Tacos de Requesón
Mild ricotta-like requesón given its spine by epazote, the anise-and-tar herb cooks reach for when something bland needs a backbone. Soft or fried crisp, green salsa over.
El Taco Callejero
Tacos de Papa
Tacos de papa fill a corn tortilla with seasoned mashed potato, soft or fried golden as a dorado: cheap, filling, vegetarian by default, a fixture of Lenten Fridays.
Taco
A tortilla folded around a filling, eaten in the hand: the irreducible Mexican handheld, doubled for a reason and finished by a grammar stricter than it looks.
Taco Sudado
Sudado means sweated, and it is the recipe: a corn tortilla dipped in chile oil, folded around a stew, then steamed in the dark by two hundred of its neighbors in a closed basket through the morning.
Taco Placero
The morning market taco of central Mexico: a warm corn tortilla folded around whatever guisado the cook stewed overnight, ladled hot from clay pots and eaten standing on the plaza floor in twelve.
Taco de Verdolagas
A central-Mexican vegetable taco built on verdolagas, the wild purslane that named a Hidalgo town and turns up in the Codex Mendoza, stewed in salsa verde and folded into warm corn.
Taco de Tripas
The taco de tripas is settled at the disco, where cleaned beef small intestine is browned until it crackles. Con dorar or sin dorar is the real argument, and the corn tortilla soaks the rendered fat.
Taco de Tripa de Leche
Tripa de leche is named for the milk: the small intestine of a calf still nursing, mild and tender, the cut that becomes machitos. A gentler offal taco whose name carries its whole story.
Taco de Tinga de Pollo
Tinga is decided in the pot, not the fold: chicken pulled into threads and stewed in chipotle en adobo until it goes tart and smoky. Puebla's make-ahead braise, in print by 1881.
Taco de Suadero
Suadero cooks on a choricera, a disc with a fat well and a hot rim: braise low, then sear. The taco's real grammar is counter shorthand, de suadero, campechano, con todo, called back with no ticket.
Taco de Sesos
The taco de sesos is the softest filling on the cart and the only hurdle is the word: beef brain poached and warmed loose into a custardy fold of corn, kept soft, never crisp.
Taco de Salbutes
Salbut-style taco; puffed fried tortilla (no bean pocket, unlike panucho) topped with meat.
Taco de Ropa Vieja
Beef boiled until the grain unravels, then fried with tomato and onion until the threads fray like worn cloth: Mexico's old-clothes guisado, spooned onto warm tortillas at fondas and market stalls.
Taco de Relleno Negro
Relleno negro folded into a tortilla: turkey in a sauce blackened with recado negro, chiles charred to ash, the egg-cored but and dark k’óol gravy, a Yucatán Hanal Pixán dish.
Taco de Rajas con Crema
Roasted poblano ribbons in cultured cream, the palest pot on the guisado counter, ladled over red rice on doubled tortillas: the standing meatless taco of central Mexico's stew stands and fondas.
Taco de Quelites
Wild greens taco; various foraged greens (quelites, quintonil, verdolagas).
Taco de Pollo Desmenuzado
Shredded chicken taco; often in salsa.
Taco de Poc Chuc
Poc chuc salts and sours thin pork cutlets in naranja agria, then chars them fast over live coals: a Yucatecan taco built on speed and acid rather than a slow, buried fire.
Taco de Picadillo
Ground beef hash taco; picadillo (ground beef with tomato, potato, sometimes raisins and spices).
Taco de Papadzules
Papadzules: soft corn tortillas dipped in a toasted pumpkin-seed sauce, rolled around chopped hard-boiled egg and topped with a cooked tomato-chile sauce. A Yucatecan plate eaten with a fork.
Taco de Panuchos
The panucho puts the bean inside the tortilla: a corn disc split open at its puff, stuffed with refried black beans, fried crisp, then crowned Yucatán-style with turkey and pink pickled onion.
Taco de Ojo
The soft, gelatinous tissue from a steamed beef eye socket, chopped onto warm corn with onion, cilantro, and lime. The connoisseur's pick from the whole-head cabeza trade.