Things I find a tad exasperating v.3

[El Barto]

I've moved to soft tacos over the years.

Definitely soft tacos.

You can both get medication for that, eh?

Wrong genitalia, chief.

[El Barto]

Hard and soft tacos each have their place. For the make at home variety crunchy is typically the way to go. At Tex-mex places I'll occasionally get a crunchy taco, usually if it comes with a combo I'm interested in. Mexican tacos are obviously soft. I think the disconnect for me is using crappy flour tortillas for soft tacos. The store bought variety are generally too big, too thick, and too tasteless to work right. All you taste is bland tortilla. Really good, hand made flour tortillas are fine, though. And of course for Mexican tacos they have to be corn.

[Chino]

Hard and soft tacos each have their place. For the make at home variety crunchy is typically the way to go. At Tex-mex places I'll occasionally get a crunchy taco, usually if it comes with a combo I'm interested in. Mexican tacos are obviously soft. I think the disconnect for me is using crappy flour tortillas for soft tacos. The store bought variety are generally too big, too thick, and too tasteless to work right. All you taste is bland tortilla. Really good, hand made flour tortillas are fine, though. And of course for Mexican tacos they have to be corn.

It could be entirely in my head, but I swear taking those bland tortillas and just throwing them in a hot pan for a few seconds on each side so they brown a bit does wonders for the flavor.

[King Postwhore]

Nothing beats fresh tortillas but that's only restaurants up here in N.E.  I'm too lazy to try at home. 

[cramx3]

I go for soft tacos at home.  Just easier and the tortillas are more versatile to use for other types of wraps than the hard taco shells that, as discussed, often break.  I also don't like corn tortillas so flour is the way to go for me, I enjoy the La Banderita brand the most.  The cheap store brand ones suck.

But the double shell is awesome.  I used to love the double decker tacos at taco bell so I would often make those at home myself. 

[El Barto]

Hard and soft tacos each have their place. For the make at home variety crunchy is typically the way to go. At Tex-mex places I'll occasionally get a crunchy taco, usually if it comes with a combo I'm interested in. Mexican tacos are obviously soft. I think the disconnect for me is using crappy flour tortillas for soft tacos. The store bought variety are generally too big, too thick, and too tasteless to work right. All you taste is bland tortilla. Really good, hand made flour tortillas are fine, though. And of course for Mexican tacos they have to be corn.

It could be entirely in my head, but I swear taking those bland tortillas and just throwing them in a hot pan for a few seconds on each side so they brown a bit does wonders for the flavor.

Not in your head. It's a definite improvement. It's still a massive downgrade from good quality tortillas.

Thankfully, down here plenty of grocery stores, Mexican and otherwise, make fresh tortillas throughout the day. Surprisingly, Kroger's probably makes the best of them. If you need tortillas you just stop on the way home, just like you might stop to get a loaf of bred.

[XJDenton]

It could be entirely in my head, but I swear taking those bland tortillas and just throwing them in a hot pan for a few seconds on each side so they brown a bit does wonders for the flavor.

Yeah, you definitely want to heat up the store bought ones to revitalise them. Oddly enough, Sweden doesn't have an extremely active authentic mexican scene so store bought dominates. You'd be horrified at what the Swedes call "Tacos".

[Adami]

It could be entirely in my head, but I swear taking those bland tortillas and just throwing them in a hot pan for a few seconds on each side so they brown a bit does wonders for the flavor.

Yeah, you definitely want to heat up the store bought ones to revitalise them. Oddly enough, Sweden doesn't have an extremely active authentic mexican scene. You'd be horrified at what the Swedes call "Tacos".

Let's see if I can deduce.

I knew a Norwegian guy who would call Swede's Norwegian Mexicans....so....they would call normal sandwiches tacos?

[XJDenton]

No, they call them Smörgås or Macka. And there is also such as thing as smörgåståta, or "Sandwich Cake" for reasons that will only be answered when I die.



Swedish tacos basically have pretty bland ground beef filling as the base, and then mostly fresh tomatoes and salad, and salad cheese/feta.

[cramx3]

I can't tell if that looks absolutely disgusting or absolutely amazing 

[Chino]

Looking at that thing hurts my soul.

[XJDenton]

I mean its essentially all the ingredients of a decent sandwich (albeit with mayo, the inferior sandwich spread), so it tastes fine. I just really fail to see the appeal in taking a food designed to be simple to eat with one hand, and making it into a knife and fork affair.

I can't tell if that looks absolutely disgusting or absolutely amazing 

The answer is, of course, "yes".

[jingle.boy]

I've moved to soft tacos over the years.

Definitely soft tacos.

You can both get medication for that, eh?

Wrong genitalia, chief.

Touche.

[jingle.boy]

I mean its essentially all the ingredients of a decent sandwich (albeit with mayo, the inferior sandwich spread), so it tastes fine. I just really fail to see the appeal in taking a food designed to be simple to eat with one hand, and making it into a knife and fork affair.

