Breakfast tacos should not be confused with tacos eaten for breakfast. Of course, they often are eaten for breakfast, but the stuffed flour tortillas eaten on both sides of the southern US border are quite different from the tacos mañaneros of central and southern Mexico, the rich, corn-based tacos de canasta (“tacos in a basket”) or the smoky beef barbacoa that Monterrey-born Lily Ramirez-Foran recalls being her dad’s favourite Sunday breakfast. Instead, Texas Monthly explains, breakfast tacos “marry the key elements of an American morning – scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes – with the Mexican staples of salsa, cheese, refried beans … genius.”
Although they’re originally a Mexican creation, according to José R Ralat, the magazine’s taco editor (what a job title!), these $3 treats are now so popular north of the border that they’re the subject of regular taco wars, mostly between those who claim Austin as their spiritual home (often blow-ins, according to their fiercest critics), and those who know that no single city can take the credit. The fillings may vary, from pork chops to chilaquiles and beans to cheese, but Ralat maintains that all should be salty, soft and, above all, comforting, and told the Washington Post a few years ago that “the greatest breakfast taco is the one made at home”. Which, if you live 5,000 miles from the Mexican border, is good news indeed.
