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Birria queso tacos are newer than you think, plunged into the spotlight by social media in the 2010’s. But like all tacos, they represent much more than a passing fad.
“Tacos illustrate the modern invention of authenticity.” – Jeffrey Pilcher
If you have any familiarity with food trends on social media, you’re probably quite familiar with birria queso tacos – beef slow cooked in a smokey pepper stew, served in a grilled quesadilla style with a consommé dipping sauce. Like tacos al pastor or Barbacoa, it has a suggestion of authenticity that ground beef mixed with a taco packet and wrapped in a flour tortilla doesn’t convey. The latter is best captured by comedy band Lewberger’s viral song, “White People Taco Night,” where they sing, “we’re getting taco shells from the grocery store, and ground beef from the grocery store, and shredded cheese from the grocery store, and Ortega sauce from the grocery store.” As the song goes on, they confirm, “… it’s not limited to only white people, but white people love it the most.” While the song only means to poke fun at the faux-daring Taco Tuesday of middle America, it also manages to imply its opposite. If there is a banal, whitewashed version of tacos, then there must be a truly exotic, truly authentic, and truly Latin version of them.
The notion of authentic tacos has been a rallying interest of white hipsters for some time. They may list “tacos” as an interest in their Tinder profiles, but they would scoff at the suggestion of Taco Bell. They’re more likely to suggest a Mexican carniceria that offers a taco café as part of their grocery store. In Atlanta, this crowd would brag about their patronage of “El Progresso,” but they’d refer to it as “Prison Tacos,” either because it’s located near a federal prison, because it has bars on its windows, or because the name calls to mind a mysterious kind of danger that they are otherwise unaccustomed to – or a mixture of all of the above. I don’t mean to be too critical here. After all, I’m a white woman who has eaten at El Progresso. I may have even had tacos listed as an interest in a dating profile before I was married. But I’m not too good for Taco Bell either (shhh!)
The point is, tacos convey a lot of cultural symbolism in a small package. And most of us can decipher between an Americanized taco and one that feels more authentic. Birria has all the markings of authenticity: a slow cooked shredded meat, corn tortillas, a brothy sauce rather than salsa or taco sauce, chopped onions and cilantro as toppings. It may be surprising then to learn that Birria, especially in taco form with cheese, is not very old at all.
The American version we know started with a birria stand in Oscar Gonzalez’s driveway in South Central LA – in 2013. The Mexican version it’s based on, birria de chivo, is a slow cooked goat stew. Because of its time-consuming nature, it’s often served at holidays, celebrations, and quinceañeras. It’s also common as a breakfast food in Tijuana, especially as a hangover cure. Even the basic idea of this dish is related to the colonial history of Mexico. The Spanish brought European livestock to Mexico, and the goats ended up being a lot of trouble – they procreated quickly and they were destructive. The smart solution was to eat them, which the Europeans frowned upon. Because goat meat tends to be gamey and tough, eating it required a lot of spices to enhance the flavor and slow cooking to tenderize it. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that the slow cooking, layered flavors method evolved into the soup-style version of birria de res. Legend has it that taquero Don Guadalupe Zárate was advised to add water to his stockpot so his birria wouldn’t burn, which led to the stew which is now known as Tijuana-style.
Fast-forward to the 2010’s in the U.S., The Gonzalez brothers (Omar and Oscar), and their friend Teddy Vasquez had the idea to take their Poblano community’s stew and package it for Americans in LA. A major addition was cheese, because as Omar Gonzalez points out, “people in LA really like cheese.” Vasquez notes the cultural shift this denoted, “I use purple onion, no paper [to wrap the tacos], and I was getting phone calls from Tijuana, saying, ‘What the fuck, Teddy, you’re ruining the taco, that’s not how we do it.’ Cheese and all this stuff — they were mad at me, everybody was talking shit to me.”
It was another Gonzalez brother, Ivan, who posted the viral Instagram photo of their birria tacos in 2018. After that, it became a social media sensation. As Eater points out, the greasy meat, the cheesy pull, the fatty consommé – it’s just all so Instagrammable. It was that year, 2018, that César Hernandez wrote his birria guide, detailing the exponential cross pollination of the dish. There’s now birria pizza, birria ramen, birria egg rolls, birria pho. Even Trader Joe’s offers a frozen version.
Notably, LA birria culture is influencing birria in Tijuana too. As Chef Plascencia of Erizo Baja Fish House and Market explains, even though “dipping in the consommé” is a “pocho [an Anglicized Mexican American] and gringo thing,” his patrons increasingly ask for sides of consommé from the stockpot so they can dip their fish tacos. So there’s an original idea to sell an authentic Mexican taco to Americans, but to cater it to American tastes, and then in turn there’s a trend of eating it in that American style in Mexico. It’s not unlike American-style sushi being sold in Japan.
