Soft tacos = win

[sqbr]

seaya suggested I try soft tortilla tacos, and I just made them and they were tasty. They were even bordering on authentic (for me) if you ignore the lack of chili and cheese :)

I found this site with lots of promising looking recipes but ended up making the traditional "mince +cumin" sort (plus green capsicum, coriander, onion, oregano, and cornflour) with lettuce, tomato, avacado, and left over Doritos mild salsa. (Which I really shouldn't eat since it sets off my reflux, but it was there) I've yet to try the "boil the ingredients without browning" cooking technique though, it goes too much against the grain.

The trick with soft corn tortillas I've found is to never eat them cold and fresh. Either eat them warmed up, or toasted/fried etc to crispiness.

Now I'm all inspired to try other foods from countries-in-the-americas-south-of-the-US, including making my own tortillas (they're expensive!). I think I need to track down some masa flour. A brief google implies it's not really available in australia :(

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

Awesome, so I can be all food-snob about it :D

tangent:
Getting into this sort of cuisine has got me thinking about "authenticity" and appropriation with regards to food. Most other cuisines I've gotten into it's been a more fluid/unconscious acquisition of stuff going on around me (ie I grow up in an area with lots of italians, I eat italian food, I hang out with singaporean friends, I eat singaporean food, etc) while there's very little mexican/south american presence here so it feel a lot more artificial. Not to say it's any worse, but it got me thinking (in a no-conclusions-likely-for-a-while kind of way)

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Cheese *is* genuinely Cal-Mex/Tex-Mex. Things hybridize all the time. Food isn't sacred really, so I don't think appropriation is really the word for it, as long as you know where it came from.

Also, you have to go with the ingredients you have there. That's what immigrants do when they move to a new place as well. That's how things evolve.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh yes, and (as you could tell if you were psychic) that was kind of my point: I'm not sure it's any more respectful to copy a recipe exactly than to be inspired and make something random, or to make an "authentic" hybridisation (as with me making Tex-mex food)

I read an interesting article about cultural appropriation of food ages ago, I think it can be an issue but it's not very clear cut. Certainly I think it's bad to claim to be authentically X when you're not, but beyond that..I dunno :)