a couple of years ago, throughout a visit to El Paso, Texas, I inadvertently investigated a burning controversy plaguing my native land. El Paso’s incomparable and perhaps maximum arguable eating place, Chico’s Tacos, switched cheeses. Following the chatter online, maximum commenters appeared outraged that the El Paso institution switched from a vegetable shortening-based imitation cheese to real cheddar. The travesty!
To be sincere, I wasn’t in a hurry to test out this new cheese for myself. But on my way to a coffee shop to get some paintings accomplished, I surpassed the iconic Chico sign and almost instinctively pulled in. Once internal, I positioned my ordinary order and nervously stole glances at the tacos coming out of the kitchen. They clearly seemed a little extraordinary than I remembered. This actual cheese melted like, nicely, actual cheese. So I changed into prepared to curse the most decadent of my guilty pleasures.
But this was the eatery that drew me back from my 5-yr stint with vegetarianism more than a decade in the past. I even have a long and fruitful history with this location. So when my order came, I looked at this marker of my adolescence – 3 rolled tacos in a soupy tomato sauce blanketed with bright yellow cheese – and hoped for the exceptional. As I took the primary gooey chunk, my body filled with goosebumps, and the anxiety in my shoulders disappeared.
This changed into nevertheless Chico’s Tacos. This changed into still domestic.
But domestic is a complicated vicinity. Much just like the taco chain, “actual” El Paso identity is complex. The population is 79.6% Hispanic, keeping with census facts; however, that blanket designation does nothing to catalog the rich cultural blend observed in the city. Amongst that variety is citizens figuring out as Chicano/a. Others, Latino or Latinx. For many, the word “Hispanic” is an offensive term that harkens back to colonization. When requested, a few humans will surely say, “I’m American.” Many immigrants in El Paso consider themselves “real” Mexicans and appearance down on Mexican Americans as “ponchos,” a derogatory time period for individuals who talk Spanglish. And many Mexican Americans counter by way of looking at native Mexicans as snobs or “fresas.”
Chico’s Tacos great embodies this heterogeneous border identification by way of spawning a concoction unique to El Paso. Since 1953, the forte at Chico’s Tacos stays largely unchanged. Three rolled tacos – technically, they’re flautas – set in a paper boat packed with soupy tomato sauce and blanketed with what changed from the early ’80s till 2016, imitation, government-style yellow cheese. The recent switch again to actual cheese became the first giant trade in many years, and that by myself brought about the uproar I came domestic to.
It took some time and additional effort from his wife and children to maintain the eating place afloat, but it, in the end, grew into a powerful fulfillment. Hungry El Pasoans filled the eating place, main to growth to various locations throughout the city. Even with 5 places, it’s not uncommon to wait in line for as long as a half-hour to area an order.
My non-public dating with Chico’s Tacos evolved from “enthusiast” to “unintentional ambassador.” At the same time, in 2014, via a series of fortuitous occasions, I found myself within the precise position of setting on El Paso’s first-ever unofficial South By Southwest exhibit in Austin. So naturally, like any tremendous SXSW day party, we needed to have unfastened tacos. So there turned into the most effective solution for us: Chico’s Tacos.
