White People Taco Night (Definitely Not Authentic Mexican Food)
Disclaimer: We are talking about Mexican food that… isn’t authentic. It’s what a white suburban Mom cooks up for her kids. Hell, our Moms made this for us. We grew up thinking that this type of food was authentic Mexican food, until we moved to the big city and discovered the magical world of Mexican cuisine. Our next post will be about authentic Mexican food.
If you’re like us, then you might be entitled to financial compensation the following has probably happened to you.
“Hey mom, what’s for dinner?”
“Tacos! We have ground beef that needs to get used so I bought a taco kit!”
Or perhaps:
“What’s for dinner?”
“How about Mexican? I’m feeling like a cheese quesadilla.”
There is a whole style of cuisine that is referred lovingly as “White People Mexican Food”.
If you’re from the Canadian Prairies or the American Midwest this will be familiar. If not, read on as we introduce you to White People Mexican Food.
Meme stolen from Reddit.
Need groceries for White People Taco Night?
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Old El Paso Taco Kits
Oh, Old El Paso. You’ll see these kits when you walk down the aisle of your grocery store that’s labeled “Mexican” or “International Foods”. (It really doesn’t belong here though.) Alongside it are jarred salsas and canned refried beans.
If a taco kit is on your grocery list, you’ll probably also have cheddar cheese, ground beef, tomatoes, and lettuce on it as well. And maybe some sour cream too. We also recommend grabbing salsa, as the taco sauce in these kits is not great. It’s nasty.
To level up white people taco night, ditch the kit, buy the big flour tortillas (or the corn tortillas if you prefer), and save some money by making your own taco seasoning with spices you probably already have at home.
Authentic Mexican tacos are on a whole other level, and our cheap imitation is just that — a cheap imitation.
Cheese Quesadilla
This one is the simplest recipe of the bunch and really the most sad. You take a tortilla, put shredded cheddar cheese on it, put it in a pan with some oil or butter (or margarine if you want the authentic white person experience) and let it cook until the cheese begins to melt. When that happens you fold the tortilla in half, wait a bit longer for the cheese to glue everything shut, and then bam! White person quesadilla. Dip in salsa if you want, or eat it plain.
When doing research for this post, it turns out that this is, more or less, what the original quesadillas were. They used different cheese (oaxaca cheese), didn’t use store-bought tortillas, and didn’t fry the tortilla in, fat but other than that they are more or less the same.
But for real, you should probably use better quality cheese and tortillas. And if you wanted to put some veggies or meat in there it wouldn’t hurt either.
Nachos
Nachos are something that most of us probably associate with Mexican food. Turns out they don’t have some long and illustrious history — they were created as a snack in the 1940s. Then white people did what white people do: we stole the dish and made it our own.
The original nachos were triangles of fried corn tortillas, topped with colby cheese, and pickled jalapenos. Modern nachos are a monstrosity of every possible ingredient imaginable. Cheese, tomatoes, peppers, onions, olives, beef/chicken/pork, jalapenos, other spicy peppers, beans, sometimes queso, sometimes crema, guacamole, salsa, and sour cream served in little plops on the nacho bed.
What do you want on your nachos? Yes.
The nachos that we enjoy tend to be store bought tortilla chips, cooked ground beef, diced tomatoes, onions and/or peppers, and enough cheese to make your doctor raise his eyebrows. Pop those bad boys in the oven (or the microwave if you’re real short on time) and go to town.
Serve them with…
Store Bought Guacamole & Salsa
It is only appropriate that you pair non-authentic Mexican food with cheap, mass produced guacamole and salsa.
Making your own guacamole, salsa, or pico de gallo isn’t hard, but convenience is king. Buying a small container of guac is usually still more expensive than buying an avocado or two, onion, serrano chilies, and some cilantro (ew).
It’s no secret that most white people don’t have a very high spice tolerance, which is why there are store bought salsas that are mild. One could argue that even “medium” and “spicy” store bought salsas are not spicy.
Frozen “Mexican” Food
This one is a bit of an honourable mention. When we went to collect the ingredients to make the food for this post we couldn’t find any frozen Mexican food anywhere, so we weren’t able to make any and show them off in the post.
The main frozen Mexican food we’ve eaten in our lives are taquitos and burritos. Frozen burritos get a “meh” at best, but the frozen taquitos just hit the spot sometimes. We recommend pairing taquitos with a hangover.
🔥 Mediocre Tip: We highly suggest cooking your frozen taquitos in an air fryer if you have one. Shit slaps.
So, that’s it. That’s white people taco night.
Sometimes it’s all of the above, sometimes it’s multiple dishes and a whole lot of regret after consuming way too much cheese.
Oh, we did forget one thing: taco in a bag. Crush a bag of Doritos (Sweet Chili Heat is superior), open the bag, and shove a bunch of white people taco toppings in there. Delish.
What do you put on your nachos? Have a secret blend of cheeses you like using in your quesadilla? Spill the beans in the comments below!
This post was inspired by Lewberger. Thanks for making a stupid song that is stuck in our stupid heads.
Bonus Content: Cilantro Tastes Like Soap
A rant by Brittany
Cilantro (also known as Coriander) tastes like soap. If you’ve also been cursed with this gene (OR6A2 to be exact), then you know my pain. I want to experience authentic Mexican food — but so much of it has this devilish green herb sprinkled all over it. Luckily, if you’re eating at a Mexican restaurant and ask for no cilantro, it’s a pretty easy thing for them to omit from the dish (unless you’re ordering something with pico de gallo, which typically has cilantro in it and is impossible to pick out).
Hating cilantro is a part of my personality now — I’m a frequent lurker on the r/FuckCilantro subreddit and if there is even a chance that the dish I’m ordering could have cilantro (even though it’s not listed in the description of the menu item) I’ll always ask for no cilantro. The only thing I’m missing is a bumper sticker on my car that says “fuck cilantro”.
I live with this curse, and wish I could love cilantro and experience its fresh, citrusy floral (according to Trevor) taste. But alas… F U cilantro.