BajaNews
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Fish tacos originated in '30s
http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2010/01/13/features/...
By Jane Ammeson
January 13, 2010
I received a lot of cookbooks for Christmas, which is just perfect because I love looking through them and planning what I'd like to cook.
A fun favorite this year was "Tacos: 75 Authentic and Inspired Recipes" by Mark Miller (Ten Speed Press 2009) because I think making tacos can be such
a nice family activity. Someone can be heating up the tortillas, someone else can be chopping the peppers and garlic, and someone else can do the
frying.
I've been seeing a lot of fish tacos on menus, but they aren't really new, the book tells me. Batter-fried fish tacos as we know them in the United
States originated in the 1930s in Ensenada, Mexico, home to a large Japanese immigrant population that worked in the fishing industry there. This,
then, is a fusion food - a combination of Mexican and Japanese because the fish are deep fried in a tempura batter. If you make these, serve them
quickly or they'll get soggy.
Baja-Style Tempura Fish
Chile-Lime Marinade:
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
10 cloves garlic, sliced
2 serrano chiles, stemmed and sliced (use less if you don't like heat)
2 teaspoons dried Mexican oregano, ground (can be found at local grocery stores, but you can use cilantro or regular oregano)
1 tablespoon fine sea salt
2 pounds young shark fillet (or any firm, moist white fish like opah, tilapia or mahi mahi), cut into 4 by 3/4-inch strips
Baja Tempura Batter:
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon ice water
2 1/2 teaspoons yellow mustard (optional)
1 cup bleached all-purpose flour
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying
10 (5 1/2-inch) soft white corn tortillas
To make the marinade: In a large bowl, combine the water, lime juice, garlic, chiles, oregano, and salt.
Add the fish strips, and let marinate for at least 20 minutes.
To make the tempura batter: In a separate bowl, whisk together the ice water and mustard. Gently stir in the flour, but don't overmix; a few small
lumps are OK.
Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Drain the fish pieces, and pat them dry with a paper towel.
Have a plate lined with paper towels ready. In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat at least 2 to 3 inches of oil over medium heat until it reaches 360
degrees on a deep-fat thermometer. Remove the batter from the refrigerator and stir once more.
Dredge the fish pieces in the batter, a few at a time, to evenly coat. Drop them in the hot fat, 2 pieces at a time, adding 2 more pieces every 30
seconds (fry no more than 4 pieces at a time).
Monitor the temperature of the hot oil throughout frying, letting the oil return to proper temperature, if necessary, between batches; to ensure
crispness, it must remain a constant 360 to 380 degrees.
If too low, the fish will be oily; if too hot, the pieces will burn.
Fry until crisp, light golden brown, and floating in the oil, about 2 1/2 minutes per batch.
With a fine-mesh skimmer, transfer the fish to the paper towel-lined plate to absorb the excess oil.
Repeat with the remaining pieces of fish.
During frying, be sure to remove any pieces of floating batter, or they will burn and darken the oil, which will transfer a burned flavor to the
tempura. Serve immediately.
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bajajudy
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Sounds way too complicated for the side of the road guy to make. And I am not sure about this marinade. I like to taste the fish. For this reason
some of the side of the road guys lose me when they use the bagged batter with garlic powder and other unknown ingredients.
This guy whose name escapes me does it right.
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David K
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Although I was a kid in the 60's, I never saw a "FISH TACO" stand until San Felipe in the early 1970's.
I had to beg my high school friends to try them and dare them they couldn't stop at just one... "A FISH taco???" they would say followed by 'yech'!
Nobody could ever eat just one... an instant hit! They were 20-25 cents each back then... 1977.
In the 1990's I was in the Sacramento area and we would ask where to get a fish taco... Stares of disbelief that there was such a thing!
How time changes things! 
[Edited on 1-13-2010 by David K]
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Bajahowodd
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Cabo-style fish tacos are not fried. Where I live in Orange County, I have a choice between an excellent place that makes batter-fried tacos (and
burritos), and one that makes them with grilled snapper. My glory is that I can switch off between the two.
For anyone in the area Los Cotija's Taco Shop has two locations in Orange County purveying batter-fried fish, while Los Sanchez, also with two
locations, which touts themselves as a Sonora style restaurant, has the grilled fish variety.
