Or “tacorilla”?
Back in the day, at least in Mexican communities, the term referred to a small taco shop, or street stand. Now it’s often a regular restaurant. Back then a taco was just about anything folded or rolled into a tortilla, and included what we call a “burrito”.
But why the spelling? Is it proper (formal) spanish?
Peace,
mangeorge
BTW; according to a friend from Spain, over there a tortilla is an egg dish, similar to an Italian fritatta.
I’ve heard this before, too. From what I heard, the conquistadors came over and discovered that the natives didn’t eat eggs, but they had this unusual flat, round bread thing …
Can’t help you with the spelling thing.
Because in Spanish, “-ería” is a suffix that attaches to a noun X to generate the meaning “place to buy X”. This suffix overwites any final vowel on the noun. “Shoe”, for example, is “zapato”, and so “shoe store” is “zapatería”. As for the c --> qu spelling change, this is to preserve the ‘k’ sound. In Spanish orthography, the sequence “ce” would be pronounced roughly like “say”, so “tacería” would not do. “que” is the normal way of representing the sound sequence “kay”, hence “taquería”.
Excellent answer Sundog. I didn’t start this thread but thanks for the education.
In Spain “tortilla” means omelette.
I did start this thread and I too am grateful for Sundog’s answer. It’s just what I wanted to know.
are there tacos in Spain? Is there even any form of flatbread. There are tapas, but none I’ve seen look anything like a taco.
Well, yes.
But then again, most Spaniards would say that a potato omelette, is a tortilla. If you go into a bar and order “media racion de tortilla”, you’ll get the potato type.
You are agreeing and confirming what I posted. Why do you use “BUT”?
Boy, a lot of Spanish threads lately.
As for tortillas, they are not really omelettes as we think of them, but rather diced fried potatoes held together with egg. You shouldn’t really see much egg in the final product.
And there are no tacos in Spain, but Latin American style tortillas are available. I made my own tacos and burritos the best I could with the spices on hand.
I don’t believe that is true. Tacos use corn tortillas are folded over. Burritos use flour tortillas and are rolled like an egg roll.
I think it may mostly be a California usage of ‘taco’ for anything in a tortilla (I’ve both read this and can confirm it for my idiolect). It seems to have shifted to a more precise meaning these days, but note the OP said “back then”.
Let me reiterate. “Tortilla” in Spain translates exactly to omelette. Potato omelette is " tortilla de patata", plain, egg-only omelette is “tortilla francesa”, etc. Depending on the context you can use the word “tortilla” by itself and the type would be understood, just like in English.
Etymologically speaking the Latin American meaning of the word “tortilla” is more correct or closer to the meaning: it is a diminutive of “torta”.
I’ve eaten such tortillas made just as you say but with left over french fries. They were good, too. There was an old hippy (Ted?) who ran a cafe on Shattuck in Berkeley named “Smokey Joes” who made spanish style tortillas. That’s how they were named on the menu, and he often had to explain them to customers. The place was vegetarian (but not vegan).
The Spanish tortilla is more like a quiche than an omelette, in my experience.
“Tacos” can use either corn or flour tortillas. The best tacos in the world (IMHO) use freshly made flour tortillas and have charcoal-cooked beef, and come from Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. You’re a fool if you order corn tortillas there, and even my wife (“it’s not a tortilla if it’s not made from nixtamal”) agrees that when there, flour is king. Now keep in mind I’m not talking about those awful flour tortillas in the refrigerated section from the big chain grocery store, either.
When in Creel, Chihuahua, Mexico, I ordered Tacos at a fonda. I don’t know if they were catering to American tourists or not (most of the tourists were Mexican), but it was the first time I’d ever, ever, had a “Taco Bell” style taco in Mexico, i.e., the fried (hard) corn tortilla, picadillo (seasoned ground beef), lettuce, and cheese. Maybe it’s typical for the region, but I don’t so!
In much of the rest of the country that I’ve been to, a taco is anything you put in the tortilla (unless it’s a quesadilla). For a lot of people, you make tacos from whatever dish you’re served when it’s accompanied with tortilla.
Among the people that I know in Mexico, the use of “burrito” is somewhere rare compared to “burro,” of which, of course, the former is the diminutive of the latter. In the center or the republic (say, Guanajuato), burros are much less common than tacos. In Sonora though, where tacos made with the best meat on earth reign supreme, burros are a lot more common. I imagine that it’s because in that region, “tacos” are invariably some delicious beef (or “tacos fish” which is different and distinguishes them), and so market forces drive them to sell burros/burritos with more traditional taco fillings. They’re also made with the regional, excellent flour tortillas, except in this case, often with “tortillas sobaqueras” that are arm-length in diameter.
Dang, I need to find a reason to go visit Hermosillo again. Or eat a bigger breakfast before talking about their food.
To clarify. “back then” was mid-fifties to mid-sixties or so. I lived in a largely mexican-american community, and most people I associated with were mexican. When I worked in the fields around Bakersfield many of the men would bring tortillas to work for lunch and roll something up in them. Often this was vienna sausage. 
Anyway, they universally called the result “tacos”. Same in a home. The mom would ask us kids if we wanted a taco. My first experience with a burrito was like the frozen kind, which were deep fried and sold in a local Foster’s Freeze.
Everybody called those “burritos”, not chimichangas. IIRC, a chimichanga was more like a fried tamal. And “fajita” was the grilled meat, served in a taco.
If anyone wants to experience the kind of mexican food I enjoyed as a kid, go to La Fortuna, in San Pablo, CA.
I think, though, that the default in most of Spain is that ‘tortilla’ without further elaboration means ‘tortilla de patata’. At least in my limited experience.
So who are you going to believe, people from Mexico or me who grew up in an Irish/Italian suburb of Boston?
In simple terms, taco means sandwich.
It seems that Balthisar and I agree on this.
