Now tacos have been a comfort food and friend of mine since the 70s. But, looking back, I remember I was drawn to the shape of the hard shell instantly and enjoyed the challenge of trying to eat it with my hands without dropping anything. Prior to eating my first authentic Mexican tacos, I had enjoyed a steady diet of an ordinary bread rolled called brötchen with a long frankfurter and lots of German mustard. Tacos really turned the culinary tables. My mother soon added hard shell tacos to her grocery list. Like me, a lot of Americans like tacos. They consume 4.5 billion of them annually. If you were to line them up – one behind the other – it equates to 490,000 miles of tacos. Which is the distance to the moon and back.(On average, the distance from Earth to the moon is about 238,855 miles or 384,400 km each way.) Maybe that’s why a harvest, half moon sometime looks like a giant taco. Beam me up, Scotty. I want to bite it. Tacos are really truly the ‘street food’ of Mexico and are made at taquerias or taco stands throughout the country. (Taquerias were originally street vendors who set up in working-class neighborhoods much like food trucks who set up in working-class industrial parks before food trucks became trendy circa 2007.) Along with tacos (whose origin is based on the pre-Hispanic custom of picking up other foods with tortillas.) taquerias served quesadillas, pambazos, tamales, huaraches, alambres and some foods that were not suitable to cook at home(due to kitchen limitations) like – barbacoa, carnitas and roasted chicken. During Mexico’s industrialization (1890s-1940s) labor moved into the Mexico City. Women from different regions brought their cuisine and cooking skills to the taqueria, expanding everybody’s horizons. Mexicans have always taken pride in their cooking. At the core of most taco expressions are the traditional meats, seafood, and chicken. Beans, rice, and chili peppers to follow. While garnishes – like salsa, cilantro, avocado, tomatoes, onions and lettuce – are standing by with lime, cucumber and sliced red radishes – to liven it up. This is festive food, remember. Thanks to the taco shell – which has been crucial in taking Mexican food outside Mexican communities – it became my habit to scope out the most authentic Mexican restaurant in my chosen community and judge its worth on the taste of its tacos (In Europe, not so much. Mexican food has not crossed the pond and found the same fan base that it found in America yet.) My requirements – besides flavor – is it must have authentic Mexican character. Authentic Mexican character or cuisine is really Mexican-American food, which adds American ingredients – like cheeses, onions, hamburger meat and iceberg lettuce – to Mexican ingredients like – salsa,chili spices and tortillas. Now I can’t tell you how hard it is to find a needle in a haystack because I’ve never looked for one but I can tell you finding an authentic Mexican restaurant in an Anglo bedroom communities even in America it not an easy task. Forget about what anybody has told you about where to find the ‘real thing’ in taco stands in places like Laguna Beach because taco stands are far and even fewer between. You get the inside tip from a surfer. Anyone with a surfboard is game. My surfer source was a 10 year old taking a trolley ride with his grandmother.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 18:24:22 +0000
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