Pigs are literally made of pork.
I guess that would have been funnier if I'd written "made of corn", like I planned to.
Tacos as weird or funny memetic objects predates bacon by a lot, although I could see it changing semantics towards something more joyous. But the word "taco" was definitely inherently funny to Anglo kids in the 90s and 00s (or at least Anglo kids in my part of the country, where Taco Bell was this new exotic food). More recent data point: Justin McElroy's character in the first arc of The Adventure Zone was named "Taako," for a laugh, as early as 2014.
But I think now there's a bit of in-group artisanal-ness to it. "I take my tacos VERY SERIOUSLY because they are SO DELICIOUS AND SUBLIME." It's very distinct from the hard taco shell with ground beef thing of the 80s.
Those were still pretty good. The burritos using flour tortillas are just horrible.
Oh, definitely, I say, knowing that I'm going to an extremely hipstery and white taqueria for a happy hour tonight. It really doesn't matter how much groovy riffs on Dios de la Muerta you have on the walls if your staff is apparently 100% non-Hispanic. (Still: their tacos really are delicious, and the mason jars they serve beer in are a good size.)
vegan tacos don't suck.
"I Am Part of the Resistance at the Local Taco Truck."
It takes a really big jar to hold a mason.
I probably shouldn't throw too much shade on that place, since they had a recognizably trans hostess and were very supportive of Pride. If any other Pghers want casual eats Dawntawn, it's the place at 10th and Liberty.
We were talking about going there this weekend, but in the end going downtown is just too far in a Friday. Had mussels instead.
We were talking about going there this weekend, but in the end going downtown is just too far in a Friday. Had mussels instead.
7: What other kind of burrito is there?
I call it Thaco Thursday
And your students are too young and possibly not nerdy enough to catch the D&D reference.
I myself am not even that nerdy.
16: None that I'm aware of. Burritos suck, is my point.
"Anglo kids in the 90s and 00s (or at least Anglo kids in my part of the country, where Taco Bell was this new exotic food"
Where the hell is this? I remember my dad talking about how tacos were a weird, exotic food in rural Kansas in the 1970's (Taco John's or something like that)
I guess you don't use a flour tortilla for your tacos, then?
I remember at some point it seemed lots of the young bloggers were going on about the incredible deliciousness of fish tacos, and I wondered what had happened to My America.
21: No. Only for quesadilla, because anything is good fried.
FWIW I don't think you can buy hard shell tacos anywhere in Heebieville. Aside from the grocery store. But I'm not going to be puritanical about it because there's nothing worse than a blowhard.
More recent data point: Justin McElroy's character in the first arc of The Adventure Zone was named "Taako," for a laugh, as early as 2014.
It's more than just his name. He actually has a quest to invent the taco.
20.2: Yes, my recollection is that tacos weren't terribly exotic in the suburbs of Detroit in the 1970s.
24: is the hard shell taco a U.S. invention?
Burritos are more practical because, being closed, they are less dribbly than tacos, unless I am doing tacos wrong.
Burritos suck, is my point.
I can't even process this as language. It's like you're making unintelligible dolphin squeaks.
Timezone-insensitive, you are.
Burritos are more practical because, being closed, they are less dribbly than tacos, unless I am doing tacos wrong.
Relatedly, how the hell do you eat hard shell tacos? Once they crack, you're fucked.
unless I am doing tacos wrong
I won't say wrong. Just inconsistent with the values of Heebieville and Tex-Mex.
20: My parents are conservative in all ways, so I might be misremembering, but: although there was a substantial Hispanic population in the part of Pennsylvania I grew up in, very little of it was Mexican. I don't recall ever going to a real Mexican place in my childhood--again, could be because my parents are culturally conservative/unadventurous. We got a Taco Bell sometime around 1995 and it was definitely presented to me as something weird, different, and maybe a little hip. I could be incorrectly extrapolating, though.
Kansas has large Mexican populations in some areas (Wikipedia says that in southwest Kansas, some counties are 50% Mexican-American). Apparently Detroit has had a Mexican neighborhood since the 1920s that was named "Mexicantown" in the 80s.
Taiwanese burrito-equivalents are incredibly delicious.
33: OK, how do I eat a (soft) taco without the contents falling out the end? I suppose I could fold up the non-engaged side, but then I am basically turning it into a sort of half-arsed burrito.
We got a Taco Bell sometime around 1995 and it was definitely presented to me as something weird, different, and maybe a little hip.
This seems kind of nuts to me. Partly because I can remember going to Taco Bell as a child in the 80s in Surrey, of all places. But mainly because Demolition Man came out in 1993 and its dystopian future is premised on Taco Bell being the only remaining restaurant.
