I am starting to cultivate a dislike of tacos. I make a weekly stop at the local fast food distributor of these items, and I purchase a couple of the crunchy versions to go, which is where the problems begin.
Crunchy tacos must be the worst portable food in the world. They’re supposed to be handy. I don’t see it.
They are born on an assembly line resembling a corrugated ramp; the shells are slid down to a preparation station, where a worker dumps a proportioned lump of hamburger, which is moist enough to begin the process of eating through the corn shell at the bottom. The worker then adds the lettuce, tomato and cheese, and attempts to carefully wrap the rather stuffed thing without breaking the shell.
From the moment the bag leaves the pickup window, the tacos begin getting soggy. By the time I get them home, set up my eating space and unwrap the first taco, it’s breaking up at the top and dropping toppings through the bottom. Also, the hamburger juices have stuck the taco to its wrapper.
If, by some miracle, the taco is still viable and does not stick to the wrapper, the first bite usually sends a cascade of lettuce, tomato and cheese all over creation.
And the taco is cold.
When I witnessed the domestic incident a couple of weeks ago (see “What My Eyes Saw”), my tacos more closely resembled a nacho plate after somebody sat on it, when I finally got home.
Mind you, this degradation process happens during a less than ten-minute drive from the warmth of the assembly line to the warmth of my eager stomach. Despite my best efforts, it still happens.
You might think I can avoid the issues and simply get a soft shell taco, which is essentially a mini tortilla with the same ingredients. Like the burrito (which is another fun adventure in eating), if you want to add sauce to your food, the tortilla sticks to itself, making it nearly impossible to peel apart the edges to add sauce unless you take a bite first. This means you take a bite for the team, since it won’t taste of the ingredients you like jacked up on sauce. At least I can get the flavor I want the minute I open up a taco, because the top is open and ready to be sauced.
Oh, and the burrito is never fully folded correctly. There is always a gap for leakage. Even if the gap isn’t facing downward, the juices will overflow it like a clogged sink and drip onto the consumer.
I have considered adding a lobster bib to my taco consuming ritual. There is also the notion of eating shirtless. I hate having to run laundry to get an orange beefy grease stain off any color upper body wear, since it shows up on anything. I have lost more arguments with tacos than any burger, ice cream or water ice in the land.
So I have decided to try ordering nachos instead. At least I know I won’t sit on the plate. They’re already a mess, and I will get what I’m paying for. I may even have some crunch left in some of the chips when I get them home.
One of the things I miss about working in an office is getting nachos for lunch. We had a cafeteria staff who could put together the most salivating inducing and luscious platter of nachos. You picked your toppings, and they took a ten-second trip to a table where one could enjoy the variety of flavors spread before them. No sauce required.
If it works, I may leave tacos behind, and only visit the occasional burrito.
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