Remember when old people used to call pizza "eye-talian food"?

Interesting. By contrast, when I recently read BABBITT by Sinclair Lewis I discovered that in 1922 Chinese food was common and popular in the American Midwest--the characters in the book talk about going out for Chinese food as the most routine thing in the world.

Growing up in the midwest I never had a real taco (they kind that is served from a van) until moving to Washington State. Most Mexican restaurants seemed to cater to American tastes, whereas the taco wagons are geared to the Mexican working class.

It really is funny how ethnic cuisines even in NY weren't much appreciated some decades ago.

I remember in about 1972 being introduced to Szechuan Chinese food in a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights. Everybody was making a huge deal out of it because it was so dramatically different -- actually hot and spicy! -- from the typical bland Chinese fare.

As I recollect, in Chinatown itself you could get some greater variety, but you really had to know where to look.

But there were and are all kinds of people from China in NY, yet back then you would hardly have a clue about the richness of the cuisine.

I can imagine that a mere taco, so far from home, would in the early fifties be truly hard to find in NY. Not many Mexicans in NYC back then I wouldn't think.

(This all does bring up an issue I've pondered over the years -- how much more variety we seem to have in our eating choices these days over the fifties, sixties, and seventies, both in the supermarket and in restaurants. It would be interesting to see some empirical evidence to back up my strong impressions.)

I would have guessed that tacos were indeed more exotic back in '52. Even now, NYC has far fewer Mexicans than Guatemalans, Ecuadorians, Dominicans, etc.

In 1967 my wife's family, Californians, went for an auto camping trip on the east coast. They intended to fix enchiladas, but the only tortillas they could find for sale in any of the grocers they tried on the Atlantic seaboard were in a can.

My East Coast parents had never had tacos before landing in California circa 1960. By the 70's they were in LA and had adopted an early Taco Bell (complete with actual bell) on PCH as the go-to snack spot.

For which I say Agradezca a Dios. (Thanks Babelfish!) Who knew old world wasps could enjoy new world cuisine so much? California's best tacos: La Taqueria, in San Francisco, Mission x 25th.

Actually, it's not just New York. Relatives of ours visited recently from far Northern California, near Redding. We took them out for Mex. Their youngest son, age eleven or so, looked at the menu and asked: "What's an enchilada?"

But I must admit, we were shocked. Practically fell off our chairs.

In the early 60's, taco parties were popular in my parents circle. They were assembled by the diners from crisp tortilla shells and bowls of meat, cheese, onions, tomatos, and lettuce (no salsa, just Tabasco?). The shells may have been Old El Paso, may have been from cans of soft tortillas fried crisp at home in a skillet.

They were a worldly bunch, college-educated and well-travelled, but I think the tortillas just came from the supermarket, not necessarily a gourmet store. (Masa harina, for homemade tortillas, was hard to find, though.)

Report from Boston suburbs, ca. 1964(?).

Speaking of the fifties and sixties, how many people remember a very large portion of their meals coming from aluminum cans?

Sometimes I think about the utter blandness of that food and wonder how I could have motivated myself to eat.

New York is still behind the curve in terms of good Mexican food.

i went to college in southern california in the '90s. kids from the east coast would routinely look at the dining hall menu and say, pronouncing all the 'l's, 'what's a case-a-dilla?' and so on.

to this day, i've sure never had any good mexican food in new york.

I grew up on Long Island in the late 60/70s.

My parents were city people. My mother's parents owned a restaurant in Greenwhich Village (Fugazzis, mentioned somewhere in Howl).

Mexican food was indeed unknown. Not exotic, just pretty much absent.

We knew from cartoons that there were things called Tamales and Frijoles, but that was about it.

As I recall, nachos and tacos and such began to become part of the zeitgeist in the late 70s.

My first burrito was a miserable thing from Jack in the Box.

I'm from Pennsylvania. In the early 70s, my aunt from Colorado introduced to tacos, which then seemed very exotic. Only the hard shells along with two kinds of salsa--green or red--were available in the grocery store. My grandmother would always pronounce them as "tack-o's".

I moved from Chicago (major Mexican population) to NYC (Greenwich Village; very little Mexican population) in 1991 and was stunned by the lack of Mexican food and restaurants even at that late date, so the 1950s taco story hardly surprises me.

NYC's Latino population remains nearly entirely Caribbean based - Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban. They have as little interest in Mexican culture and food as they do in Canadian.

I liked California better when the New Yorkers were still in New York. Then they came here en masse with their noses in the air looking down at the quaint Californians. In reality they were just urban hicks from Brooklyn and the Bronx, left-wing Democrats who believed they could never, ever, possibly be wrong about anything. Pompous bores!

I came to New York in 1971 from Ann Arbor, where we often made tacos for dinner (not incredibly authentic but Old El Paso's best). There was hardly any Mexican food in NY (although there was one restaurant on Washington Place off the Square that no one went to as far as I could tell). I can't say for sure whether the NY natives ate any, but I'd bet not.

The great migrations of the last 35 years have changed a lot. Now there is pretty good Mexican food here, but not to touch the Southwest or West.

As to frankly0's comment about Chinese food, s/he's right about the novelty of Szechuan (Sichuan?) in the early 70's. Cantonese, circa 1880 modified by adoption of American ingredients and tastes, was the norm until recent migration changed things. Remember, Chinese had been almost entirely excluded from immigrating to this country until 1965. What frankly0 said, "there were and are all kinds of people from China in NY," was not really true until a few years after the rules changed in 1965. Only in recent years has there been the flowering of regional Chinese cuisine in the US.

Speaking of the fifties and sixties, how many people remember a very large portion of their meals coming from aluminum cans?

Aluminum? Back then even beer was in "tin" (really tin-coated steel) cans.

Growing up in the D.C. area in the late 50's and early 60's, I remember how exotic it was to go to a restaurant in the Maryland suburbs called El Rio Grande that my parents (both transplanted Californians) liked. It was very rustic—a farmhouse with ducks walking around the grounds. And, as far as I was aware of restaurant choices back then, that was about it for authentic Mexican cuisine.

I was shocked to discover in 1975 or so that, while the restaurant was still there, it was on an island created by two major avenues (Old Georgetown Road and Democracy Boulevard?—I forget), a tiny patch of green in an ocean of concrete. It's gone now—the café in Bethesda by the same name is a different entity altogether.

On the other hand, Mexican food had not quite penetrated Arkansas in the early 1980's. While you could buy tomatillos at the upscale non-union store in North Little Rock, the Mexican restaurant in LR itself served enchiladas with nacho cheese poured over it. Apparently it was ballpark cuisine that carried Mexican food into that part of the heartland (where there were, in 1981, only a handful of Latino packinghouse and chicken plant workers).

As for Chinese cuisine being universal—it belongs up there with African music as something that can penetrate virtually anywhere on the globe.

Polliwog alleges that the best tacos in California are somewhere in San Francisco. The best tacos in SAN FRANCISCO may be in San Francisco (though it's doubtful); the best tacos in CALIFORNIA are in the greater Los Angeles area, in one of the places -- probably a truck -- discussed here: http://tacohunt.blogspot.com/.

Actually, the best tacos in California are probably somewhere in the Imperial Valley, or in Fresno, or in Coalinga.

Aluminum? Back then even beer was in "tin" (really tin-coated steel) cans.

Yeah, that's right. I was going to write "tin", but somehow stupidity intruded.

Now that I think about it, the best tacos in California may well be at La Super Rica, on Milpas St. in Santa Barbara.

I'm in my early 50s, and when I was around 13, I was near an Air Force base outside of San Francisco (my father was in the Air Force, and we were waiting on a flight to his new assignment in Japan). I was out wandering just beyond the base perimeter, and I saw a renovated gas station serving food. I had a buck or 2 in my pocket, so I went inside. What a weird place it was, some new restaurant called "Taco Bell" and there were phonetic guides to help non Spanish speakers with the menu items. I had a taco and a bean burrito, and wham! I was in love. it's a very vivid memory.