My parent's metro area also didn't get a Starbucks until, hrm, at least after I went of to college, maybe a bit after. Sometime around 2006-2008ish. But as for the Taco Bell thing, I could just be wrong--I thought it was new, but I was a child, and children are notably total dipshits.
36: Your tacos are too full then. (I mean, sometimes they're just plain messy though.) IME the whiter places put way more quantity in the tortilla than the Latino places.
Juanbing I mean. Everyone should eat them all the time.
36: I think you're dealing with a poorly constructed taco. If need be you can grasp it from the far side.
Also, tacos come individually wrapped in tinfoil, which you don't have to remove all the way. Just sort of put a bit of salsa on the exposed part that you're about to bite, like if you were buttering the roll as you went.
Also, homemade tacos they'll often tuck the edges of the tortillas, like a mini-burrito.
Ah, so I just pinch the downhill end shut? That makes sense.
39: I was just typing much the same thing.
Also restaurants where I am (maybe most places?) hide another tortilla below the one the ingredients are piled on, but it can leak through and make it hard to get full use out of them both.
Also, tacos come individually wrapped in tinfoil
Huh. Not what I'm used to in the Bay or growing up in Austin. (We would order a lot of tacos for the table, and they would be wrapped in something, maybe cloth, maybe foil, but never individually in my memory.)
tacos come individually wrapped in tinfoil
The last ones I had were in LA, and they were basically just a small tortilla folded more or less in half around some filling. No tinfoil.
44: I guess not always at restaurants, true. But often. I can't picture them wrapped in a napkin or cloth - either tinfoil or just spilling open.
I don't think of tacos as being individually wrapped in tinfoil. But I've never been to Texas or California.
Burritos, yes of course.
IME the whiter places put way more quantity in the tortilla than the Latino places.
Is this because the whiter places have horrible wheat flour tortillas instead of corn?
Or tortilla warmers - not limited to fancy places, although I think at the cheap places they may have been plastic with a paper lining?
In LA, they need the tinfoil for lining hats.
Corn tortillas are so much better than wheat. The supermarket near me has started to stock them intermittently and I pounce on any I see.
Filling on top of two little corn tortillas, one is not enough. Optimally during lunch or dinner rush, there's someone making the tortillas from dough, though the central american places near me do not do that. Also variations-- baleadas, made with a fresh not storebought flour tortilla are good for breakfast.
I do like corn tortillas better than flour. But except for street tacos I mostly never see corn tortilla tacos around here. Corn tortillas show up in enchiladas and migas and soups, though.
I usually order enchiladas, because mole.
So, one talks about gringo taco joints and real taco joints, and it's a decent heuristic: I've never been to a gringo joint worth a damn. But it should be theoretically possible for white people to make good tacos. I know a guy who came over from Xi'an and opened a noodle joint and hired a Mexican guy and a white stoner dude to help out. After six months or a year, those guys were hand pulling with the best of them. But you never see that, people in the restaurant industry crossing the streams. Makes no sense to me.
I feel like a snobbery has arisen about flour tortillas with an underpinning of authenticity-fetish. To my ear, it echoes the whole thing where Diana Kennedy convinced everyone Tex Mex was a debased simulacrum of interior Mexican food instead of its own regional cuisine with its own goods and bads. There are delicious corn tortillas (sorta fun to make, also) and gross factory ones and the same is true for flour. About a year ago we had burritos at the place a woman runs out of her home in Marfa and the fresh, chewy flour tortillas were absolute heaven.
Temporarily Humboldt County, 1968.
http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/FS1.html
As we see, the one true taco is made with a corn tortilla.
The next scene describes the invention of the Tom Collins.
Flour tortillas aren't as bad as corn bread, but I feel they should both stick to their proper milleu.
My pedantic imp demands I post that the relevant distinction is not corn/flour but corn flour/wheat flour. Or, for short, corn/wheat.
There's a dude in front of me on this train to London with a chorizo and he's cutting it with a knife and rolling it up in corn tortillas and eating it. He's gotten package of corn tortillas sitting on his lap.
A true pedantic imp would note that the relevant distinction is actually maize/wheat.
Interesting, I never considered the possibility before that wheat tortillas could be good or that Mexican people would choose to use them.
"Smile. Bacon wants you on everything, too".
The moment that creepy ad campaign launched was the end of the bacon era.
(tacos seem a lot more grassroots than bacon. Is that an illusion?)
Probably true. You can't make vegan bacon, but with tacos you can if you fill with beans or placenta or something.
