When I was a kid, about 7 years old, I really wanted to try tacos. Being a kid from the upper mid-west, where black pepper is considered a “hot” spice, tacos were something exotic, a forbidden fruit to be partaken of only by those with strange tastes and experimental palates. I had no idea what tacos would taste like. I didn’t even know what was in a taco, but I knew that I wanted to have one.
My desire for what I then considered a magical Mexican food (actually, I’m not sure I knew tacos were Mexican at the time) got the best of me, and I began to beg my mother for tacos. This would be my upper mid-western mother who thinks black pepper is hot and who has a completely un-adventurous palate.
On a trip to the grocery store, I found an Ortega taco kit (the only taco kit available in the area) and presented it to her with even greater pleading, still having no idea what a taco consisted of. My mother’s response was, “I’m not making you tacos. You’ve never even had them and I’m not going to waste money on something you don’t know you like and probably won’t eat.” (Looking back this seems an odd argument coming from the woman who made me eat some of everything she put on the table and everything that made it to my plate. You’d think she’d just make me eat the tacos whether I liked them or not.)
Then it happened, before I even knew what I was getting into. I lied to her.
“Momma, I have had tacos before. And I LOVE them. Brad’s mom made them for us for lunch one time. I know I LOVE them and I REALLY want some. Please, momma. Can we have tacos?”
If my dad had been with us, the taco kit would never have made it to the cart, and I probably would have gotten in trouble for asking for something in the first place, but mom’s a softie at heart and she relented.
She had to read the instructions on the taco kit, not knowing herself what a taco consisted of. We picked up ground meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese, but no salsa. I don’t think you could even buy salsa in Wisconsin in the seventies.
Later that week, after a bit more pleading, tacos made it onto the nightly dinner menu. I’m not sure how she managed to slip them in without my dad making a ruckus, but she did. I think he secretly must have sampled tacos at some restaurant over his lunch hour because he actually helped her prepare them by warming the shells in the oven. Mom chopped the lettuce and tomatoes, putting them into bowls on the table. She tore open a package of grated cheese (another taboo but much coveted item in the dairy state) and began to cook the meat. When she added the Ortega season packet to the hamburger, I had my first experience of what a Taco Bell must smell like.
Finally, dinner was ready. We all sat around the table, said Grace before we could touch anything (a hard and fast rule in our house), and then we got to assemble our tacos (half the fun as far as I’m concerned). And you know what? I really loved tacos. Unfortunately, and I suppose I should have expected it, mom did not. Future taco dinners were no easier to come by than the first. Each one was a negotiation: It’s my birthday. I’ve been a good boy. I got good grades.
It was until 10 years later, when my family moved to Texas, that mom began to like Mexican (or at least TexMex) food. She in fact LOVES TexMex food. I suspect it has something to do with the sheer amount of cheese that’s included in nearly every TexMex dish. Remember, she is from Wisconsin. Interestingly, even though she now loves Mexican food, she’s never learned to like tacos.
And I’ve never told her I lied about having them before she prepared them for me.