New York simply didn't have much Mexican food before the construction of the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel in the late 70's:

http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm#

Nothing like the Internets to educate you on obscure but important pieces of history . . .

The major culture-shock for me, in my Chicago->West migration was:

Fish Tacos.

Then, there's the fact that EVERYBODY loves sushi. (or at least, what they *call* sushi, in California, which technically isn't sushi, but really, let's just stop there, and not get into a discussion on the various ways to get intestinal parasites. . . )

And then, the Pizza here, in California. Goat cheese? Chicken? About the only good thing you can say about California pizza is that they natively produce really good tomatoes, really good mozzarella cheese, and really good garlic. There seems to be a serious contingent of ethnic Italians in San Francisco and L.A. (And Portuguese in the central region) - and Mexicans all over; but this ethnic mix of Italian and Mexican which brought such legendary pizza to Chicago and New York hasn't seemed to work out here. (hint: crust)

And one final gripe:

Mayo on every sandwich, as a default choice.

Especially when you specifically ask for no mayo. (excellent gag in the short-lived tv series "it's like, you know" where a New York writer moves to LA, and is at a restaurant with his friends, and is complaining about the mayo thing - (this was like about a year after we moved here, so this resonated with us) - so one of his room mates comes into the restaurant late, sits down, and calls over the waiter, and orders a sandwich, no meat, no lettuce. "just mayo and bread?" the waiter asks? "yeah." she replies.)

And let me add (as if you could stop me):

Not so long ago, Calvin Trillin wrote about eating in the US while traveling as an exercise in avoiding what he called the "Maison de la Casa House: Mediterranean Cuisine." His suggestion

Now, by contrast, even towns that would have been gastronomic wastelands in the 1970's (I am recalling a recent visit to Norwalk, CT, here) have a main street, or at least a major side street with a handful of interesting ethnic places, Mexican, Peruvian, Brazilian, Chinese, and so on. It's made getting off the highway, avoiding the Applebees and their ilk, and eating in town a plausible strategy.

Kevin, when I was a kid in NH in the 40s, /spaghetti/ was ethnic food (and out of a Chef Boy Ar Dee can). Pizza was only beginning to be heard of.

Michael Lewis has a cute story in his investment banker book about the guy who was sent out with $400 bux to by "Mexican food." YOu could buy all the Mexican food in NYC for $400, Michael argues, or argued.

Growing up in the rural west during the fifties there were only 3 kinds of restaurants (O.K., 4 if you include Trader Vic’s): regular (American), Chinese (Cantonese only till after Nixon’s trip), and seafood (breaded and deep fried only, thank you). Fast food was strictly pizza or burgers. I remember the fifties as a pretty grim time for food. I moved to Chicago in the early seventies and remember being blown away by all the ethnic food.

It's awfully quaint how Californians think they have some sort of monopoly on tacos. Maybe they should hit Chicago:

Cheap: Nueva Leon on 18th, just east of Ashland
Spendier: Frontera Grill -- Rick Bayless is the chef, and there is possibly no better Mexican food on the planet

Cheers,
Scott

mhr: "In reality they were just urban hicks from Brooklyn and the Bronx, left-wing Democrats who believed they could never, ever, possibly be wrong about anything."

Yeah, and the Spanish and the Indians liked it better before you got there. Can't you leave the partisan hacking out of one fucking area of existence? Glad you stayed away from the guitar thread; we'd have to hear about Stalinocasters or some such shit. Get a life, you pea-brained nobody.

In case there are any foundation grant givers reading this, it's been my dream grant for decades: the relationship between immigration and food. I want to organize an annual national festival and contest -- email me.

You can have bogus political alliances out the wazoo (US citizens from Puerto Rico are FOR having their Social Security #s stolen?), but: you can't fake FOOD.

The fact is, American cuisine is the best in the world, for the same reason that English EATS other languages: we steal and re-invent.

I even did a panel at (ahem) the American Academy for the Advancement of Science once, with a woman who wrote the definitive history of immigration and food. (We agreed, she could do pizza if I could do bagels, including the organized crime thing, and hot dogs.)

But the best example is still 'chop suey'. You can get an argument about the murky origins of the stuff, like whether 'tzansui' ('scraps') is a genuine Cantonese dish, but the fact is: 19th century Chinese cooks invented a version of Chinese cooking that Americans would buy.... at a time when Chinese could not vote, own property or naturalize as citizens.

Which led me to coin a Devil's Dictionary item:

"Multiculturalism, n. Something understood by commerce but not in politics."

immigration patterns.

one reason why Mexican food sucks in NY...when compared to CA or Chicago is the fact that virtually all the Mexicans in NY today are Pueblan. there's no Oaxacan or Veracruz style food to speak of. today you can get pretty good tacos at Del Valle and the like but that's about it. and our Rick Bayless clones aren't even Rick Bayless clones (I'd die for a Frontera Grill in NY).

rea: Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel
Help! Can't stop laughing. Can't breathe....

Scott, I don't doubt there are good tacos to be had in Chicago, or anywhere else in the country (well, perhaps STILL not in New York City). My favorite Mexican food memory comes from when I lived in Guam, in the late 1970s. There was a grand total of one "Mexican" restaurant on the island, and I use the quote marks advisedly. It was owned and operated by a Korean guy who mixed a mean margarita, wore a sombrero and charro jacket every day, was trying to learn Spanish (possibly to the detriment of his English) and had little if any idea what the food was supposed to be like. My friend Brad called him "Kim Sung Gonzales, the Korean practicing up to be a Mexican."

Geez, my Calvin Trillin borrowing got eaten. And anyway, that's "Maison de la Casa House: Continental Cuisine." To avoid it, he recommended looking in the local phone book to see how many Patel's were listed, and if many, calling one and getting a restaurant recommendation. As my earlier comment notes, that's no longer necessary.

Tacos are not Mexican. They were invented in the USA, just as pizza was. Chop suey was also invented in the USA. You can track the presence of the restaurants with the immigration timelines and demographics of the various groups. The Chinese came earlier so Chinese take-outs and restaurants became commonplace earlier.

Most of the Hispanics on the East Coast in 1952 were Puerto Rican and tacos are not Puerto Rican.

Folding and eating anything in a corn or flour tortilla is Mexican, but the tortilla plays the same role as bread. To call that a dish by any name is ridiculous and represents American marketing, not any sort of Mexican tradition. Chalupas, burritos, chimichangas, etc., are all invented terms, as phony as Corinthian leather.

I think the first Taco Bells appeared in the 60s. They used to sell tortillas in cans in the grocery store imported food section, but they weren't worth eating.

I think the author of the novel was being ironic or poking fun at the pretensions of upper class New Yorkers that they would consider the equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich an exotic gourmet item.

"invented in the USA, just as pizza was"

I don't think the guy running through the second-class compartments of the train stopped in Naples in 1965, peddling incredibly delicious folded-up pizzas in greasy paper bags, would believe this. I don't.

My parents didn't have their first tacos until they went out to LA to visit cousin Bernie in the 1960s. By the late 1970s we were doing the Old El Paso taco kit thing at home though.

Good Mexican restaurants are still hard to find in Northern VA while Salvadoran places and Peruvian chicken places are quite plentiful. Love empenadas!

BTW nearly all the well-known Mexican food in the US is Tex-Mex, hardly represntative of the cuisine of the whole country.

I had no idea that mole existed - let alone was a staple of Mexican food - until my first trip to Mexico City in the 1990s.