[pg1067]

I've moved to soft tacos over the years.

Definitely soft tacos.

You can both get medication for that, eh?

Why not both?



This is how I make tacos. No beans for me though, I use sour cream.

Taco Bell makes (or used to make) something like that called a double decker taco (essentially a regular hard shell taco wrapped with a soft taco shell with refried beans).  I've done it at home, and it absolutely solves the problem of a broken hard shell.  However, the beans tend to compromise the crunchiness of the hard shell, so the last couple bites aren't always great.

[TAC]

I've moved to soft tacos over the years.

Definitely soft tacos.

You can both get medication for that, eh?

Er...still soft.

[XJDenton]

Happens to the best of us.

[Ben_Jamin]

I've moved to soft tacos over the years.

Definitely soft tacos.

You can both get medication for that, eh?

Why not both?



This is how I make tacos. No beans for me though, I use sour cream.

Beans in Tacos? You'd get laughed at here for putting beans in Tacos. Now its a different story if it's a "Native" Taco. 

That reminds me when Rachel Ray made her version of Posole. She got roasted over here. Then you have people here having a term called "gringo chili" which is that Frito pie mix you call chili with beans, and meat.

Now I want a taco and maybe a Frito pie. 

[King Postwhore]

I think Brian is talking refried beans.

[TAC]

The TACo...

Soft tortilla
taco meat
cheese

Maybe lettuce and tomato.

[Ben_Jamin]

I think Brian is talking refried beans.

Still, we don't really put beans in our tacos. When people think and want a taco, it does not involve beans. When you go to a Mexican food restaurant here, you'll get a taco plate with a side of beans, Spanish rice, and a sopapilla.

You can get a bean and cheese burrito, or a Tostada, if you want beans. 

I love how it's the same ingredients but utilized in many different ways to eat them. 

[King Postwhore]

add salsa and sour cream for me.

Ben, I don't either. I love black beans and rice on the side. 

[Ben_Jamin]

add salsa and sour cream for me.

Ben, I don't either. I love black beans and rice on the side.

Good. You're not weird then. 

[King Postwhore]

My brother used to mock me for mixing my corn with mashed potatoes.  He was the weirdo growing up that food couldn't touch each other on his plate.  No, I mock him because he likes it.

[pg1067]

I think Brian is talking refried beans.

Still, we don't really put beans in our tacos. When people think and want a taco, it does not involve beans. When you go to a Mexican food restaurant here, you'll get a taco plate with a side of beans, Spanish rice, and a sopapilla.

You can get a bean and cheese burrito, or a Tostada, if you want beans. 

I love how it's the same ingredients but utilized in many different ways to eat them. 

Not sure where you are, but here in Socal, beans in a taco (except for the aforementioned Taco Bell double-decker) is an aberration.

[cramx3]

I don't really care for what is traditionally in a taco, the taco bell double decker with the refried beans was great.  I don't typically put beans in my tacos either, but in the case of using it moreso as a "glue" to keep the shells together, it works perfectly.  People can laugh all they want, if it's good to me that is all that matters.

[Stadler]

Some people just want to live their lives and not be dragged into every social justice fight. 

If only oppressed minorities had that option. In any case, silence may or may not be complicity, but it certainly makes the job of people who are complicit much easier.

That's the fallacy, of course. 

[Stadler]

You can't make your Ivory Tower comments to Kev, and then get all defensive when it gets turned back on you.

Your flaw is assuming that I believe that I am non-complicit. In any case, my reply to you was a comment on the quality of your argument, not my character (i.e. I could be a raging hypocrite and still be correct.)

The concept of silence/apathy enabling bad people is not even a new concept or argument. John Stuart Mills was saying such in 1867.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.

That just means that John Stuart Mills was wrong from the get go.  I think we're also stretching the conversation here, in the sense that watching someone get assaulted and doing nothing, for example, is not the same thing as the "silence is complicity" argument of today. It's much more a blunt instrument today.   It's not the "doing something" that is at issue today, it's going through the motions and playing the perception game.   Take Trump for example; I'm largely silent on him, but that's not "complicity" nor is it helping him that I don't join the irrational braying on social media about Trump's behavior.  Twitter is a veritable Roman orgy led by Caligula now that the Trump Organization has been indicted.  Most of that nonsense I don't join not to help Trump, but because that reaction is AS harmful if not MORE harmful than the things Trump has done.   

"Silence is complicity" fails outright the second you fail to account for intent (and we know most of the identity politics/social justice movement today not only fails to account for intent, but pruposefully does not want to account for intent, because it's messy.)

[Ben_Jamin]

I think Brian is talking refried beans.

Still, we don't really put beans in our tacos. When people think and want a taco, it does not involve beans. When you go to a Mexican food restaurant here, you'll get a taco plate with a side of beans, Spanish rice, and a sopapilla.

You can get a bean and cheese burrito, or a Tostada, if you want beans. 

