If you grew up in New Zealand, or any state in the USA that doesn’t share a border with Mexico [with some exceptions such as New York], you most likely grew up with hard tacos in your life. The crispy taco is a corn tortilla that has been fried, and can then be filled (usually with ground beef, lettuce, tomato, cheese, salsa/hot sauce) to make a hard taco. This is often where the misunderstanding between a ‘taco’ and a ‘tortilla’ comes from. In the supermarkets in NZ, you can buy taco kits, with taco shells and spice mixes. Since they're called 'taco shells,' it's easy to carry on the assumption that a taco is the bread...
from Countdown NZ online
And, it’s easy to misunderstand that a taco and a tortilla is the same thing, when the marketing you grew up with was a picture of a hard taco shell on the box your mum brought home. I am of the opinion that a crispy taco is not Mexican food, but the roots of these tacos, usually called the taco dorado in Mexico, came from Mexican immigrants working in the USA. Having been raised vegetarian, I almost never ate tacos dorados as a child, because they were always served with ground beef. Also, in Austin, almost every restaurant either made their own tortillas, or bought fresh ones from a local tortilleria. However, it’s not only New Zealand that has a love for the crispy taco.
To this day, if you order a beef taco in the USA, it is usually served in a hard taco shell. The landscape in California and Texas is covered with small, family run taquerias, and while it may not be authentic to their family recipes, almost all of them serve crispy tacos on their menu.
I read a book a few years ago called ‘Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America’ which went into detail about how Taco Bell got started, and how they popularised the hard taco across the USA. It was interesting to read about how the crispy taco, for mass consumption, was created. I don’t feel like I need to provide a recipe for hard tacos, as you probably know how to make them. Or you can just buy a kit from Countdown. Plus, as I mentioned above, I don’t condone the eating of these! ;)
Just kidding - the more tacos in your life, the better! Remember: seven days without a taco makes one weak...
just a little something hilarious that someone sent me from the internet