Oh, and there are a lot of fast-food taco restaurants in NY, called Fresco Taco or the like, that are run and probably owned by Chinese. http://www.newyorkcitywalk.com/html/images_AsianMexican.html

The best Tex-Mex food on the East Coast used to be served at a place called The El Phoenix Room in Boston. Run by an Irish family. Go figure.

"Chalupas, burritos, chimichangas, etc., are all invented terms, as phony as Corinthian leather."

Yes, but only the finest Corinthian leather.

Huh. The first thing I zoomed in on Kevin's post was the "low-brow enough Mexican restaurant" and figured it wasn't that mexican food was absent, but that Wouk was just flouting his noble roots.

But in reading the comments, it looks like Herman Wouk isn't as uppity as I assumed.

My brother lives in a heavily Mexican neighborhood on the Northwest Side of Chicago, Logan Square. I recently visited from West L.A., where most of the Mexican population is from Jalisco, Zacatecas, or Oaxaca, and tried a few of the taquerias there. All I can say is: blah.

I'm sure you can get better tacos in the Imperial Valley, though.

Also, I had tacos from a taco truck last night. Two asada, two pastor. They came with a salsa verde as potent as most rojas.

By the way, Emeril uses the term "mole" incorrectly, to refer to any chile sauce. Mole isn't sweet so many Americans don't like it. You used to be able to find it at local family neighborhood Mexican restaurants but it has largely died out among semi-authentic upscale Mexican restaurants. In the 60s & 70s, you couldn't find "hot" versions of chile sauces in Mexican restaurants aimed at Anglos, just tomato sauce. Owners believed that Anglos couldn't tolerate anything hot.

If you really want to find authentic food, look for machaca or menudo on the menu.

In the Southwest, cooks in most kitchens, regardless of the ethnicity of the food prepared, are Spanish-speaking.

Diana Kennedy, wife of the US ambassador to Mexico, living in Mexico for 39 years, is credited with popularizing "Mexican" food as gourmet cuisine by collecting and publishing recipes, techniques, and ingredient substitutes, in her book "The Cuisines of Mexico" in the 70s. I believe it was a bestseller, but not sure about that. She is considered, even in Mexico, the leading authority on Mexican cooking.

If you think tacos are strange, try to find someone in America who was eating sushi in 1952.

Seriously? This?

Folding and eating anything in a corn or flour tortilla is Mexican, but the tortilla plays the same role as bread. To call that a dish by any name is ridiculous and represents American marketing, not any sort of Mexican tradition.

So did these same evil 'American' (but obviously not Mexican, possibly Canadian) marketers also come up with the marketing gimmick of calling food between bread sandwiches? Why do marketers keep using the names people call things in their attempts to subvert culture?

I grew up in the suburbs of New York City back in the 1970's and early 1980's. My memory is that there were fairly decent Mexican restaurants in the suburbs around 1981-82, but nothing much in the city itself.

These days I live in Denver, Colorado, and there is a weird combination of Mexican and Mexican-derived food here. There are extremely good (and extremely authentic) Mexican food here, primarily tacquirias located in Denver itself. Sometimes, they don't even translate the menus into English. Then there are a bunch of lesser places in the suburbs serve a gringo version of Mexican food, heavy on the magaritas and refried beans. And then there are chain restaurants like Haciendo Colorado, which sort of place a foot in both camps. Couple that with the state's own longstanding native fusion cuisine of Mexican and American elements that goes back over a century (like green chili) ... and you have a real seething stew of options.

-- Bokonon

1950s? In the late 1990s I had friends in grad school from Philadelphia who pretty much assumed every Mexican dish that wasn't a taco was "fajitas" (they called burritos "wraps"). You'd try to explain the difference to them and they couldn't understand what the difference was because so many dished shared a common base of ingredients (tortilla, cheese, meat).

I still haven't gotten over the fact that they put BBQ on some of the TexMex. And while I enjoy black beans, it seems like a lot of the country hasn't been exposed to good pinto beans or refried (pinto ) beans.

Finally, it's a shame that so many people across this country actually regard Taco Bell as Mexican food.

My brother lives in a heavily Mexican neighborhood on the Northwest Side of Chicago, Logan Square. I recently visited from West L.A., where most of the Mexican population is from Jalisco, Zacatecas, or Oaxaca, and tried a few of the taquerias there. All I can say is: blah.

Logan Square is heavily gentrifying (read: white yuppies are displacing Mexicans and demanding bland food). If you want some authentic Mexican food, go to Pilsen.

Jim Gaffigan has a routine about working in a Mexican restaurant in Indiana (!) and how he reduced questions about the difference between taco, enchilada, chimichanga et alii as "say a Spanish sounding word and I'll bring you cheese, meat and vegetables."

You still can't get a decent Mexican meal in NY, but back in 50s, 60s, and 70s you could only buy tortillas in a can... bad tasting, small things... but the rest of the stuff you make for yourself. I finally had enough of canned tortillas, figured out that there was one person who would surely know where to score fresh corn tortillas... So, I called the Mexican consulate in NY, asked him where he bought his. He pointed me to a little restaurant in the village... not Mexican... go the alley, knock, as for a certain woman, who would take my order, make them, have them the next day.

Carrib chilis work as well as any for hot sauces.

I grew up in New York & Connecticut in the 70's. At college in the 80's, I went looking for an avocado to try in a new recipe, but I had no idea what an avocado even looked like. I think I ended up with a mango or something. It wasn't just a lack of ethnic restaurants, there was a whole world of produce that simply didn't exist during my childhood. This was an era when an 1/8 of a head of lettuce with a slice of tomato was considered a salad...

What surprised me about Mexican food while staying in Mexico was the soups. Every afternoon, dinner started with soup. One of my favorites is a soup I had in Oaxaca called "holy leaf" (I think). It's made from a herb that isn't common anywhere else but Oaxaca.
The area where I live has a high Indian/Pakistani population. They've imported their Chinese restaurants too. About 100 years ago there was a large migration of Chinese to Indian, of course they opened their own restaurants which took on an Indian flair. It's quite good, very spicy.

You said:
"Really? In New York City, circa 1952, tacos were so uncommon as to be practically unknown? Who knew?"

...I am sure that Mexican food in New York in 1952 was about as common as Puerto Rican food in San Antonio.

I went to Fordham from 1965-69, and I cannot recall ever seeing a popular, reasonably-priced Mexican place, much less one which served _gorditas_, _quesadillas_ or _horchatas_.

If you really want to find authentic food, look for machaca or menudo on the menu.

The Chuy's restaurant near us (north of downtown LA) has goat stew on the menu. I'm too chicken to try it. And I know just enough Spanish to be afraid of the cabeza and lengua tacos at King Taco.

L.A. Mexican restaurants are becoming very regional -- it's not hard to find a specifically Oaxacan restaurant, and the owner of Mexico City in Los Feliz travels there every year to see what's new in that region.

As a Midwest boy, I can remember going to a Taco Bell for the first time in 1969, my first year in college. The tacos were tasty enough, but I remember thinking they would have a hard time catching on because those cripy shells that shattered when you took a bite would make them just too hard to eat. I did not major in prognostication, obviously.

I traveled from NYC to Berkeley in 1967 (never having been west of Ohio before then.) My first meal in Berkeley was at a Mexican restaurant, and it was the first Mexican restaurant that I had ever seen. There were a number of Puerto Rican and Cuban restaurants in New York when I grew up, but no Mexican ones that I knew of.

Actually, the best tacos in California are probably somewhere in the Imperial Valley, or in Fresno, or in Coalinga.

Posted by: ElTaquitoGrande on August 22, 2007 at 5:44 PM | PERMALINK

There are some fantastic roach coaches all throughout the San Juaquin Valley, but the best I've had was in Bakersfield. I can remember standing in line with a bunch of drunken college students and undocumented agricultural workers on a Friday or Saturday night for up to 30 minutes to get some of this one guy's carne asada tacos, which were out of this world (He was Vietnamese, which always made me laugh). I've had Mexican food in maybe a dozen different states, including Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, but those were the best. And I wonder, sometimes, if it wasn't just the time and place -- the circumstances -- rather than the food itself that made it so good. How many different ways can you make a taco? How can one taco be so much better than another?