I love how it's the same ingredients but utilized in many different ways to eat them. 

Not sure where you are, but here in Socal, beans in a taco (except for the aforementioned Taco Bell double-decker) is an aberration.

Hilariously, this article appeared on my Facebook feed from a local morning show.

https://www.newmexicomagazine.org/blog/post/best-new-mexico-foods/

NOTHING BURNS OUR BURRITOS like hearing people—including otherwise knowledgeable foodies—refer to New Mexico’s cuisine as “Tex-Mex” or “Mexican.”

The confusion is understandable to a point. Yes, we share staples—chiles, posole, tortillas, and beans, for instance—but our only-in-New-Mexico spin is a centuries-old distillation of Native foraging and cultivation, Spanish colonial imports, and a long period of geographic isolation, before the railways began offloading edibles from elsewhere.

“It’s really important to understand that New Mexican food, as similar as it is to Mexican in some respects, grew up independently,” says Bill Jamison, co-author with our culinary editor Cheryl Alters Jamison of Tasting New Mexico: Recipes Celebrating 100 Years of Distinctive Home Cooking (Museum of New Mexico Press). “There was little influence back and forth between what is now New Mexico and Mexico in the 17th and 18th centuries. A wagon train would come up every two or three years and bring nice things for the rich folks in the area, but not for the general population. Chile became a dominant feature in this period of isolation.”

That’s why when you walk into a classic New Mexican restaurant, or are lucky enough to sit down at a traditional New Mexican home-cooked dinner, you won’t be served a Oaxacan tamale filled with chicken mole and wrapped in a banana leaf. You also won’t be eating crispy-shelled tacos filled with refried beans and topped with shredded Velveeta and sour cream, followed by fried ice cream. You’ll tuck into some of this: stacked red chile enchiladas, green chile stew, chiles rellenos, pinto beans, chicos, carne adovada, a basket of sopaipillas or horno bread, and natillas (custard topped with cinnamon) or biscochitos for dessert.

[Ben_Jamin]

I don't really care for what is traditionally in a taco, the taco bell double decker with the refried beans was great.  I don't typically put beans in my tacos either, but in the case of using it moreso as a "glue" to keep the shells together, it works perfectly. People can laugh all they want, if it's good to me that is all that matters.

If you were to come here, some people would just tell you to get a Tostada, a flat corn tortilla with beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions. 

[cramx3]

If I wanted a tostada, I would get one and not a taco.

[Ben_Jamin]

If I wanted a tostada, I would get one and not a taco.

  It's all in jest.

[XJDenton]

You can't make your Ivory Tower comments to Kev, and then get all defensive when it gets turned back on you.

Your flaw is assuming that I believe that I am non-complicit. In any case, my reply to you was a comment on the quality of your argument, not my character (i.e. I could be a raging hypocrite and still be correct.)

The concept of silence/apathy enabling bad people is not even a new concept or argument. John Stuart Mills was saying such in 1867.

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.

That just means that John Stuart Mills was wrong from the get go.  I think we're also stretching the conversation here, in the sense that watching someone get assaulted and doing nothing, for example, is not the same thing as the "silence is complicity" argument of today. It's much more a blunt instrument today.   It's not the "doing something" that is at issue today, it's going through the motions and playing the perception game.   Take Trump for example; I'm largely silent on him, but that's not "complicity" nor is it helping him that I don't join the irrational braying on social media about Trump's behavior.  Twitter is a veritable Roman orgy led by Caligula now that the Trump Organization has been indicted.  Most of that nonsense I don't join not to help Trump, but because that reaction is AS harmful if not MORE harmful than the things Trump has done.   

"Silence is complicity" fails outright the second you fail to account for intent (and we know most of the identity politics/social justice movement today not only fails to account for intent, but pruposefully does not want to account for intent, because it's messy.)

I'm going to be honest Stads, since Kev and TAC have both made it clear they have no desire to continue this line of conversation, and I feel like I have a bought of (non-covid hopefully) flu coming on and am therefore pretty mentally foggy atm, for the sake of not steering the thread further off-topic in this direction I'd rather we just leave the conversation here if you're ok with that. Rest assured I'm sure we'll inevitably discuss the concept over in P/R at some point. Hell, its probably an interesting enough topic for its own thread if you like.

[pg1067]

NOTHING BURNS OUR BURRITOS

I once dated a girl from ABQ who educated me a bit about the idea that "New Mexican" food is NOT Mexican food (she also insisted that her family was Spanish and NOT Mexican).  Of course, it's been 30 years, so I've forgotten pretty much all of it.

[El Barto]

NOTHING BURNS OUR BURRITOS

Ironically, as a proud proponent of Tex-Mex, I'm pretty keen on maintaining the distinction, myself. 

I like posole and chili verde as much as the next guy. When I'm in that neck of the woods it's what I seek out. I certainly prefer TM in a big way, though. And honestly, I prefer Mexican, too.