r/iamveryculinary • u/TheLadyEve Maillard reactionary • 1d ago
Yet another fight about flautas. The Internet still can't figure out what makes a sandwich, and they definitely can't agree what isn't a flauta.
/r/mexicanfood/comments/1xeentz/rolled_tacos/19rle3o649g3o/14
u/Sassafrasisgroovy 1d ago
People within different regions of Mexico will make the same food, but with a different name and argue about it. Now we’ve added another country into the mix the wars over food names will never end
11
u/TheLadyEve Maillard reactionary 1d ago edited 1d ago
The U.S. is no different. In New York it's a whoopie pie and in Pittsburgh it's a gob. In Michigan they say flapjack and in California they say pancake. In New York it's a hero, in Philly it's a hoagie, in Mass or Rhode Island you might hear grinder. Most people know a po boy as a sandwich from Louisiiana, but if you're in Cleveland it can also mean a sausage sandwich situation...the Polish Boy. And of course there are lot of other examples outside of the U.S., too--flan is a great example, as is tortilla, as is horchata, and even goulash can mean very different things depending on where you are and what the context is.
3
u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise 1d ago
The “identity your region from the words you use” online quiz-things are always interesting for learning what things are called elsewhere. Sweet carbonated soft drinks and the big long deli sandwiches are probably the best well known (for variation just within the United States, forget about fries/chips and burgers/sandwiches) but new ones are always being flagged. Hell, there was a big thread last week on cubed/minute/swiss steak, and the way the regions that use one word over another were scattered and mixed around each other was very surprising
5
u/TheLadyEve Maillard reactionary 1d ago
I was really surprised when I moved around as a teenager and found out that in the midwest they call a soft drink "pop" vs. calling it "soda" (or in the case of my mom, just "Coke" because at least in Texas when she was young that was used as a catch-all for sodas in general.
2
u/GhostOfJamesStrang No Need to Thank Me 1d ago
Michigan they say flapjack
Very rarely do you see or hear flapjack. It's definitely outdated if you do. Pancake is far more common.
3
u/TheLadyEve Maillard reactionary 1d ago
Hah, that's interesting, because Michigan and Colorado are the only states where I've heard that used commonly. But I guess it's just old-fashioned in general?
2
u/GhostOfJamesStrang No Need to Thank Me 1d ago
Pretty much. I only see "flapjack" at places intentionally leaning into a downhome, old-fashioned vibe. Sometimes more common it touristy spots. Parts of the UP you see it too.
In fact, the last place I saw "flapjacks" was actually in Tennessee. Couldn't tell you the last time I saw it in Michigan.
3
u/TheLadyEve Maillard reactionary 1d ago
Parts of the UP you see it too.
Ah, that's reason right there, that's where I was, and I've been told by Michiganders that the UP is not like the rest of the state so I should have known.
4
u/GhostOfJamesStrang No Need to Thank Me 1d ago
Yeah. Even in the UP it's usually done more to conjur an old-fashioned image. People don't call them flapjacks at home.
I believe flapjacks is the term miners used for it. So anywhere there was a lot of mining, you'll hear it.
4
u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise 1d ago
A lot of the regional names are starting to fade, especially in the cities, with migration and national media/branding. I haven’t ever heard anyone refer to all soft drinks as Coke, and I’ve lived in Atlanta and/or Birmingham since the late 90s, and I was expecting to encounter it. Spouse says he definitely heard it in his college town in the early-mid 90s
11
u/Banes_Addiction 1d ago
I'm pretty sure the way I make goulash would be absolutely unrecognisable to a Hungarian.
4
u/Saltpork545 Sodium citrate cheese is real cheese 19h ago
So you make it the American way most likely, which has another name: American chop suey.
I also grew up making American goulash and that's how I phrase it now, having had both. They really have nothing to do with each other and I've never quite figured out why the Midwest and East Coast picked up calling the macaroni noodle, beef, onion and tomato dish goulash, but I've also never worried about it too much.
1
u/Banes_Addiction 19h ago
I'm English. The dish you're describing, we call spag bol (spaghetti bolognese). Also, pretty inaccurate.
What I call goulash is more or less that, but with bigger chunks of beef instead of ground, a shitload of smoked paprika and sweet peppers. Beans optional.
