Taco (1929)

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:43 PM -0400 10/6/01, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

>RAMONA'S SPANISH-MEXICAN COOKERY:
>The First Complete and Authentic Spanish-Mexican Cook Book in English
>...1929
>
>Pg. 84:
>    TACOS AND TEQUITOS
>...
I'm impressed!  Especially by the inclusion of coriander (a.k.a.
cilantro), which I suspect would have been virtually unavailable in
1929--it wasn't all that easy to find outside of southern California
as late as the late 1960's.  The shredded pork is pretty authentic
too; these sound like good tacos/carnitas, and the fresh salsa is
certainly recognizable (although I can't evaluate the proportions
because I'm used to much smaller quantities).  The "TEQUITOS" above
were probably "TAQUITOS", though, as below.  Barry, does the recipe
indicate that these were deep fried as they are now, or just smaller
versions of tacos?  (Notice that the tortillas are unspecified, since
only the corn variety would have existed then, back in the
pre-burritian days of yore.)

L

>_Mexican Tacos_
>2 lbs. of stem cooked and shredded pork, mutton or goat.
>24 tortillas
>1 cup minced onions
>4 pods minced green chile
>2 cups red fresh tomatoes, diced
>2 diced avocadoes
>4 tblsps. minced coriander
>Salt to taste
>    Mix onions, tomatoes, chile, avocadoes and coriander well
>together, add salt to taste.  Heat tortillas, fill each one with
>meat, add two spoons of sauce mixture to each, roll tight, fasten
>with toothpick, serve hot.
>_Taquitos a la Mexicana_...