Mexican Cuisine

Oktober 17, 2017

Mexican Cuisine - Tacos

Tacos

The taco is a dish that originates in Mexico, though the forms Americans eat, especially from fast food restaurants, bear little resemblance to the true form. Generally, the dish is made of one or two heated or lightly fried corn tortillas, and can contain any number of different traditional Mexican meats or fish. Tacos can be dressed up with a variety of condiments, including salsa or pico de gallo, a bit of lettuce, tomato, onions, and sometimes cheese.

When the traditional taco is served, it is flat, not pinched up into the hard shells that many Americans consider the essential base. Hard shells that are in a semi-circle form are largely an American invention. To eat the traditional dish, however, people often pinch up the ends of the tortillas, creating a sandwich like way of eating the food. Tacos do have a tendency to drip from the end the diner isn't eating, particularly if they’re overfilled with ingredients.

Traditional meats that may top the tortilla include carne asada, which are roasted meats, especially beef. Chorizo, a spicy sausage, grilled chicken, fish, or roasted pork are also popular. Many tacos use various other parts of the animal, not typically part of American fare. For instance, tacos de tripita are popular and use crisply fried cow intestines. Those made of the cow head and other such ingredients are often available on request from taquerias, stands that specialize in making this dish for hungry guests.

Tacos aren’t necessarily differentiated from other Mexican dishes. Flautas and tacquitos, for example, are considered variants of it. They are both rolled up versions, often containing grilled chicken, which are deep-fried.

Though corn tortillas are standard for this dish, cooks can use flour tortillas if they so choose. Tex-Mex cuisine makes use of the flour tortilla to serve one of its classic dishes, the fajita. Essentially, fajitas are filled with meats, salsa, beans, cheese, and whatever else the cook would like, and as such resemble the classic Mexican dish.

American style tacos tend to rely on the hard shell, and fast food restaurants generally make this type with ground beef or, sometimes, grilled chicken. The beef is often seasoned with spices like cumin, chili powder, garlic, and cayenne, and may be topped with fresh tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, salsa and other ingredients, much like the Mexican version. People who are used to the American style may be surprised by the relatively simple style served at an authentic taqueria. The trick is in the ordering, and diners can pretty much ask for anything they’d like on tacos made in the traditional manner. If the diner doesn’t ask, he is likely to be presented with one or two corn tortillas with some meat on it, and very little else.

Actual Tacos

Basically every ingredient in Mexican tacos is different. For example:

They are soft tacos.
The tortillas are always corn. If that sounds bad to you remember these are not cold, dry, sandpapery store-bought corn tortillas. These were freshly pressed at the tortillería 30 feet away or made by the taquero’s mom. They are hot, steaming, moist and ready to fall apart in your mouth.
There is never lettuce*, tomato*, or shredded cheese. Rarely there may be sour cream available at a taquería or public market but it’s not common. (*Okay there may be a “salad” of lettuce and tomato that comes on the side of the plate but that’s not part of the taco now is it? Stop putting it on the taco.)
There usually isn’t cheese at all. If there was cheese it would be called something different. More on that later.
The meat is what makes the taco and it is never hamburger. You have dozens of meats to choose from. Most taquerías have at least five or six any given day.
Common toppings include cilantro and finely diced white onion. Not everyone adds this; it’s up to the customer. Sometimes you might also be offered radish slices, half an onion grilled to the point of browning, or a whole pepper prepared on the grill or fried in oil.
You are offered unlimited slices of fresh limes. They’re heaped in bowls all over the place. You squeeze these over your tacos like the amazing slices of heavenly existence that they are.

So imagine strips of fresh grilled steak spritzed in lime juice on a taco like the one above. Or pork meat with a tangy marinade spit-roasted and shaved off paper thin seconds before it falls on your taco. Or ground Spanish sausage, or… well, I’ll spare you. The point isn’t just that it’s amazing, it’s that it’s a totally different meal than Anglo tacos.

The salsa is also different. You have everything from heaps of diced tomatoes to bland red salsa to piquant red salsa to smoky chipotle to burn-your-mouth-green-salsa (the green is usually hottest). Every taco stand has at least three different kinds, often house specialties that they take pride in. Sometimes there’s guacamole too. That’s the great thing about legit tacos: you basically build them yourself. You can load them up, try new combinations and make it as spicy or not spicy as you want. I want to repeat that: Mexican tacos are not spicy. You make them as spicy as you want.

A Genus Not a Species

The other cool thing about tacos in Mexico is that it’s not really just a single dish. There are hundreds of types of tacos. And while the word usually means the thing I described above, “taco” is family of foods, with all kinds of strange taco relatives hanging out together:

Taco: it’s a taco
Burrito: it’s a really big taco
Quesadilla: it’s a taco with cheese
Gringa: it’s a really big taco with cheese
Sincronazada: it’s two tacos smashed together with cheese
Enchilada: it’s a taco smothered in spicy sauce
Enmolada: it’s a taco smothered in mole sauce
Taco Sudado: it’s a steamed taco
Flauta: it’s a deep-fried taco
Chimichanga: I’ve never actually seen these in Mexico, but if they exist it’s a really big deep-fried taco