As a near-complete aside, I saw the name "Taco Bell" mentioned a few times in the thread, and thought I'd trot out one of my favorite bits of trivia: their meat is boiled in a bag, and their beans are re-hydrated. People who love Taco Bell food hate being told that, in my experience.

In tribute to my late mother, she managed to feed the family, including in the '50s and '60s, using almost nothing that came in a can (except for soup, when she didn't make it herself, and Spam, which we all considered a great treat rather than a penance--my sister and I still love it).

Veggies were either fresh or frozen. Eating at a friend's house one night when I was around 10 years old, I didn't even recognize the canned peas on my plate as the same vegetable my mother served--same shape and size, entirely the wrong color, and completely different (and truly horrible) taste.

It's more of a west coast thing, isn't it, Kev? It seems like they were almost unknown here in Jersey 20 or so years ago.

When I lived in New York, the Mexican population was too small to support a significant number of decent restaurants. But the market for at least nominally-Mexican food was there. One day, while walking down the main drag of my Bronx neighborhood, I saw a sign advertising a Mexican restaurant opening in a storefront.

It was run by Chinese people. And the food was awful.

And this was 1999.

they had tacos in santa fe in 1952, and probably in 1552 also ;-).

I've eaten Tex-Mex all over the US. The best is in San Antonio, in my opinion.

Slightly off topic. I was in the Los Angeles area on business in the 80's. While driving around in a rainstorm we saw a large yellow billboard, with one sentence. "Sure you can eat Mexican, but think of the ozone." At the bottom of the billboard, in smaller print, was the name of a Chinese restaurant.

Oh yeah, and Youngblood Hawke has to be the worst thing Wouk wrote (and I love ol' Herman). Suggested subtitle: "A Series of Maudlin, Tragic Diseases"

Frankly, the taco story is one of the most realistic episodes in the book.

You might need to think about places with a semi-permanent migrant farm worker population. Usually a mother who's a good cook supplements family income by preparing food in her kitchen.
Then they rent a small place.
Then they get a reputation, and customers from thirty miles away.

El Paso, 1948, my landlady, Mrs. Villalobos, stacked corn tortillas like pancakes after first placing them on a grill, dipping them in a red enchilada sauce, layering them with grated cheese and chopped onions, and then popping the plates in the oven for a few minutes. Never had anything like it, before or since. Wonderful!

Chicago, 1950, an Army buddy took me to a place I've since heard was the original home of deep dish pizza. No pizza then anywhere else in the Midwest. But five years later it was standard stuff, even in Ohio. Fastest and widest food invasion ever.

You people who think there's no decent Mexican food in New York City should get your asses out of Manhattan and come out here to Sunset Park, in Brooklyn, ground zero of recent Mexican immigration to NYC. Some of it's terrible but a lot of it is fantastic, and I speak as someone who grew up in the Southwest with high standards for Mexican/Sonoran/Southwestern food.

Mexicans have a good sense of humor also. I know a waitress gal, and of course here in Cheecago, Mexinois, many of the cooks and busboys are Mexican.

She won't eat in a restaurant anymore.

"or at least, what they *call* sushi, in California, which technically isn't sushi, but really, let's just stop there, and not get into a discussion on the various ways to get intestinal parasites. . . "

I'm not sure what you're talking about but "sushi" refers to the rice. Raw fish is sashimi. If it's served on top of a rice ball, it's nigiri sushi, as are all the other things on top of a rice ball, like egg.

My grandmother would always pronounce them as
"tack-o's".

Me too. How's it supposed to be pronounced, then?

"such legendary pizza to Chicago and New York hasn't seemed to work out here. (hint: crust)"

And to continue, continued. Crust is definitely a personal preference which cannot be used to say whether one style of pizza is better than another. I personally hate thick crust (which Chicago pizza is known for). As to "New York" pizza, my familiarity is with slices, which, to me, have always had a rather limp, thinish crust.

New wave pizza (to call it that) on the other hand has an incredibly thin crisp crust that I just love, plus really good ingredients on top. How can pancetta and portobello mushrooms not be Italian? And I will also admit that one of my current favorites has proscuitto, arugula and shaved parmesan. Yes, arugula. And its bite goes really well with the proscuitto.

I'm also very fortunate to have been spending a lot of time in the Napa Valley, where the former sou-chefs from the French Laundry have opened a number of fabulous restaurants. Better eating than San Francisco, even. Or at least, a much better ratio of excellent to mediocre restaurants.

Here are some recommendations:

In Napa (the town itself): Celadon and Uva (of the arugula pizza)

In Yountville, Bistro Jeanty

In Saint Helena, Cindy's Backstreet Cafe.

Hmm. I think we have to distinguish between GOOD Mexican (or Chinese or whatever) food and AUTHENTIC such food.

Call me a honky or a cracker, call me what you like, but the best damn thing that ever happened to Mexican food was the invention of Fresh-Mex. IMHO the common thread in authentic foreign food is that it's food for poor people low on calories, and as such it makes use of everything available, and is dripping with fat. Not at ALL what someone like me wants to eat. I don't want my burrito incorporating refried beans, fatty beef, and rice dripping oil. I want my burrito to incorporate black beans, gristle-and-fat-free-steak, and oil-free rice. And if it costs 3x what it would cost at an authentic restaurant, so be it.
Long live Baja Fresh and Chevy's.

IMHO the biggest tragedy in American cuisine is that we don't have enough damn restaurants creating "Fresh" versions of traditional cuisines.
California Pizza Kitchen has done a fine job with pizzas, not nearly as good a job with pasta.
But Chinese food really needs this sort of makeover --- even at an American chain like Panda Express, there is too much emphasis or adherence to autheticity --- the food is too oily, and the meat not high-end enough.

How's it supposed to be pronounced, then?

More like "TAH-kose." In Spanish, the "o" would be short and the "s" would be unvoiced, I believe.

My grandmother would always pronounce them as
"tack-o's".

Me too. How's it supposed to be pronounced, then?

Try "toc-koh". That is the official Texan pronunciation and the only one that actually matters (sorry California).

I was up in Iowa volunteering for Screamin' Dean in '04, and all the rural towns in Iowa had these places called "Taco John". My understanding is that it is like a Taco Bell but worse.

I cry for the deprived people who don't have taco trucks, or at the very least a Taco Cabana. Two Americas, indeed...

On the subject of canned vegetables--the (former) wife of a friend of mine from Arkansas grew up in Memphis in the 1950s; her parents were from Mississippi. She did not realize, until she got to college, that green beans were not black--which is how they looked after her mother took them out of the can, then cooked them for an hour. Botulism and all that.

In Ohio, I am told the canned vegetables come out grey. Take your pick.

New York is still behind the curve in terms of good Mexican food.

Eric, you need to leave Manhattan and go to Queens.

Even now, NYC has far fewer Mexicans than Guatemalans, Ecuadorians, Dominicans, etc.

Nonsense (except for Dominicans). Here are the facts:

Mexicans in New York City number 187,000, according to the 2000 Census, making them the city�s third-largest Hispanic group after Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. If the population continues to grow at this rate, more than half a million Mexicans will be living in New York City by 2010. Puerto Ricans, who have long enjoyed the most sizeable Hispanic representation in the city, totaled some 789,000 in the last census, down 12 percent since 1990.

Y'all need to go to Corona and Jackson Heights.

