I’n not going to weigh in on Taco Bell, liking it or not is pretty subjective but @silenus is 100% correct in terms of training kids on liking the Taco Bell style “Mexican” food and disliking other styles.
We go to Taco Bell very rarely, but that was all the “Mexican” they’d had. We went to an authentic Mexican restaurant and ours kids ordered tacos. They got one’s made with real cheese and shredded beef and wouldn’t eat them. My son thought they’d made a mistake and brought him the wrong food. He asked “What is this? It doesn’t have the right cheese or meat!”
To them a “taco” is made only with hamburger, taco seasoning and melted Velveeta.
I don’t think the point was that there’s “no authentic Mexican food,” rather that there’s no one thing that can be pointed to as “authentic Mexican food.” I think we all agree that Toxic Hell is nowhere near authentic, but if you’re served something that’s done in a regional style which is different than the one you’re used to, that doesn’t make it inauthentic.
I’ve known Mexicans that insist that you can’t have any dairy on a taco. No melted cheese, no sour cream, no cotija sprinkles. Acceptable taco toppings are onion, cilantro, pineapple for al pastor and a few things added at the table like salt, salsa and lime juice. I’m fine with the forbidden toppings but is goes to show there are a lot of regional differences.
That’s just it- authenticity is a phantasm that you can’t really even chase. I mean, just defining is it tough enough. If say… Rick Bayless (an American chef known for his popularization of Mexican cuisine), develops a really good recipe for enchiladas, is that American food, Mexican food, or something else? (Ill-Mex? Bayless is from Chicago) Or if a chef in Mexico comes up with a new variant on the croissant? Is it French or Mexican?
Then you can throw in the “evolution over time” factor. Peanuts are not indigenous to Southeast Asia, but try to imagine Thai food without them. Or without chilis. We won’t even start with Italian cuisine…
True story: My aunt and uncle from western PA came out to the SF Bay area for a visit. We took them to San Francisco for the day and to a Mexican place somewhere in the Mission area, as they requested “real” Mexican food. We got inside to order and they were totally lost in the menu - a lot of unfamiliar terms: pollo, pastor, buche, cabeza, carnitas, chili verde, etc. They confessed the only “Mexican” food they ate at home was Taco Bell.
Locally, a Oaxacan Mexican restaurant opened and we got to try it before the pandemic - a very regional menu but also a lot of stuff people around here would be familiar with, which was likely a calculated business decision. Good Mezcal ice cream!
I’ve got a very similar story. My parents are from the Midwest. When they came to visit once I took them to a local Cal-Mex place (This place doesn’t even call themselves a “Mexican” restaurant; they call themselves a “boarder cafe”). My dad ordered tacos, I’m sure because it was the one menu item that seemed familiar and safe to him. The guy behind the counter asked him “What kind?”, meaning would he like carne asada, carnitas, chicken, etc. Dad was completely confused and flummoxed by this question and just repeated “The tres tacos” since that was how it was listed on the menu (meaning, of course, that it was a plate of three tacos). I had to explain to him that he was asking what kind of meat he wanted in them. Then he was like “Uh, beef?” He was just so used to seasoned ground beef being the default taco meat that having to specify what kind he wanted was completely foreign to him. They gave him carne asada.
Another time I took them to the food court at KP International Market. Faced with a menu that included a wide variety of Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese foods, they ended up ordering the same American-Chinese food you can get at literally any Chinese restaurant. When I commented on this they said they didn’t know what any of the other things were.
Setting aside all the snobbery about fast food in general and Taco Bell specifically, and ignoring all the aggressively stupid memes about explosive diarrhea (seriously, see a doctor, TB isn’t your problem and you’re not funny), my only complaint with Taco Bell is that too much of their food these days has the texture of baby food wrapped in a tortilla.
The tacos are fine, but most of their specialty items these days are basically some combination of mushy refried beans, sour cream, slimy fake guacamole, queso sauce and hot sauce with a few pieces of beef or chicken wading around inside some rolled bread product. It’s like eating a tube of TexMex toothpaste. There was a time when they had a legit stuffed burrito with steak, lettuce, tomatoes and onions that could actually hold up to being bitten into without shitting it’s contents out the other side of the wrapper. Its a shame, I used to enjoy the Bell on the regular.
I was in Taco Bell once watching them make the food while waiting for my order, and was amused that they use something like a caulking gun to dispense some of the ingredients. See this video for an example.
Sure, but is that good or bad? I may be reading too much into it, but I suspect without Taco Bell, they wouldn’t be eating ANY “Mexican” food at home. So in a sense, it’s a good thing that it’s around, in that it makes the dishes you mention at least somewhat familiar to people who wouldn’t otherwise be eating it.
Not being adventurous eaters is not limited to Midwesterners or Americans, so I’m not surprised that people unexposed to Korean, Japanese or Vietnamese food wouldn’t just jump in with both feet. There is some weird stuff, and menus aren’t always good about describing just what the dish is.
I mean, just about every stereotypical “red blooded American” man will probably like bulgogi at a Korean place, but it’s not necessarily obvious from the menu descriptions, and most waitstaffs aren’t quite up to the task of describing it in a way that will click. Same with something like Pho’- if you get it without some of the stranger (to Americans) meats like fatty tendon and what-not, it’s not really that foreign.
But there isn’t a Korean or Vietnamese equivalent of Taco Bell to ease them into it, so they’re absolutely unwilling to try, unlike your Uncle, who was at least willing to have 3 beef tacos, even if he didn’t quite get that different kinds of meat can be put into the tacos. I’d chalk that up to exposure to Taco Bell making tacos familiar, if not “safe”.
bump, I completely agree. At least they had the desire for Mexican food in general, and were willing to go to a genuine taqueria with us without any pressure at all. However, we did chuckle a little that they had not been exposed to or tried more Mexican. Of course this was California vs Pennsylvania in the late 1980s so not sure if they even had the opportunity to explore this type of food all that much. And you are quite right about other cuisine like Korean, Vietnamese, etc. I appreciate living in an area with a lot of variety, and approachable ethnic food does act as a “gateway”, as you say.
I quite enjoy TB occasionally for a quick snack or meal. You could do much worse, IMHO.
That reminded me, the first time I ever had Pho’ the menu was divided into “beginner”, “intermediate”, and “advanced” sections, or something along those lines. The beginner menu was normal (to Americans) meats like sliced steak and whatnot. The advanced menu was your beef tendon and tripe and such. In hindsight that was probably a really good way to introduce people to more exotic foods. The intermediate menu was sort of in between, I would guess for those who wanted to dip their toe into the more traditional Vietnamese style without having to dive in head first.
