Not all tacos deserve a spot at Houston’s table
By Lisa Gray STAFF WRITER
Houston’s pantheon of tacos celebrates a rich variety of options. It does not, though, include Taco Bell. Or broccoli.
Last week, the New York Times tweeted a recipe link that stopped me cold.
“These tacos,” it said, “are packed with nutrient-dense broccoli and comforting potatoes for asatisfying meal that comes together in just 45 minutes.” The photo showed tortillas topped with those things and sunny-side-up eggs, their gleaming golden yolks ready to ooze at the slightest touch.
It was a New Yorker’s idea of an egg taco.
On Twitter, Ilaid out three reasons why such a thing is an affront to right-thinking Houstonians:
1) No quick egg taco, using a store-bought tortilla, should take 45 minutes to make.
2) An over-easy egg? Yeah, I love a good runny yolk. And sure, over-easy is way more photogenic than scrambled. But how the heck are you going to eat that? When a taco requires aknife and fork, it has stopped being a taco.
3) Broccoli. I repeat: Broccoli.
One response surprised me: Jeff Forward, @VillageEditor1, tweeted:
“In this morning’s adventure of wading through the stuff in the ‘Twitter-verse,’ I’ve quickly realized ‘celebrate diversity’ apparently doesn’t apply to tacos ...”
I’ve heard this line of thinking before. Houston celebrates diversity, the argument goes. So shouldn’t Houstonians love all tacos?
The answer is no. No, no, no, no, no. All people deserve respect. But not all tacos.
Not the ones from Taco Bell. Not the school-lunchroom kind with crispy shells soaked in grease. And not New York Times tacos with runny eggs and broccoli.
Loving all tacos is the path to blind, wrong-headed taco mediocrity. Our city is better than that.
Our restaurants and taco trucks offer excellent tacos at every price point. We have great breakfast tacos, great vegetarian tacos, great chef-y tacos, great taco-truck tacos. They range from traditional Tex-Mex to Mexican regional to interesting new takes on the form. (Barbecue brisket tacos! Why were those not invented a century ago?)
Great tacos are more than the sum of their parts: their fillings, their salsas, their garnishes and, crucially, their tortillas.
Corn or flour? It seems like a burning question, one of our city’s great divides, but really, it’s not. Either kind of tortilla can be delicious here — the traditional middle-and-southern Mexico maiz, or the biscuity Texas Mexican — but it must be fresh.
Lucky for you, home cook, Houston is to tortillerías as Paris is to bakeries.
Yes, I understand why sometimes, in desperation, a Houstonian might eat a lousy taco: Sometimes it’s the best you can do. I’ve been there.
But you don’t have to love it. Don’t pretend that it’s good. We are better than that.
We live in a world of limits. You have only so much time and money, only so many opportunities to eat. Every bad taco you tolerate is a good taco you miss, a bid for excellence that you don’t support.
Don’t let the bad drive out the good. Keep Houston a taco town. lisa.gray@chron.com, @LisaGray_HouTX