Hell I grew up in the 70's and 80's and Mom raised us largely on the "Crap From a Can" diet. Admittedly this was in part because Dad's a food spaz, and likes predictable food. You can't get more predictable than LaChoy Chicken Chop Suey, Dinty Moore Beef Stew, Hormel Chili, and Chef Boyardee Ravioli. No Spam, but the Hormel Cornbeef Hash is a close runnerup in the greasy protein product category.

She does make delish tacos. Not authentic, but my favorite Mom food. She's achieved perfect balance between chili powder, cumin and cayenne pepper.

The best authentic tacos I've had came from the little divey joint under Big Horse, in Wicker Park (Chicago).

I've had hoity toity Mexican cuisine a few times, it's kind of "meh." Might as well go to a taqueria and save yourself a wad of cash.

The vignettes about "Mexican" handmeals (ala Niven) made for more interesting reading than normal in blog comments.

It turns out that I am a minority voice, re Mexican food.

Mexican food, at least the Taco Bell kind that dominates in Minnesota, is unimaginative and boring: refried beans, greasy rice, gaucamole, salsa & chips, bleech. Chile flavoring is one-note, unsubtle. Consider the taco--a hard corn shell, lettuce, chopped tomato, and chile-flavored meat or beans. Maybe some sour cream will be slathered on it to give it a bit more flavor. Really, bleech. A high-calorie, low variety bleech. Once or twice a year is more than adequate.

I assume that Mexican food can be terrific in Mexico but has suffered from re-interpretation as it travels. Maybe there are locations out there with better quality food and more variety, but why should I be interested? In any case, I speculate that New Yorkers have been slow to adopt because they have terrific food in New York and don't confuse "spicy, fat" and "tasty, good."

One thing hasn't been mentioned yet. Maybe for an anniversary present we could pass the hat and buy Mr. Drum some new books, or at least a Borders gift card.

"Why, these things are marvellous! What do you call them, Jeanne, tacos? I've never eaten anything like this. Delicious! Is there a restaurant in town where I can order these?"

That dialogue belongs in the guitar thread, where wooden things are being discussed.

Pilsen?

Pilsen's more yuppified than Logan Square. If you want real Mexican in Chicago, try McKinley Park, Brighton Park (Tio Luis's=best Mexican food in Chicago) or Back of the Yards. Bridgeport too, at least west of Halsted.

Though I do like Picante Grill on Halsted and 18th. It's very good, albeit in a Salpycon or Fronterra uber-yuppie sense.

The Chuy's restaurant near us (north of downtown LA) has goat stew on the menu. I'm too chicken to try it.

Birria is amazing. I'm serious. You will not regret eating it.

There are a couple of places that make birria burritos. My favorite is Que Rico's, at Melrose and Vermont. It used to be open 24/7 so after getting out of the USC library at 3 AM (such is the life of a PhD student) I would hop in my car, blast up the 110 to the 101, and get myself some deliciously gamey goat. Now it's only open all night on Fridays and Saturdays, which makes me very, very sad.

On the Chicago tip, I bet you can get great tacos in Berwyn and Cicero, both of which are ~80% Mexican now. My folks live out in the way, way northwest 'burbs (McHenry) and there's even a decent taqueria near their house, although you have to cajole them into not making your taco or burrito all gabachoso.

Please make it stop. PTate you're going to judge Mexican food based upon Taco Bell? Does Italian food suck because of The Olive Garden?

Polliwog alleges that the best tacos in California are somewhere in San Francisco. The best tacos in SAN FRANCISCO may be in San Francisco (though it's doubtful); the best tacos in CALIFORNIA are in the greater Los Angeles area, in one of the places -- probably a truck

Agreed, I grew up in S.F., and the best burritos are at La Taqueria (in fact S.F. in general is the best place in the U.S. for burritos). However the best tacos come from a truck called El Matador, which usually parks on Western near the 101 in L.A.

As far as NYC goes, when I lived there in the late '80s, there was one halfway decent Mexican restaurant in the whole five boroughs - The Hat on the Lower East Side (Suffolk & Rivington, I think). There was also a joint called Benny's Burritos, which claimed to make "S.F.-style burritos", but fell far short of that promise.

Try finding a taco in London, today.

I have a bootleg recording of the Flying Burrito Brothers performing at the Fillmore East in NYC circa 1970 or 71. Between songs they have to explain what a burrito is to their uncomprehending audience.

Now that I think about it, the best tacos in California may well be at La Super Rica, on Milpas St. in Santa Barbara.

Absolutely. Made from wet corn paste right in front of you.

My mom grew up a few miles from the Mexican border, and living in California we had tacos often in the fifties.

I was as surprised as anyone to find in NY even into the '80s, in a place renowned for its food, "Mexican food" was basically pizza topping on a tortilla.

I had a killer Mexican meal just the other day, from a truck that had pulled up to serve a Hispanic construction crew. Cooked in the truck, and accompanied by a roasted jalapeno that made my eyeballs sweat.

Spanish is phonetic, so 'tacos' is 'TAW-cose'. You pronounce the 's', and the penultimate vowel is accented. If you speak Spanish and have an accent, your 'que queres vos, unos tacos?" might come out as "que quere' vo', uno' taco'?" - but you've just suppressed the 's', it's not that that the 's' is unvocalized.

Of course, if you're saying that then you're a high-brow Argentine, since most Argentines have never heard of tacos. (And abhor anything spicy - even table pepper. They get salt and pepper shakers in pairs because they're manufactured imports, and use them as salt and salt shakers.)

"El Paso, 1948, my landlady, Mrs. Villalobos, stacked corn tortillas like pancakes after first placing them on a grill, dipping them in a red enchilada sauce, layering them with grated cheese and chopped onions, and then popping the plates in the oven for a few minutes. Never had anything like it, before or since. Wonderful!"

well, try ordering "enchiladas". most places you will probably get them rolled instead of stacked and mostly you will have to decline the "chicken, beef, shrimp, whatever, extra charge", but I've had good ones as far north as hillsboro, OR. furthermore they aren't difficult to make yourself, you just need a good recipe for the sauce (hint: if it doesn't contain lard, be suspicious).

"Tex-Mex..." the stuff you get in northern new mexico can't be called texmex because the spanish population got there long before texas and stayed, but it is still called "mexican food" locally. and mexico is a big place, lumping it all under "texmex" is kind of like lumping british and french food together.

I'm from southern California, and live about a mile from Manhattan. You can't get good tacos here. The concept of "Mexican food" is off-base. Burritos are filled with rice and blackbeans, with a little meat. Refried beans, where available, are not really refried. Nothing is cooked in lard. I don't understand the market failure--there are a lot of Mexicans here, but the typical "Mexican" restaurant hasn't improved in 20 years. There's just nothing like Las Quince Letras in Santa Paula, Casa de Soria in Ventura, and whatever that place is called in San Juan Capistrano off 101.

a small discovery:

there is a super,truly tremendous amt. of information(history,origin,EVERYTHING you can think of) on pizza and tacos on wikipedia (espec-
ially if you click on and run down ALL the links).

Kevin, in 1952, I would guess tacos and other Mexican food weren't easy to find in Los Angeles, outside of Olvera Street and a few Mexican enclaves. L.A. in the early fifties was still the domain of relocated midwesterners; the Asian and Latin American influx wouldn't really begin for at least another decade.

Great thread. I love region-based discussions of food and the ways immigration patterns have influenced eats. The damn chains have blandified our American cuisine almost to death; it's always good to run into so many people who care about real food, interesting food, and throw in a lot of handy restaurant suggestions to boot.

If you want some authentic Mexican food, go to Pilsen.

Yes, or Little Village. Re Frontera: Rick Bayless' stuff could hardly be called authentic Mexican. It's just great food. Haven't been there in ages; perhaps this weekend now that y'all have reminded me.

I think the author of the novel was being ironic or poking fun at the pretensions of upper class New Yorkers that they would consider the equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich an exotic gourmet item.