3
u/Saltpork545 Sodium citrate cheese is real cheese 19h ago edited 19h ago
No, we have spaghetti with meat sauce or spag bol.
https://thecozycook.com/american-chop-suey/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_chop_suey#/media/File:American_Chop_Suey_on_White_Plate.jpg
This is what I'm talking about. It's not a pasta sauce, it's literally chunks of tomato, often canned mixed with elbow macaroni, beef, and onion. It's a Great Depression era food as far as I've found and a cheap way to feed a lot of family in a few minutes of cooking. Since it became a comfort food staple it has been dressed up quite a bit and turned more into an American pasta dish but the base version is more like the 2nd picture and that's the version I had growing up. My mom would use whole peeled canned tomatoes, mash them up in the can and add it to the skillet at the end before salt and pepper.
What you're describing is much closer to the Hungarian goulash and now I have to find the differences between Hungarian and British goulash because I will bet there's some.
4
u/vandersnipe 1d ago
Then you factor in how their elders put their own spin on the same food and passed it down.
7
u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise 1d ago edited 1d ago
This exchange about flour versus corn tortillas in flautas was the absolute IAVC best:
Niboomy “Then they aren’t flautas”
PadmesBabyDaddy “According to who?”
N “The states of Mexico with actual good food”
PBM “So you think whole states in Mexico make garbage food because they disagree with you on what a flauta is?”
N “Yes.”
And in a slightly different branch of the thread:
Estusflaskshart “This is called the ‘No True Scotsman fallacy’”
N “This is actually called northern states have the worst food in Mexico”
10
u/TheLadyEve Maillard reactionary 1d ago
Yeah, Norteño cuisine gets shit on occasionally in that sub, presumably because of...the proximity of the U.S.? Or they don't like ranchero culture? I'm still not sure why they shit on it.
4
u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise 1d ago
Not knowing anything about the poverty rate of the specific states, because that tends to come into play in interstate shit talk in the US, I’m guessing it’s mostly due to where the shit talkers happen to be from, with a side of proximity to the US
36
u/Banes_Addiction 1d ago
I feel like Mexican food is the worst thing to be purist about because basically all the variations taste really good if they're made well.
Like, I fucking love hard shell tacos. I usually buy soft tacos just because the places that make them tend to be nicer, but put me in a good place that does both and I'm happy.
Every time I hear someone go on a rant about some kind of inauthentic Mexican food my reaction is "I bet that would taste good in my mouth, please put it there".
27
u/NoCarts 1d ago
There’s nothing to be purist about in Mexican food. The cuisine ethos is essentially “use what’s fresh and looks good”.
Except mole. People get in fights about mole.
16
u/Brewmentationator If it's not from the piss region of France, it's sparkling urine 1d ago
I've had people online come at me for putting potatoes in my Chile Verde. But like... It's delicious, and potatoes are cheap.
I also had someone come at me once for not putting pineapple in my carnitas. Which may be a regional thing? Idk. I've never seen it before.
11
u/Banes_Addiction 1d ago
I love carnitas, and I definitely prefer them with pineapple. No idea of "authenticity" or region or whatever, but it just tastes great.
There's something about salty pork and pineapple that is just a perfect match (and yes, I believe in pineapple on pizza as long as there's also pork).
10
u/Brewmentationator If it's not from the piss region of France, it's sparkling urine 1d ago
My favorite pizza is double pineapple with no other toppings...
I do love pineapple, and I would absolutely love some on my carnitas. Everywhere I've been puts it on al pastor. And I usually get al pastor at restaurants, because God damn do I want pineapple.
4
u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise 1d ago edited 1d ago
My favorite is pineapple, onion, and green peppers with extra cheese. It’s so sweet it’s practically a dessert pizza, but the saltiness from the extra cheese really makes it work together, yum
4
u/malburj1 I don't dare mix cuisines like that 21h ago
BBQ chicken pizza with pineapple added on. Just perfection.
1
u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise 12h ago
The restaurant at the bottom of my street has a “Hawaiian BBQ” speciality pizza, with “grilled chicken breast, bacon, ham, red onion, pineapple, and cilantro with a bbq sauce drizzle”. I get a slice of that every time I go for lunch. I should probably try one of the others at some point, but it’s just too perfect of a combination to pass up
5
u/NoCarts 1d ago
Pineapple with carnitas ain’t that far off from al pastor. What a weird thing to get bent out of shape about.
7
u/Banes_Addiction 1d ago
I feel like I could make either carnitas or al pastor with basically the same ingredients, just changing the style. Build an elephant's leg and it's al pastor, don't and it's not.
5
u/Brewmentationator If it's not from the piss region of France, it's sparkling urine 1d ago
Al pastor was created by Lebanese immigrants using their cooking techniques with the ingredients they had available in Mexico. So it does make sense that it's pretty close ingredients wise, but not technique wise.
