Who invented crunchy tacos

A photo posted by Albert Palomares. With Lent fast approaching, why not try out this recipe during the day season. Hungry for more? Sign up for the First We Feast Newsletter. Tags taco, Gustavo Arellano. There is evidence that the hard taco shell existed in U. Mexican restaurants nearly a decade before they were used in Taco Bell. In fact, it is rumored that hard tacos are so popular because they stay fresh for much longer when compared to soft tortillas. Bell, in search of the taco version of the McDonald's hamburger, invented the preformed taco shell.

It was so popular, Tex-Mex restaurants began frying their own taco shells, clipping tortillas to a bent coffee can and frying them in oil.

And from there, the crispy yellow shell swept the nation. Taco Bell is an American-based chain of fast food restaurants originating in Irvine, California in , by founder Glen Bell. The restaurants serve a variety of Mexican-inspired foods , that include: tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, novelty and specialty items, along with a variety of "value menu" items.

Unlike the Mexican dish that inspired them, American tacos are typically made with flour tortillas, hard taco shells, and topped with lettuce, tomato, and shredded cheese via Fix. The salsa in American tacos also tends to be mild rather than spicy and comes from a store instead of being made from scratch.

The 5. They get fried into a taco shape using this contraption, which has also been used to shape other things at Taco Bell, like the Waffle Taco. The argument for the hard shell is simple: It has more salt. And if American cooking has taught us anything, it's that a little more salt makes everything taste better. The spices of the shell complement the flavors held inside and add an extra kick to their punch. These foods also had social connotations.

So the patriots, the Mexican nationals, wanted to claim that they were really Mexican. So mole poblano, which is a turkey in this chili pepper sauce—very spicy—was considered somewhere in between [upper and lower class]. It was not associated with the Natives who were still alive; it was associated with the glories of the Aztecs. When did the taco first make an appearance in the U. What groups were instrumental in making it popular here?

The first mention that I have seen [in the U. In the United States, Mexican food was seen as street food, lower-class food. It was associated with a group of women called the Chili Queens and with tamale pushcarts in Los Angeles. The Chili Queens of San Antonio were street vendors who earned a little extra money by selling food during festivals.

When tourists started arriving in the s with the railroad, these occasional sales started to become a nightly event. Mexico was considered a dangerous place. The Chili Queens were a way of sampling that danger, but not at the risk of being robbed by bandits. I think that image of [something] exotic, slightly dangerous, but still appealing has really persisted with Mexican food.

The children of those migrants who came in or are starting to advance economically. A lot of Mexican American tacos are really adaptations of Mexican food to the ingredients that are available through the U.

Hamburger instead of offal meat. They came up north to San Bernardino — the rail yard is still there, but there were opportunities to work in California in the mid to late s, so he brought my grandmother up.

I want to say they had three kids at the time, possibly four, and then just set up some roots in San Bernardino. Her husband — his name was Vincente — passed away and she remarried, then took the name Rodriguez.

Salvador Rodriguez [her second husband] helped her take the restaurant to the next steps and make it larger. He used to come over and try and understand why there was a line of people to eat tacos. Some time after that, in the mids, he created a restaurant called Taco Tia and started selling tacos out of a side window. She came to a new country with her young family looking for better opportunities.

Along the way she opened Mitla Cafe, creating a place where her food comforted and filled generations of people from through today. Thank you, grandma, for everything! Bell wanted in on the blossoming Southern California fast-food trend, and he bet successfully that even non-Mexicans would bite on the concept of casual, toned-down tacos. Pilcher: Glen Bell had seen Mexican restaurants in San Bernardino where they made tacos, but they did them one at a time and it took too long, as he described it in his authorized biography , so he wanted to apply Yankee ingenuity to speed up the process, so people could get their tacos faster.