Surprised no one has mentioned that Wouk also was having some fun at the idea of ethnic food being scary when served by the ethnic people in question. Or perhaps he really did mean that if you want Mexican food, better not trust a filthy Mexican to cook it.

Now that I think about it, the best tacos in California may well be at La Super Rica, on Milpas St. in Santa Barbara.
Posted by: ElTaquitoGrande

That is correct. Take it from a southern Californian.

A couple of people have made this point already, but I just have to chime in and defend the current state of NYC Mexican food. Mexicans are the fastest-growing ethnic group in New York City and it's showing in the food. A couple of posters have already mentioned Sunset Park, Brooklyn and Jackson Heights and Corona, which are in Queens (here's a good compendium of Mexican options there), all of which have lots of great Mexican food (and I'm saying this as someone who grew up in Chicago and traveled in California, Oaxaca, and Mexico City and ate tons of great food there). All over the Bronx, in East Harlem, in Bushwick are tasty Mexican restaurants now. And don't get me started on the soccer fields in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

In "The Caine Mutiny" (1951), Wouk is careful to explain what pizza is, when his characters go slumming in NYC.

DavisDem:"PTate you're going to judge Mexican food based upon Taco Bell?"

I have also had Mexican food at highly recommended restaurants in Arizona and California, and while that was better than Taco Bell, my basic lack of interest remains. It is fine for a novel change, but I just don't find it is a very interesting cuisine. It lacks subtlety and range. I believe American enthusiasm for Mexican cuisine has little to do with Mexican food, per se, and much to do with a desire to demonstrate solidarity with Mexican immigrants and their culture.

I will speculate again that the reason New York has few good Mexican restaurants is because NYC has lots of great restaurants and different food traditions. When competing head to head in the marketplace, Mexican cuisine will fall behind Japanese, Jewish, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Spanish, Caribbean, North African, Middle Eastern, and Georgian cuisines, to name a few.

As for tacos being unknown in New York City, circa 1952...I remember MAD magazine, circa 1958, joking about how hard it was to eat the novelty food, "pizza." In the Midwest, we didn't even know what pizza was, then. Hard to believe that, now.

PTate...try real Oaxacan (admittedly hard to find)

chuck is incorrect. "mole" just means "sauce". there are literally hundreds of moles. some hot, some sweet, some sour, some bitter...most usually balanced between all of the above

unfortunately...the only mole that most Americans know (and practically the only mole one can find in all 5 boroughs of NY cause NY Mexican sucks...in Queens too) is mole poblano (the chocolate one)...which can be quite good...but there are so many more...especially the fabled 7 of Oaxaca.

cause NY Mexican sucks...in Queens too

Bullshit. Not in my nabe.

I've also been in Mexican restaurants here in Jackson Heights and also in Corona where I'm the only Anglosajon in the place and the place is filled with Mexican immigrants. If it "sucks" in Queens, then it certainly doesn't suck for the Mexicans who line up by the food carts and fill the restaurants to overflowing.

First time my mom met my dad's parents, in Chicago in 1962, my grandmother served tacos. My mom had no idea what they were or how to eat them. Just like my grandmother to come up with such a devious choice to serve her eager-to-please future daughter-in-law.

I remember MAD magazine, circa 1958, joking about how hard it was to eat the novelty food, "pizza." In the Midwest, we didn't even know what pizza was, then. Hard to believe that, now.

And yet my non-Italian parents, who were then kids, were eating it in the early 1950s in St. Louis. All a matter of perspective.

Randy Paul:

like I said, look at the emigration patterns. unfortunately, NY didn't get a cross-section of Mexico. I do get bored with Pueblan cuisine (which is what you get in Queens).

with all respect, you can't know what you're talking about until you've eaten Mexican across the U.S. and across Mexico. you have no basis for comparison. that Pueblan cuisine is better in Sunset Park than in Manhattan is a no-brainer. that doesn't mean that it stands up nationally, cause it doesn't.

Ptate:
You must not have grown up with any Mexican-influenced food.

I was in Italy for 2 weeks this summer, having authentic home-cooked fare with special olive oil, edible weeds ripped from medieval steps, real Italian pizza, truffles, artisanal gelato that made you feel you'd died and gone to heaven. About a week into it I was desperately craving anything remotely Mexican flavored.

Seriously, if I had to choose between having access to that gelato or to Mexican-flavored food, I would have to choose the latter. And that's saying something, coming from a sweet-tooth who appreciates near-death ice cream experiences.

Nathan,

No doubt you know the old saying about opinions.

Nathan,

For the record, I'm not in Sunset Park as Sunset Park is in Brooklyn. One of my favorite places specializes in Comida Estilo DF. While the Distrito Federal is near Puebla, it is not Puebla. Another specializes in seafood. Last time I looked Puebla was landlocked.

I've also lived on both coasts and spent time in Mexico and Texas. Yes, Oaxacan food is excellent, yes the majority of Mexican immigrants in NYC are Pueblan, but simply because you get bored with Pueblan cuisine doesn't mean I don't knwo what I'm talking about.

Moved to NYC from Austin in 1984, sushi bars were hot. Could not find good or bad Mexican food anywhere. No Tex-Mex, no Cal-Mex, no interior Mex, nothing.

By the time I moved away in 85, some of the sushi bars were going under and the hot new thing, Mexican food, was popping up here and there. The best at the time was Tortilla Flats on West 10th or 11th, although they put too much cilantro in everything. Still, it was nice to find Mexican food at all in Manhattan, even if a plate of cheese enchiladas started at about 20 bucks.

...Another recollection:
Flying home to Dallas after a business trip to NYC circa 1990, we were served a tasty chicken and cheese burrito snack. At the time airlines were starting to experiment with actual edible food (right before they quit serving food altogether on many flights).

Behind me was an elderly couple from NYC who bitched high and low about the food. Didn't know what it was, thought it was appalling. They asked the flight attendant why they had to eat "ethnic" food just because they were flying to Texas. The F.A. patiently pointed out that this wasn't just for flights to Texas, all flights had burritos and other new varieties of snacks.

Regardless, it seemed to ruin the couple's day.

I grew up in Massachusetts and I didn't know what pizza was until I was 12 or 13 (about 1966). Then, in junior high, it turned up on the cafeteria menu. Before then, I had the vague idea that it was some sort of soup.

Librul: "You must not have grown up with any Mexican-influenced food."

That is true. My mother was a wonderful cook, but the menu was solidly WASP--roast beef or baked chicken, fresh fruits and vegetables, tossed green salads with vinaigrette dressing, waldorf salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, lots of soups, baked beans and brown bread, fresh herbs for flavoring--although she also had Asian Indian, Middle Eastern and Chinese dishes in her repetoire. The conventional wisdom now is that this is boring, bland, etc, but I have always found it fresh, full of variety, healthy and easy to fix.

Perhaps I will someday find Mexican food that will blow me away. I like cilantro, but I have always called it coriander. So perhaps I am eating what others would call "Mexican" already, just not identifying it as such.

Your experience with Italian food interests me. I may have had a similar experience a couple years ago after a visit to Umbria. Two weeks of extraordinary Italian food followed by two years of resistence to anything with pasta in it.

La Super Rica, on Milpas St. in Santa Barbara in my opinion is nothing special. It made it into Zagat's and now because of that hype there's a line of LA turistas every weekend waiting for lunch. It's fine food, but not any better than many taquieras mentioned on the tacohunt blog.

Hard to find tacos in NY in 1952? I'd think so. Even 20 or so years later, when a little upstairs joint called "The Texas Taco" opened on Third Ave just north, I think, of 42nd, it aroused a lot of curiosity ("Tacos? WTF are tacos?"). The place didn't last all that long, as I recall.

RP: we're probably at some sort of agreement.

