Often served as appetizers, Tacos are made of ingredients wrapped in tortillas.
It is similar to sandwiches, but the tortilla shells are made of corn. Most of us do know what the origin of tacos is. The shells are made by cooking corn kernels with lime, ground, and then forming into round dough. The round dough is then patted by hand into a thin round cake.
Tortillas are formed by baking them on griddles. The Taco that we see and eat today is machine made and most of them are hard-shell ones.
This typical Mexican delicacy was first found in the article written by Sophie Avernin called “Tackling the taco: A guide to the art of taco eating” in the 1520s.
They were eaten together with small fishes in the Valley of Mexico and for rural places ants and insects were used as filings for these shells. Later then, a taco made its way to other countries up north. It is a staple food for the Aztec people and is just as important as bread is to people in Europe.
The people would wrap the shells up with fillings or break them into smaller pieces to scoop up food and fillings.
Puffy ones are made by flattening the dough and then deep frying it in hot oil. These crispy fried tortillas are then used to contain different fillings. In 1947, Juvenico Maldonado was issued the patent for the first tortilla shells-making device.
He came up with the machine that holds tortilla shells into U-shaped shells for frying and that was when mass production of these scrumptious light snacks began. This is basically what the origin of taco is about.
Today, it is common to find different variations of Tacos on the street. Some are sealed with egg and deep fried, some are made of hard shells and some are puffy.
Tomato puree, sour cream, cheese, ground beef, and special sauces are among the favorite fillings for tortilla shells.