It's really stinking up the joint
Don't tell people they have a smelly placenta. They're bound to take it personally.
I think you'll find they're actually more grass seeds.
Huh. I'm about to head to a meeting located on the street where Pgh's best (really only) street tacos are sold. I think I have a plan!
Also, endorse 11. It's not great, but IMO it's better than your typical appropriation-style taqueria.
Filling on top of two little corn tortillas
Right, which you then split apart, even out the filling between the two tortillas and now you have TWICE AS MANY TACOS.
people in the restaurant industry crossing the streams
What, what? I assume all kitchens are staffed by Mexican cooks, cooking to the preferences of the owners of all ethnicities. I was taken aback to hear the Korean owners speaking Korean to their Mexican cooks, but I have seen it with my own eyes.
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_8628.html#823907
1 chorizo, one steak & onion. The steak was overfilled, and fell apart in the eating.
Try putting the steak in a taco to hold it together.
There is a food truck I like that's run by a restaurant called Naco Taco.
It's delicious. They make a smoked tofu taco, but I have never tried it.
I view the tortilla as a flawed vessel to the filling's pure healthy whole, so I favor stabler structures like the burrito that allow for a higher filling/container ratio than the flimsier taco.
There is no real taco in Boston. Tacos Lupita in Lawrence is passable though. To be fair, I've never had Naco Taco, but I've long since despaired of NE Mexican food.
You could maximize that ratio by just putting the fillings in a bowl.
25 years ago there was a place in Northampton the served a pretty good mission burrito.
For nearly 20 years I've been saying the best Mexican food I've ever had was in Kentucky. Small town on the big river. That place in Philly down by the New Market was also pretty good, if a little more creative than called for, but we were in San Diego this spring, and my daughter took us to a taqueria that has now taken over first place.
Ah, so I just pinch the downhill end shut?
ajay's going to love college.
Fortunately, Standpipe is right there.
Thank you for making that explicit.
Sometimes you're too subtle for your audience. You should try something simpler from time to time. Puns, maybe.
I don't get it.
Great, start 'em young.
74. On the one hand, Chilango taqueria is a standard name, lots of them are great. My Spanish is rough, but Naco sounds different to me, less friendly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naco_(slang)
but with tacos you can if you fill with beans or placenta or something.
Unless you decide to do something different.
These days I think you would have a harder time getting a placenta past customs.
||
I know that satire is dead, but that must be the kindest fate for it, all things considered.
We are asked by this morning's paper to believe that the president of the united states met one mistress at a celebrity golf tournament where the participants were greeted by three expensive prostitutes "between holes" as part of the show.
Family values, Abraham Lincoln, social conservatism [pulls the sheet over satire's eyes]
|>
In fairness, Shark Week is a lot more interesting than the primaries.
a celebrity golf tournament where the participants were greeted by three expensive prostitutes "between holes" as part of the show.
Expensive porn actors, please. Big difference.
Hang on: surely the definition of a prostitute is someone who fucks for money? Whether they are filmed doing so makes no significant difference.
People have tried to sue porn out of existence with that argument and never succeeded that I heard.
I think that a large number of young Americans are not very good at eating enough when they're hungry because they're too anxious and disembodied, and end up sublimating their unrecognized chronic hunger into a fashion for particular kinds of high calorie density food.
The other response is to drink Soylent or something.
In particular the sorts of young Americans who have are in the social class where the messages they send will be widely repeated.
94: that an argument fails under the American legal system is not proof it is invalid.
(actually; has anyone ever charged the director or distributor of a porn film under the laws against pimping?)
98.1: To be certain, but American newspapers that get sued for defamation defend themselves in the American legal system.
98: FWICT the First Amendment defense successfully dismantled both conventional obscenity laws that had criminalized pornography directly (Roth vs. US et seq.) as well as later attempts to use anti-pimping laws in the same way (People v. Freeman, late 80's).
98: Yes. People v. Freeman, the result of which effectively legalized porn production in California.
Thanks. I don't know if it has ever been tried here, but of course there isn't the same industry as in California.
OT: My work email is now full of Jewish people making jokes about You Kippur. I feel to new and got to join in. Also, I don't like Reply All email threads running into so many messages.
Also, I don't like Reply All email threads running into so many messages
You could ask them to do teshuva and stop replying-all.
That sounds better than sending them lists of stuff they did to me that I feel they should atone for.
Got s/b goy. Stupid phone.
But "You Kippur" was right
D'oh. Fucking anti-Semitic phone.
Clearly you're using the same type as Barry.
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_15951.html#1949845