NY has good Pueblan and there's a decent Mexico-city style place that opened in Manhattan in the last year.

but yeah, I'm bored with Pueblan. what we don't have is cuisine that represents most of Mexico...and the new Chilies & Chocolate in Park Slope (our first Oaxacan restaurant) ain't so good. and our haute Mexican sucks. we're the greatest food city in North America but a couple other cities kick our ass when it comes to Mexican overall.

Nathan,

Well we can't have everything!

BTW, here's a question. What would you nominate for most disappointing cuisine in an otherwise world class city? I vote for Venice.

The cuisine in Dublin was atrocious. Good Guinness, though.

La Super Rica, on Milpas St. in Santa Barbara in my opinion is nothing special. It made it into Zagat's and now because of that hype there's a line of LA turistas every weekend waiting for lunch. It's fine food, but not any better than many taquieras mentioned on the tacohunt blog.

When did you have it? I ate it mostly in the late 80's early nineties. Maybe it's not as good anymore. But no way it wasn't special. You would have to lack taste buds to say that.

Shortstop says: "my non-Italian parents, who were then kids, were eating [pizza] in the early 1950s in St. Louis."

That wasn't pizza, it was toasted ravioli DISGUISED as pizza.

I'm not a fan of venice but you can eat very well there. the secret is, except for a couple restaurants (like Alle Testiere), you have to just eat cichetti...especially the crudi (raw seafood)...that's amazing and you'll find varieties unavailable anywhere else as they're endemic to the Venetian Lagoon. things like scampi (similar to a langoustine..but better) -- pedantic note: "scampi" is not the Italian word for "shrimp" despite many (not-Italian) websites and restaurants telling you otherwise. "gamberetti" is Italian for "shrimp")

Nathan says, of New York City: "we're the greatest food city in North America...."

Apparently Nathan has not visited Los Angeles recently.

Over at Emdashes, we have found that The New Yorker confirms Wouk. It's actually pretty funny. See here:
http://emdashes.com/2007/08/1974-tacos-first-spotted-in-ny.php

Links are fun too.

"When did you have it? I ate it mostly in the late 80's early nineties. Maybe it's not as good anymore. But no way it wasn't special. You would have to lack taste buds to say that."

Late 90s, so yeah maybe it's changed. I'm not saying it's bad. It's good and I love Mexican food. I'm just saying it seems to be hyped up (kinda like Austin, TX being such a great town, it's fine but it's still in Texas). You find it in all of tourist materials for Santa Barbara, but to me the best Mexican food in SB is Rose's Cafe. I prefer taco trucks and the many "___bertos" found in San Diego.

Tacos arrived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in the late '60s. I had a boyfriend who refused to eat them because he thought it was weird to mix hot (meat and beans) and cold (lettuce and tomatoes) ingredients in one dish. I remember asking him what he put on his hamburgers. We broke up not long after...

"The cuisine in Dublin was atrocious. Good Guinness, though."

To Honest Partisan: you don't know what you missed. Get in your time machine and visit Ireland in 1969 and you'd be amazed how boring food can be. The only respite in four weeks of travel: a Chinese restaurant in Galway, which was just so-so, and therefore far better than its competition.

But now, with the advent of the EU and all those tourists all over all of Ireland, the food is actually not so bad. At least at the expensive places that tourists frequent.

Guinness, on the other hand, has also changed, but not for the better. I remember it being served at room temperature, not chilled, after the ritual knocking off of the head (two or three times). Does anyone else recall this or am I delusional?

Nathan,

Cichetti was the only really good meal I had in Venice. God we ate so much better in Florence, Siena, Lucca, Rome and Parma.

I remember it being served at room temperature, not chilled, after the ritual knocking off of the head (two or three times). Does anyone else recall this or am I delusional?

You're not delusional. That's how they used to do it. Sometimes they'd even slice off the head with a knife.

Cichetti was the only really good meal I had in Venice. God we ate so much better in Florence, Siena, Lucca, Rome and Parma.

Mmmhmmm. Venice needs to give it a rest with all that nasty-ass cuttlefish. But there are great restaurants in Venice, though fewer than in the cities you mention. And oddly enough, some of the best Jewish food I've ever had came from the Ghetto there.

That wasn't pizza, it was toasted ravioli DISGUISED as pizza.

Ha! You may be right.

Shortstop,

I stayed in Cannareggio and visited the Ghetto a lot. I liked the dolci ebraici.

Mmmmmm, dolci ebraici. Great photos, Randy; I looked at all of them and enjoyed the views and the memories.

Dorsoduro is also a fun neighborhood to stay in--not quite as far out of the crowds as Cannareggio, but definitely out of the tourist stampede, and since it's the university quarter, it has a good, energetic vibe.

I really want to go to Venice during the winter acqua alta, but mr. shortstop keeps nixing the idea.

I see your wife is Brazilian. We went to Brazil last year and found it to be no slouch in the cuisine department, either, especially those Amazonian fruits that aren't found anywhere else in the world. Yum.

The best tacos in California are at Miguel's, two blocks south of the checkpoint in Tecate. You can walk across in ten minutes. Bring a passport.

I live in SFO, and I make a yearly pilgrimage to that place. Yes, King Taco in Los Angeles is good. So is El Balazo in SFO (along with countless other places). Not as good as Miguel's.

The experience is sublime. Go. You'll see.

PTate in FR: "I believe American enthusiasm for Mexican cuisine has little to do with Mexican food, per se, and much to do with a desire to demonstrate solidarity with Mexican immigrants and their culture."

Dude. You need to get over that right-the-fnork now. Crack open a history book and look at a map. See that big-ass swatch of land on the west coast including California and a whole bunch of other states? That used to be Mexico. Californians have been making and eating Mexican cuisine since before the freaking Americans first raised the Stars and Stripes here in 1846.

It's our goddamn culture.

Yes, there are tacos in NYC. Even street tacos. In fact, this awesome GoogleMaps mashup of "Obscure Street Found in Eastern Jackson Heights" by Jim Leff of Chowhound shows you where to find all the best street food in that nabe, arguably the most diverse neighborhood in the universe:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=115495487393878104919.00000111c286a9eac4500

As you'll see, there's lots of Mexican food including a Quesadilla Lady, Two Ladies Taco Cart, El Fogoncito #2 Taco Truck, Churro Woman, Tamales Ladies and a Perplexingly Glamorous Helados Babe, among others. 'Nuff said.

Martin Gale said: As a near-complete aside, I saw the name "Taco Bell" mentioned a few times in the thread, and thought I'd trot out one of my favorite bits of trivia: their meat is boiled in a bag, and their beans are re-hydrated. People who love Taco Bell food hate being told that, in my experience.

Doesn't bother me in the least, and I love Taco Bell.

I don't confuse the Bell with real Mexican, or even real Tex-Mex, but whatever you want to call it, it's cheap and, by fast-food standards, quite good.

Californians have been making and eating Mexican cuisine since before the freaking Americans first raised the Stars and Stripes here in 1846. It's our goddamn culture.

Excellent post. On a barely related note, some friends of mine are living in Wiesbaden for a bit, and they find it amusing--but welcome--that the local grocery's American section (festooned with strings of U.S. flags) is all Mexican food.

Shortstop,

Fruit and ice cream are my favorite foods in Brazil simply because of the varieties you can find there and not here.

I can find açaí here at Whole Foods now.

I really liked Dorsoduro also. On our last day with our vaporetti passes expired and too cheap to buy a one day pass, we walked from Cannareggio through Dorsoduro to San Marco and completed the circuit by going through the opposite end of Cannareggio.

Love my food. All I ask for is a combination of taste and texture. I can't believe people like the brown glop that comes out of Taco Bell. It has more texture coming out of me than it does going in.

Best burritos in California are in Mountain View. La Costena, on Old Middlefield. The taqueria in the back room is popular with the engineering crowd from Sun and whatever is left of SGI. The joint next to it is pretty good too.

