Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)
In Search Of the Perfect Taco
By Bob Wire, 2-04-10
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| Tacos never, ever look like this in real life. | |
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I once ate 14 tacos in one sitting. It was a taco-off with one of my frat brothers, Kent something-or-other (he drove an ’82 Mustang, the ugliest body style ever). I worked my way through college (almost) waiting tables in Mexican restaurants, and I lived on Mexican food. The joint where I worked had an all-you-can-eat night, and Kent foolishly thought he could take me in tacos. We were both poor dumb punks, and probably wagered nothing more that the $3.99 cost of the dinner.
Thirteen tacos later (they brought them out three at a time), Kent was slipping into a food coma and his grease-smeared hands dropped to his sides. The small crowd that had gathered around our table started making side bets as to whether or not he’d puke. It was a Mexican standoff, until I managed to cram one more taco into my yap, washing it down with a gulp of draft beer. Back then my insides were still made of Kryptonite and Teflon, so I pulled it off. My legend was secured. Later Kent and I laid on our backs on the living room floor for several hours, puffing and squeaking and flopping around like a couple of beached Orcas. The restaurant discontinued their all-you-can-eat special after that, and one of the toilets in the frat house had to be replaced.
You’d think that after such a punishing overdose of tacos, I would have sworn off them. On the contrary, good reader, they remain one of my favorite foods. The beauty of Mexican food is that it’s the same four or five ingredients, arranged and prepared in a variety of ways. I love it all. But it’s the search for the perfect taco that propels me into Mexican restaurants all over the country.
I used to have an office right across the street from a Taco John’s in Missoula. That’s where I got hooked on their Taco Tuesday promotion (two unremarkable tacos for a buck—a couple of years ago the price skyrocketed to $1.19). Almost every Tuesday for as long as I can remember, I’ve gotten half a dozen tacos for lunch. By my conservative estimates, that adds up to more than five thousand tacos. And that’s just from Taco John’s. When I die, my casket will be bent up on the sides and smothered in green salsa.
Naturally, the further southwest you go, the better the tacos. I’ve only had real tacos once, on the streets of Tijuana in the late ‘70’s. It was nothing like the neat and compact little treat we enjoy in the States. It was more like a miniature Mexican food tornado piled in a thick cone of tortilla, requiring two hands. Best thing ever. But geography and food service regulations have narrowed my search to mostly local fast food joints.
What differentiates a taco from place to place? Well, it’s not the lettuce. No matter how you slice or shred or dice iceberg lettuce, it’s still basically a pile of crispy cool cud with no nutritional value. Its purpose is to act as a sponge-like framework that can hold the whole taco together while it soaks up the salsa, guacamole, sour cream, meat juice, etc. But the more lettuce, the better the taco. It’s a yin-yang thing. The coolness of the lettuce offsets the heat of the sauce or meat, creating a certain zen-like harmony in your piehole.
Tomatoes are less of a factor. Fast food tacos rarely have more than an ornamental sprinkling of diced tomatoes, and I can understand that. I was shopping in the produce department of Safeway the other night, and I was shocked at the price of tomatoes, even in mid-winter. Four bucks for one frickin’ tomato? What the hell’s inside it, a hand job? No, you’re just not going to find a fast food taco that’s heavy with tomatoes.
Cheese is important. Shredded cheese varies more than you’d think. Some places use cheddar, some Monterey Jack, some use a combination of both. It also makes a big difference how finely it’s shredded. If it’s a coarse shred, the cheese will block the salsa from working its way down into the lettuce. If it’s shredded too fine, it compresses into a gummy wad, which affects the mouth-feel of the taco. I like the consistency of the cheese at Taco Bell, and I think their shredded cheese contains polymers and synthetic resins that give it a pleasant feel on the tongue, as well as the ability to pass completely through the digestive system with little or no absorption.
The shell is more crucial than you might think. The perfect shell is super thin yet strong as hell. Such a shell does not yet exist. Perhaps the Taco Bell laboratories are working on it. You don’t want a shell that’s going to crumble like the Minnesota Vikings’ offensive line, but then you don’t want it so heavy that it’s like chewing a rawhide bone. Missoula’s taco choices are pretty limited, but the Taco Maker on Russell and Mount seems to have the right shell for the job. It’s crisp but not tough, and doesn’t disintegrate from liquid after ten minutes in the bag. Tuesdays, they’re two for a buck.
Which brings us to the meat. It’s really kind of the main feature of the taco—everything else is just a support system. The important factors here are taste and texture. Sometimes it’s too mealy, other times it’s too dry and crumbly. It’s got to be kind of wet and have a strong flavor, but not so much that it overwhelms the salsa. I suppose you can get all exotic with chicken or ground turkey, but those novelties can be part of someone else’s lunch. I’ll stick with ground beef, the way God intended. Taco Time has good meat.
When I was a kid, there was a taco stand on the corner of Brooks-South-Russell in Missoula. They used to sell four tacos for a dollar every day of the week. My sisters and I would take a couple of sacks full back to my grandmother’s house on North Avenue, where we’d sit at her kitchen table unwrapping the gold-colored paper off taco after taco, laughing and eating while orange grease ran down our forearms and dripped off our elbows onto her gleaming linoleum kitchen floor.
Now THOSE were tacos. (RIP, Gidget.)
[Bookmark NewWest.net/BobWire and check back for more foodborne weirdness. Wipe your hands off first.]
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Comments
Locally, there aren't any places that I can say are my favorite, because none of them live up to the real thing. I'll have to give Taco Maker a try.
I also need to give a shout out to the deletable taco as served up by Jack in the Box. You wouldn't think so, but damn those things are tasty. Not in the same way the Tucson tacos are, but still a fine, greasy little fountain of flavor.
<a >Acai Berry</a>
<a >Acai Berry</a>
Here in Boise we've got a few taco wagons as of late (during the warm-weather months). You know, truck mounted - they pop up their sides in a parking lot, and you eat underneath the portable blue plastic canopy. I've always heard good things about their fare... will try someday.
The missus is from San Diego, and her homemade Mezcan comida is hard to beat.