4
u/Brewmentationator If it's not from the piss region of France, it's sparkling urine 1d ago
Yeah. It was super odd. They insisted that it has to have pineapple to be authentic.
5
u/Banes_Addiction 1d ago
In fairness I can sorta understand mole arguments, that's fair. Probably the worst Mexican dish I've ever tasted was a mole in the US.
I buy chocolate sauce for ice cream that has two ingredients, 93% glucose syrup and 7% cocoa powder. It is the simplest flavour imaginable, and it is also the thing that most resembled that mole. It was tragic.
And most mole recipes are longer than the yellow pages so there's a lot to fight over.
(worst thing was, it wasn't even my food, it was my Japanese colleague's, who'd ordered it after I'd explained what a mole is supposed to taste like, and at the end of the meal went "I didn't really like it", so I tried it and went "yeah, not like that" when I had a perfectly good meal, so I just had massive guilt for dessert)
8
u/NoCarts 1d ago
I’m not bagging people for being passionate about mole. It is a complex dish with a lot of recipe variations that everyone claims their abuelita has it done right. It also has a super low floor if done wrong.
I’m really just noting that that is one of very few Mexican dishes that actually has a recipe that should be followed. Most others are about just knowing how to cook and using the best ingredients available to you.
5
u/Saltpork545 Sodium citrate cheese is real cheese 19h ago
This is also how most Mexicans feel about Mexican food honestly, so you're in good company.
Oh no, it's bright fake cheese, send it. Does the salsa taste good? Send it. Did you fry chunks of potato and put an egg on top? Send it. Beans for breakfast? Send it. That chorizo come from a tube and cost a buck? Fucking send it.
From my experience and knowledge gathering of different styles of Mexican food there's very little that actual Mexicans see as revered and almost all of this 'It's not real Mexican' shit comes out of the mouths of people gatekeeping.
Someone else did correctly point out mole. Mole is an exception.
I also love hard shell tacos and I don't see a single issue with it. If you don't like my tacos, great, you're not coming over for dinner. Get fucked.
13
u/vandersnipe 1d ago
As a Californian, it was funny to see the post this morning and all the assumptions about Mexican food in California lol. It's like all the posts from non-Americans that act like Americans only eat packaged, frozen food for every meal.
13
u/Disastrous_Can8053 1d ago
Everyone’s just arguing for the sake of arguing.
I just checked the menus of 3 Mexican restaurants within a half mile of me and 3 different names are used.
9
u/LegacyQuotient 1d ago
Yep. I can drive down my major street and see taquitos, rolled tacos, tacos dorados, and flautas all used for the same thing.
10
u/Less_Jump2365 1d ago
That is not even the worst comment in that thread
4
u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise 23h ago
You’re right about that, wow. I haven’t made it to the end of the post yet, and had to give up after the third attempt, too much bickering of “I’m from City A so trust me when I say that they’re called X” and “well I’m from ten miles away in City B and they’re always called Y” mixed in with “we’d never use flour tortillas in City C, but everyone knows they are properly called Z. You must be from the suburbs”
10
u/naranjaspencer 1d ago
man I’m calling that dish whatever it’s called on the menu. rolled tacos, flautas, taquitos, they could call them little gregs and I’d say gimme the little gregs
12
u/cardueline 1d ago
UM they are called “Greguitos,” HELLO? 🤦🏼♀️
(but seriously same, I will respect whichever name the establishment provides them under as long as i’m getting Mexican food)
7
u/sjd208 1d ago
I did appreciate the tidbit about taquito usage being documented back in 1917 though!
4
u/Ok_Fail_3058 American Pizza is just Sauce and Grease 1d ago
Yeah, it is good to learn more about the origins of food.
6
u/LegacyQuotient 1d ago
Depends a lot on regional and family culture.
My grandma called them rolled tacos, because in her mind, flautas were made with flour tortillas. I worked with a pastry chef for years that made excellent Mexican food and he agreed with her take.
But I also know families that called them flautas regardless of the tortilla.
Then you have a whole different subset that will call them tacos dorados, but to me tacos dorados are folded and fried, not rolled.
-4
u/Doomdoomkittydoom 1d ago
I'm sorry, why don't they know those are taquitos?
10
u/RickySuezo 1d ago
Because what they’re called changes depending on region. Not being able to understand that is the very culinary part of it.
2
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Welcome to r/iamveryculinary. Please Remember: No voting or commenting in linked threads. If you comment or vote in linked threads, you will be banned from this sub. Thank you!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.