I don't believe it.

Over 135 comments about Mexican food, and no one called it 'Taco Hell'.

stuckonsunset: on the high end there's no comparison. heck, SF is a better restaurant city than L.A. so is Chicago.

on the high end there's no comparison

I haven't eaten enough meals in LA to weigh in on that, but I note that the focus of this thread is definitely not "high-end" restaurants.

Fruit and ice cream are my favorite foods in Brazil simply because of the varieties you can find there and not here.

Brazilian ice cream....mmmm. Also the fruit juices. Like nothing I've tasted anywhere else.

Acai at Whole Foods?! WOOT! I know where I'm going on my lunch break!

Late 90s, so yeah maybe it's changed. I'm not saying it's bad. It's good and I love Mexican food. I'm just saying it seems to be hyped up (kinda like Austin, TX being such a great town, it's fine but it's still in Texas). You find it in all of tourist materials for Santa Barbara, but to me the best Mexican food in SB is Rose's Cafe. I prefer taco trucks and the many "___bertos" found in San Diego.

I get what you mean by hyped. Once something catches on in SB you can forget it. But as birkenstock wearing hippies we knew it as some hole in the wall with firey meat and cold horchata to cool us down. Absolute heaven. I haven't tasted anything as good since. Rose's is okay, it never appealed to me the same way. I'm going to hit those taco trucks you talk about next time I'm in San Diego. Good tip.

Shortstop,

Funny, but I have zero desire to return to Venice and it's the only place in Italy I don't want to visit again.

Saw pretty much everything with the exception of a couple of museums.

Enjoy the açaí!

I don't want to drag this too far OT, Randy, so just a quick comment: I've never gotten to spend much time in Venice; we always seem to end up there after having explored other Italian cities at a much more leisurely pace. Some of my favorite travel experiences have involved staying put in one city for a week or two, delving into the rhythm of the place a little bit, finding a favorite coffee bar to hang out in every morning, visiting the markets, seeing the sights slowly instead of trying to cram everything into a few days. And the conversations with locals that come out of those weeks are among the most interesting and satisfying I've ever had.

I'd really like to see Venice during the acqua alta, when it's cold and rainy and there are almost no tourists around. Agree with you that Venetian food is not nearly as good as in other parts of Italy (though there are great meals to be had), but the history and architecture and Middle Eastern influence and general dreaminess of this sinking city appeal to me in the way that finding a hidden path fascinates an eight-year-old. Every time I turn a corner in Venice--and I love that I can only do that on foot in narrow, twisting passages; a carless city is such a treat--I can't wait to see what's coming. It's a box of treasures waiting to be opened.

Don't want to drag this on too much either, but we spent five full days there and that was really enough. Agree with you about turning the corners. It's kind of amazing when you turn a blind corner into a campo.

I would have to agree that the best burritos come from SF except... breakfast burritos all over the valleys in LA.

I freaking hate those things they call breakfast burritos at the fast food chains like sonic and Jack in the box.

Breakfast burritos that are thick and filled with potatoes, eggs, cilantro, salsa, carne asada or chorizo in LA are literally to die for to try.

They can cost like $4.00 but they are a huge meal.

In San Francisco there are lots of experiments that I like with burritos. Very good vegetarian burritos with roasted peppers and veggies and black beans.

Is El Faro still open in SF? I loved that place.

At the Fiesta Supermarket where I live (Dallas)there's a taco stand that sets up shop just inside the front door. Tacos are a buck apiece (carnitas, barbacoa, and lengua) and they are damn fine, especially when washed down with a horchata. As for menudo, I won't touch the stuff, unless my sister-in-law makes it. Then it's sublime.

There's also a place down the street called Chupacabra's that has something called a Diablito (lime shaved ice topped with chili powder) The juxtaposition of cold and chili heat is the bomb.

Is El faro still open in SF?

Behold, the magic of Google!

"It lacks subtlety and range. I believe American enthusiasm for Mexican cuisine has little to do with Mexican food, per se, and much to do with a desire to demonstrate solidarity with Mexican immigrants and their culture."

PTate, that's just not true at all. The problem is that Mexican food presented through most of America sticks to pretty generic stuff, but the different regions throughout the country offer a terriffic amount of range and versatility. It's not all spicy, either. A client of my girlfriend gives us home-cooked meals all the time, ranging from enchiladas to birria (a sort of thick, tender, goat stew), and none of it is spicy at all. Unfortunately, most Mexican food in U.S. restaurants--unless they serve an almost-exclusively Mexican clientele with food from a specific region--is pretty homogenized.

Last year I went to Kansas City and tried their version of mexican food, at several restaurants, and it was all a joke. It couldn't even have been classified as mexican food. I'm from Colorado, and for some reason I presumed that everyone knew what green chile is, and how to make fried chile rellenos. Boy was I glad to get back west.

In New Haven in 1988, they still sold corn tortillas in the can. Made this L.A. native cry his eyes out for home.

Hard shell tacos are an abomination. Flour tortillas do not make tacos - "soft" or otherwise - but they make burritos, a border-area invention.

Best resource to find good, real Mexican, in NYC is nuevayorkguide.com.

Cheap: Nueva Leon on 18th, just east of Ashland
Spendier: Frontera Grill -- Rick Bayless is the chef, and there is possibly no better Mexican food on the planet

OMG, you wrote "spendier"! are you actually from Oregon or Washington State?

Remember my gringo brother in law loving to go during the 60's to eat carne asada tacos (stuffed with guacamole and red salsa), next to the Jaialai in Tijuana (35 cents each). Probaby the best in the world.

I love SF as a restaurant town, but for Mexican food not nearly as good as LA. Not even close.

There hasen't been much discussion of what a taco actually is. I see two, possibly three categories.

1. Chrispy shell w/ground Beef,cheese, lettece and tomato. I call these "whiteboy" tacos. Good for what they are. Nostalgic From the 60-70's
2. Soft Tacos. Come w/ two 4" corn tortillas, roasted & chopped meat (Chicken, beef, pork mainly) mixed w/onion and cilantro. Served with a lime wedge for squeezing on filling.
3. Fish Tacos. Real=grilled fish w/mango-lime or tomatillo salsa. (Not with flour tortilla and that yucky white sauce so many places like to do.)

My fav is the soft taco w/chicken or carnitas (fried pork.) This to me is THE real taco.

I live in Tucson. Texas has nothing to do with Mexican food. New Mexican is hot hot hot. The only good Mexican food in California comes from the taco trucks. I lived about 10 years ago at a place, where from my backyard you could see topless women making flour tortillas at 6 am at the tortilla factory, it's hot here. Want good food? Pico de Gallo...closed for Lent any any other Catholic holiday

"Late 90s, so yeah maybe it's changed. I'm not saying it's bad. It's good and I love Mexican food. I'm just saying it seems to be hyped up (kinda like Austin, TX being such a great town, it's fine but it's still in Texas). You find it in all of tourist materials for Santa Barbara, but to me the best Mexican food in SB is Rose's Cafe. I prefer taco trucks and the many "___bertos" found in San Diego.

I get what you mean by hyped. Once something catches on in SB you can forget it. But as birkenstock wearing hippies we knew it as some hole in the wall with firey meat and cold horchata to cool us down. Absolute heaven. I haven't tasted anything as good since. Rose's is okay, it never appealed to me the same way. I'm going to hit those taco trucks you talk about next time I'm in San Diego. Good tip."

I like Lilly's on Chapala for basic tacos or El Bajio further down on Milpas for more highly-stuffed products. But I do love Super Rica's Queso de Cazuela..

The fact is, American cuisine is the best in the world, for the same reason that English EATS other languages: we steal and re-invent.

Sorry, I just threw up a little in my mouth. Must be what I had for lunch.