If you were surprised to learn that birria tacos are younger than the start of Obama’s second term in office, it may be more surprising still to learn that tacos themselves are not all that old to begin with. In “‘Old Stock’ Tamales and Migrant Tacos: Taste, Authenticity, and the Naturalization of Mexican Food,“ Jeffrey Pilcher writes, “The origins of tacos are disputed, but their absence from the historical record is unmistakable. There is simply no known documentary evidence for the usage of “taco” as a food before the second half of the nineteenth century.” Tortillas are an ancient food, a key part of the diet across Mesoamerican societies – Aztecs, Mayans, Incas. But street tacos, the fold and go, pre-made versions we know today, are pretty new. Most historians link this development to the demand to feed laborers quickly when Mexican immigrants were working in mines or on railroads in the early 1900’s. Specific kinds of tacos are even newer. For example, tacos al pastor, one of the oldest and most traditional form of tacos is only as old as the 1960’s. The U-shaped fried taco shell is a clear American invention. While the founder of Taco Bell, Glenn Bell, claims to have invented it in the 1950’s, patents from the late 1940’s more clearly associated it with restaurateur Juvencio Maldonado of New York City. He invented them to keep the peace among the cooks at his Upper West side restaurant, Xochitl, who dreaded individually frying tacos for patrons.
So, why do we associate “authenticity” with some tacos and what is authenticity anyway? Why do some immigrant foods become American standards and why do others remain “ethnic.” As Pilcher explains, “The answer thus depends on the source of the food and the circumstances in which it was introduced, particularly the social status of those who brought it.” This is why the German hamburger is now just an American dish, but Chop Suey is relegated to Chinatowns.
In “The Taste of Precarity: Language, Legitimacy, and Legality among Mexican Street Food Vendors” Tiana Harden writes, “Shifting the focus away from the consumption of street food to the people who produce and sell it forces us to consider food not as an age-old cultural practice, but rather as a historically emergent set of social relations which is shaped by unequal access to power, space, and capital.” Americans may love tacos, but do they love the people who make them?
Of course, tacos – and their vendors – represent very different things depending on the eater. In his (2019) book The Taco Truck: How Mexican Street Food is Transforming the American City, Robert Lemon defines an idea he calls “taco truck space” as a cultural and culinary environment that elucidates the political, economic, and social forces that surround them. They emphasize the unevenness of capital between the U.S. and Mexico and the tensions of Mexican immigration into the United States. Think of it this way – the purveyors of tacos tend to serve two distinct groups. One group is comprised of immigrants searching for a taste of home, likely fueling themselves after a day of work that’s hard on their bodies, and perhaps using the time to reminisce with other patrons about Mexico. The other group is non-Mexican, non-immigrant “urban explorers,” seeking out an “authentic experience,” likely feeling that their experience has enriched their pallet and perhaps even broadened their cultural perspective. In just a glimpse at the customers, you can perceive a world of difference in their relationship to the food.
I had never had this dish before I made it, so I suppose I can’t say that it’s what it’s supposed to be. But I can say this – it’s incredible. I decided to make it when TikToker Eithwitzo came across my For Your Page, and it looked so good I had to try it. I mixed his method with TikToker Salty Cocina’s, to create this one. Honestly, most of the time required is hands off, so it’s actually pretty easy. And it’s delicious. Just don’t tell anyone it’s authentic.
Birria Tacos
Course: MainDifficulty: Easy6
servings30
minutes3
hoursIngredients
3-4 lbs beef chuck roast, cut into 6 pieces
8 cups water
1 onion, skin removed, cut in half
14 cloves garlic (skins removed, whole), divided
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 packet Sazón seasoning (~1.5 tsp)
2 beef bouillon cubes
4 Bay leaves
10 guajillo chilis, divided
3 ancho chilis
8 whole peppercorns
5 whole cloves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp cumin
- For Tacos
tortillas, mozzarella (or Chihuahua melting cheese), chopped white onions, cilantro, lime wedges, avocado
Directions
- Place pieces of beef in a large, heavy, pot. Add water, onion, 8 cloves garlic, garlic powder, onion powder, Sazón, bouillon cubes, 5 guajillo chilis. Bring to a boil. Cook over medium heat for 1 hour. [See note 1]
- Toast the remaining garlic, remaining guajillos, and anchos in a dry pan until they are fragrant and begin to change colors.
- Add toasted peppers and garlic to a blender. Remove peppers and whatever onion pieces you can from the stockpot and place them in blender as well. Add the peppercorns and the cloves. Add ~ 1-2 cups broth from the stockpot. Blend to liquify. You may need strain afterward, but if you have a high-powered blender, you don't need to.
- Add pepper mixture back to the stockpot.
- Add salt, oregano, thyme, and cumin to the stockpot. Cook on medium-low heat for 2 hours.
- Remove meat and shred. Return to stockpot.
- For tacos: dip tortilla in sauce, place on pan, add mozzarella and shredded beef to one side of tortilla. Folder over and cook on both sides.
- You may want to add chopped onions and avocado to tacos; serve with lime wedges and a cup of broth, with chopped onions and cilantro added to it
Notes
- Note 1: After 30 minutes, skim off the foam that has collected at the top of the pot.
