Taco USA
Cielito Lindo, a tiny stand in downtown Los Angeles named after a classic ranchera song meaning “Beautiful Little Heaven.” From here come taquitos filled with shredded beef, grabbed fresh from that roiling pan, then anointed in a creamy salsa, more pureed avocado than chile. The cooks hand them to waiting customers in a container better suited for
... See moreGustavo Arellano • Taco USA
Harry Chandler, owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, the mighty daily whose incessant drumbeat for the region influenced the city it covered in a way few newspapers have before or since. Chandler’s use of his paper to promote projects around the city—many in which his family and friends had a financial interest—had already turned Los Angel
... See moreGustavo Arellano • Taco USA
By 1901, more than a hundred tamale wagons roamed Los Angeles, each paying a dollar a month for a city business license. “Strangers coming to Los Angeles,” reported the Times in 1901, “remark at the presence of so many outdoor restaurants, and marvel at the system which permits men … to set up places of business in the public streets … and competin
... See moreGustavo Arellano • Taco USA
Guerrero turned them into a living; a daughter, Ana Natalia, branched out with her mother’s approval and opened a chain of Anitas restaurants across Los Angeles, taking with her the family’s taquitos recipes and opening Las Anitas on Olvera Street, not far from Cielito Lindo. Competitors copied those taquitos, along with Mexican restaurants across
... See moreGustavo Arellano • Taco USA
Such a simple, brilliant meal: a tortilla wrapped around a stuffing. No utensils needed. The taco. That’s it. Oh, modifications are possible: fold the tortilla in half and deep-fry it to create a taco dorado, what Americans know as the hard-shelled taco. Roll it like an enchilada, deep-fry it, and you have taquitos (also called flautas). Eat them a
... See moreGustavo Arellano • Taco USA
That experience with mobile food had long-lasting repercussions for the region. The idea of a movable feast prefigured the drive-throughs that dominated the 1950s. And though Olvera Street developed and pushed out unsanctioned street vending from the area to make way for sit-down eateries such as La Golondrina Cafe, where Chandler and the city’s po
... See moreGustavo Arellano • Taco USA
The style of taco varied outside of Olvera Street in those early years; in the workplace and at home, Mexican laborers ate them from soft tortillas, fresh from a grill; in restaurants, Americans enjoyed tacos as tortillas dunked in the fryer, then stuffed. So-called taco houses popped up across Southern California, casual restaurants where patrons
... See more