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Pompano
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Fish tacos started in the 30's.
It might have been just a tad bit earlier..
Fish Tacos - Ensenada, Mexico claims to be the birth place of the fish taco, and they are advertised at restaurants throughout the city where many
claim that their taco is the original. The best place to sample them is at any of the small food stands that line the streets around the Mercado
Negro, Ensenada’s incredible fish market. The fish tacos served are simply small pieces of batter-coated, fried fish in a hot corn or wheat tortilla.
People in the coastal areas of Mexico have been eating fish tacos for a long time. The history of fish tacos could seemly go back thousands of years
to when indigenous North American peoples first wrapped the plentiful offshore catch into stone-ground-corn tortillas.
The people of Ensenada say their port town is the fish taco's true home, dating at least from the opening of the Ensenada mercado, in 1958.
The people of San Diego, California, have been hooked on fish tacos since 1983. In fact, fish tacos are the fast-food signature dish of San Diego:
they're cheap to buy and fast to make.
Fish tacos were popularized in the United States by Ralph Rubio, who first tasted them while on spring break in Baja, Mexico. According to the story
he tells, there was one Baja vendor he especially liked, a man named Carlos, who ran a hole-in-the-wall taco stand with a 10-foot counter and a few
stools. Carlos fried fish to order and put it on a warm tortilla. Customers added their own condiments. Rubio tried to persuade Carlos to move to San
Diego, but Carlos was happy where he was and would not budge. He did agree, however, to share his recipe, which Rubio scrawled on a piece of paper
pulled from his wallet. Several years later, Rubio opened his own restaurant in San Diego, called Rubio's - Home of the Fish Taco.
Today, fish tacos are legendary and are sole throughout San Diego and the Southwest. Shucks, they are even made and sold in North Dakota..except we
use lefse, which is much, much better than those yucky tortillas. 
1520 -Bernal Diaz del Castillo (1496-1584), a Spanish soldier who came with Hernán Cortés to the New World, wrote an intriguing and detailed
chronicles called A True History of the Conquest of New Spain. He also chronicled the lavish feasts that were held. From the article by Sophie Avernin
called Tackling the taco: A guide to the art of taco eating:
The first “taco bash” in the history of New Spain was documented by none other than Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Hernan Cortes organized this memorable
banquet in Coyoacan for his captains, with pigs brought all the way from Cuba. It would, however, be a mistake to think that Cortes invented the taco,
since anthropologists have discovered evidence that inhabitants of the lake region of the Valley of Mexico ate tacos filled with small fish, such as
acosiles and charales. The fish were replaced by small live insects and ants in the states of Morelos and Guerrero, while locusts and snails were
favorite fillings in Puebla and Oaxaca.
I do what the voices in my tackle box tell me.
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Udo
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David,
My first fish taco was also in San Felipe back in 1966. And I recall that they were priced around 6 or 8 per dollar, depending on which stand you
visited.
Do you still remember the orange juice stand on the main street corner?
When I was leaving I always bought 4 extra gallons! The best orange juice in the world!!
Udo
Youth is wasted on the young!
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David K
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| Quote: | Originally posted by udowinkler
David,
My first fish taco was also in San Felipe back in 1966. And I recall that they were priced around 6 or 8 per dollar, depending on which stand you
visited.
Do you still remember the orange juice stand on the main street corner?
When I was leaving I always bought 4 extra gallons! The best orange juice in the world!! |
1966? Mine was in 1977... I think. I was already out of high school, but had some younger friends who were still in high school is why I think '77 is
correct.
I don't remember the OJ stand, but there originally (1960's)was a gas station at the end of Mex. 5 called the La Puerta... It was on the northwest
corner of Hwy. 5 (just 2 lanes then) and the main n/s business street. There was no Malecon then. Arnold's Del Mar Cafe was the main street
restaurant. Arnold was the one who told my parents about the Matomi waterfall... back in '66... I finally got to Matomi in 13 more years!
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Bajahowodd
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And in 1966, a McDonalds hamburger was 15 cents!
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mtgoat666
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Pompano
Rubio's - Home of the Fish Taco.
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never been a fan of Rubios, seemed kind of mushy when i tried 'em, so never been back
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rts551
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1959 - Ensenada- Family had tacos from a stand. Turned out to be turtle. Will never forget and haven't had them since.
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