot in a way other adults wouldn’t. Yeah, that’s a lot of weight for food to carry, and I loves it for it.
Oh, and you fools that think the pig is the king of the smoker need to have some good brisket. Ok, bacon burnt ends, you got me there. But that’s meat candy that’s just trying to kill you with deliciousness. For general barbecue, it’s well spiced (not just black pepper and salt) brisket. Smoked to death. I can do pulled pork, but brisket is my love. Both work equally well in tacos when prepared properly.
There could actually be a kind of connection. While in the AF my Dad befriended someone who was supposedly LBJ’s chef for awhile. It is possible that he got a recipe for some “Texas” food from him and they brought it back to Kokomo IN. He also got a recipe for Blue Cheese Dressing from him that I was always told was LBJ’s favorite (and only 1,000 calories or so per bite).
woah someone from my clans stomping grounds ……….? we might either know each other or be related somehow (at one time I was related to 47.8 percent of kokomo Indiana extending out to 3rd cousins either by blood or marriage)
You know its funny I remember my mom cutting up tortillas and making homemade tortillia chips for several parties like they were a delicacy or something in the 80s when she last lived there
It was certainly mainstream in San Diego when I was a kid in the '80s. Aside from big chains like Taco Bell and Del Taco and El Pollo Loco and Rubio’s, there was Roberto’s and hundreds of knockoff taco shops with similar names (Alberto’s, Rodolfo’s, Adalberto’s, etc.) that served largely similar menus and were at the forefront of introducing local specialties like carne asada fries, the California burrito, and rolled tacos.
Pickings were a little slim when I moved to WA in 2004 and I remember trying to explain carne asada to a butcher at Albertson’s, but it’s gradually become more ubiquitous up here, especially as taco trucks have started popping up all over town.
When I lived in Denver in the early 1980s Mexican restaurants there were very, very good, the best eating in town. I had the sense that this had been true for many years before ever I came to Denver.
In my small, Michigan border town, the only Mexican food was Taco Bell (with the usual disclaimer). We’d never eat there, but one time while at my neighbor’s house, his mother brought us some Taco Bell. Instead, we had access to Chi-Chi’s, which was built adjacent to a destination shopping mall about an hour from us, in the late 1970’s. I recall vividly being afraid to eat any of the unusual food, and ordering a burger or something from the kids’ menu.
When I was a little older and able to drive (so, 1988 or so), I remember that Chi-Chi’s was still the only place for Mexican food (and I no longer ordered off the kids’ menu). Even in Hanau, Germany, where I was stationed in the early 1990’s, we had a Chi-Chi’s!
In the mid-1990’s living in Texas was the first time I ever saw a Mexican restaurant, but it was a low-quality buffet chain. A Mexican friend, though, took us to a speakeasy-type of place in a lady’s house for lunch, and it was fantastic. I think I had machaca and eggs. Texas, of course, also had Taco Cabana, but I apply the same Taco Bell disclaimer to that.
In 1999 I moved to Mexico for the first time, and that’s pretty much the first time I went to a Mexican restaurant with real Mexican food, that wasn’t a speakeasy.
Now I’m craving for Mexican food. I think social media has something to do with it as well. A lot of cuisines gained massive popularity especially when it looks great on camera and for someone’s social media.
Now I’m craving for Mexican food. I think social media has something to do with it as well. A lot of cuisines gained massive popularity especially when it looks great on camera and for someone’s social media account. The existence of Buzzfeed and Tasty helped as well in exposing best food places to try. This is how I learned about La Taqueria in San Francisco. I really want to visit that place but I can’t commute. I have to replace my worn-out tires first so I’m waiting for my set of nitto tires to arrive to be able to drive there.
Tacos became popular in Ohio in the mid-1970s, as I recall. There was TV advertising urging moms to shop for their families to enjoy “taco nights.” Other Mexican food soon followed in its wake.
My mom had taco nights in NYS in the late 70s, early 80s and I didn’t like it because the tacos always broke (and I also didn’t like garbanzo beans at the time, but it was a build-your-own taco so I could avoid them). I think it was some time in the 90s when I learned that there was such a thing as a soft taco.
Well, there was about a 150 year separation between the Canary Island immigrants to San Antonio (18th century) and the Military Plaza Chili Queens of the late 19th century.
And like others have said, there’s a lot of culinary syncretism that goes on in the border states.
I mean, I’m as white as can be, but I grew up eating tacos with hand-fried corn tortillas, chili gravy, beans, flat enchiladas, etc… at family gatherings for as far back as I can remember. My Illinois-born grandparents had lived in southern New Mexico in the 1930s and 1940s, and learned to cook something surprisingly close, but slightly off from Tex-Mex there, and it was a common dish at family gatherings.
South Texas anglo families did similar stuff- I know quite a few people for whom Christmas tamales have become as much of a family tradition for them as they are for Mexican/Mexican-American families.
In a sense, being a border fusion cuisine, anglo Texans can lay as much claim to Tex-Mex being “their” food as anyone else.
Agreed. Mom’s side of the family is about as Texan as you can get, so I grew up eating Tex-Mex as a matter of course. It wasn’t until I was in college that I discovered the other cuisines of Mexico.
I grew up in Fairfax County, VA (DC suburb) in the 1970s and we had some excellent Mexican restaurants not far from home.
I live in Korea now and the bigger cities have “On the Border” franchises, plus smaller non-chain joints outside every US military base. It’s breat! Plus, the Korean word for “diarrhea” sounds a lot like “salsa.” I like to bring a jar of salsa and a bag of chips to class and tell my young students “Eat it! Eat my chunky red salsa!”
Unless you are my Mom or Sister we aren’t related since those are my only two living relatives who ever lived in Kokomo. Good chance we may have some mutual acquaintances though, and an even better chance that my Dad delivered some of your relatives.
Probably depends on where you live. I was born in '71 and I don’t recall there ever not being Mexican food in my area (Pacific Northwest growing up). Chances are, if you have a Taco Bell, you probably also have a semi authentic restaurant nearby.
Take this with a HUGE grain of salt, but I recall Don Draper saying he hadn’t had Mexican before in Mad Men, and that takes place in NYC in the late 50s-60s. My guess is it started becoming common in cosmopolitan areas in the 60s.
I’m grilling fajitas tonight, and they’ll be served the normal style, so I suppose we are doing Taco Tuesday, even if we’re not really calling it tacos.