Thursday, August 19, 2010

What's Going on North of the Border?

After having traversed Mexico City for a month and a half I’d like to talk about Taco Bell (cue all my Mexican friends saying “te dije.”)


Now the question is: why has a guy, just coming back from the capitol of Mexican culture, Mexico City, want to all of a sudden write about Taco Bell? I'll admit it is peculiar, especially since I just spent a month and a half trying to convince people in Mexico that the U.S. doesn’t even consider Taco Bell Mexican food. You see this is how a lot of my conversations went:


Me: You know, the U.S. has a lot of good Mexican food.

Mexican friend: (No mames guey) No way dude, all you guys have over there is Taco Bell.

Me: Sigh (then I usually had to listen to a long explanation about how real Mexican food is different than Taco Bell)


So by writing about Taco Bell I have now just given all my friends in Mexico reason to say “I told you so” or more likely “te dije.” But hear me out.


You see I’m visiting my mom for a couple of weeks and being at her house means that I’m watching “regular” T.V. for the first time in a long while. Don’t get me wrong. I watch a lot of T.V. in Chicago, my current hometown. However, the T.V. I watch in Chicago is online and consequently has no commercials. So, being at home and watching “regular” T.V. has allowed me to see a lot of new commercials like the one for Taco Bell’s new ”cantina tacos.”


These new “cantina tacos” are very different from anything Taco Bell has done in the past. These tacos are filled with diced meat, topped with chopped onion and cilantro, wrapped around not one, but two corn tortillas then finished with a lime wedge for both presentation and use.


This style of taco may seem new to some, but to anyone that has eaten Mexican food (on either side of the border) from a street, stand or trailer* this is not new but in fact the norm. I know this is the norm for sure in Mexico City because I just came from there, but I’ve also had similar tacos on Southmost in Brownsville, Riverside in Austin and Hilcroft in Houston.** Now, I don’t like using the A word, but I’ll do it in this case because I’m pretty sure it’s what Taco Bell is going for: Taco Bell is trying to be more Authentic.



During this past two decades Mexican restaurant owners have come to know the word authentic very intimately. That is because authenticity became a top priority when judging Mexican food and consequently became synonymous with “good quality.” I have yet to read a review or hear a comment where someone said or wrote that the Mexican food they tasted was extremely authentic but absolutely disgusting. This can happen. I have had experiences that have necessitated this response.*** Nonetheless, it seems that even fast food restaurants like Taco Bell, have begun to buckle under the pressure that is authenticity.


What has surprised me though, is that I didn’t think places like Taco Bell would ever care about such a nuanced quality. I believe in calling things the way they are. As the famed intellectual Dr. Phil says, “Don’t pee on my back and tell me it’s raining.” Or in this case, don’t put your product in a corn tortilla then serve it with a lime and tell me it’s Mexican food. I thought Taco Bell stopped caring about being Mexican a long time ago, why do they all of a sudden care? Their “bread and butter” has always been making crazy menu items like the Enchurrito and the Double Decker Taco. These items attract the people who are not in the mood for authenticity and it works.


Whereas Taco Bell seems to be chasing an impossible standard, KFC has gone in a different direction with their famed Double Down. For a whole two months in 2009 I can remember hearing friends talk about how the Double Down sandwich was “so ridiculous.” This sandwich put cheese and bacon in between two slices of fried chicken. I thought it was genius and although I have not tried one yet, I would sure as heck do that before I ever tried the “cantinas tacos.”


But that’s the thing with the business of food, you never quite no what will work and what won’t. As I’m writing this, lines all over the country may be forming outside of every Taco Bell across the nation with people screaming for “cantina tacos.” Taco Bell may become the single largest employer in all the U.S. from all the people they need to help make these new tacos because they are in such demand. In fact, Taco Bell may bring us out of the economic slump we’re in and then get awarded medals for their contribution to the U.S. market and culture. All this may happen. But if it does, I just hope to hell none of my friends in Mexico see it happen because I know they’ll all happily look at me and say “te dije.”


*Some of the new Mexican restaurants in Austin such as Garrido’s and Condesa feature (very expensive) versions of what I’ve just outlined. There’s probably a lot of restaurants that do this too, however I think it is much more typical in the street, stand, trailer category.


**These are all streets not eating places. The actual names of the places have probably changed because they were stands and trailers. I don’t remember what the place on Southmost was called, but the one on Hilcroft was called Tacos Porky and the one on Riverside I believe was called Al Pastor.


*** Pulque is one of the items that I tried in Mexico that I thought needed tinkering to be good. I had one at a nice restaurant that had been filtered and it was o.k. Then I had one that made it more traditionally, and I thought it was less than o.k. In this case I thought the more authentic pulque got, the less palatable it became. However, this is just an opinion.


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