Hard-shell taco

Description

The most common form of the hard-shell taco is a U-shaped, crisp-fried corn tortilla filled with seasoned ground beef, cheese, lettuce, and sometimes tomato, onion, salsa, sour cream, and avocado or guacamole. Restaurants and fast food chains sell these tacos, and kits are widely available in supermarkets. In Spanish, hard-shell tacos are sometimes called tacos dorados, a name shared with taquitos.

History

Various individuals have been credited with inventing the hard-shell taco, though some form of the dish likely predates any single claim. By the early 20th century, different types of tacos had become popular in the United States, especially in Texas and California. An early description of a fried, presumably crispy taco appeared in the 1914 cookbook California Mexican-Spanish Cookbook by Bertha Haffner Ginger. By the late 1930s, companies such as Ashley Mexican Food and Absolute Mexican Foods were selling appliances and ingredients for cooking hard-shell tacos, and the first patents for cooking appliances were filed in the 1940s.

A recipe for a hard-shell taco first appeared in a cookbook in 1949, in The Good Life: New Mexican food by Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert. Her recipe used a two-stage frying method: white corn tortillas were dipped in hot lard or oil briefly to make them pliable, then filled with meat, onion, and celery, folded into a U-shape, pinned with a toothpick, and fried again until golden and crisp. Juvencio Maldonado, a restaurant owner from Oaxaca living in New York, received a patent in 1950 for a hard-shell taco-making machine.

In the mid-1950s, Glen Bell opened Taco Tia and began selling a simplified version of the tacos dorados sold by Lucia and Salvador Rodriguez in San Bernardino. Bell later owned four El Taco restaurants before opening the first Taco Bell in 1962. At that time, Los Angeles was racially segregated, and Bell's hard-shell tacos introduced many white Americans to Mexican food.