Typically Mexican to prepare and present a large number of dishes, the taco is a benchmark of Mexican cuisine, said renowned chef Alfonso “Poncho” Cadena.
The chef, who on October 4 will premiere his program “Los maestros del taco” on the El Gourmet pay channel, made it clear that the taco is the base that sustains Mexican cuisine, because in the end, “we all accompany almost everything with a tortilla. ”
Belonging to the fourth generation of a family of French kitchen chefs, he pointed out that the taco’s family tree branches from the flutes, to the enchiladas, the tlayudas and the quesadillas.
“In the end, what I found in common is that everything that can be put into a tortilla and roll, is a taco,” said the businessman, owner of the restaurant El Hueso, in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco.
Delicious and historic, born in Mesoamerica, the chef has four main elements: the tortilla, the stuffing, the sauces and the garnishes.
In addition, for the taco there are no social classes, it is consumed both in popular neighborhoods and in more prestigious areas of the cities.
“In my journey and perception as a chef, a good tortilla can save any taco, although the sauces I thought were fundamental in it, but in the end we are a corn culture and it is the tortilla that makes a good taco. I was thinking about what historical moment in Mexican cuisine is taco, and taco is everything; It is pre-Hispanic, it is something ancestral, it is Mesoamerican, but it is Mexican, because the way we handle the tortilla, the diversity of sauces and the tacking action, only in Mexico,” he said.
Although it has ingredients and companions that vary from region to region, and generally do not change some preparations, its action is 100 percent Mexican.
“You can do anything with a taco, they serve you by order, individual; varies, then the action of making a taco is as Mexican, as putting a tortilla on a table,” said Cadena.
The taco type presents several influences and contributions, which have given recognition to this “Mexican manjar”.
“It is good to see the influences of the migrants who arrived in this country, after the Conquest; the Lebanese or Iraqis contributed something fundamental to the tacos and the most popular are the pastor, but they are Lebanese in influence,” he said.
Cadena stressed that taco is so successful, that today there is no place in the world without a taqueria. “It’s a worldwide success, there are even colleagues who have taquerias in Denmark, Russia, the United States; the taco is a product like sushi, perhaps, or like ceviche, which become universal, like pasta, is a dish that everyone likes and everyone knows is a taco, ” he concluded.
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