My Expensive San Antonio,
I’ve cherished you from the second I had my first tacos in your historic West Aspect. I recurrently half-joke that Austin, in taco phrases, is greatest regarded as a San Antonio suburb. So, as 2024 begins, I humbly counsel a New 12 months’s decision for the Alamo Metropolis.
It’s time you overcome your obsession with Austin’s tacos—or, extra exactly, with the inordinate consideration Austin’s tacos obtain, particularly from East Coast meals writers and influencers who consider the capital metropolis as the one hip place within the state, and know little about Dallas or Houston, a lot much less San Antonio. It’s time to cease asking celebrities whether or not Austin’s tacos or San Antonio’s tacos are higher. That’s an outdated framing of a drained matter, and it solely makes you appear to be you could have an inferiority complicated and are determined for approval.
The net taco wars started in 2016, when Eater revealed an article that christened Austin the house of the breakfast taco. The blowback was quick. A few of it was humorous, corresponding to an internet petition to ban the author from Texas. Most reactions, nevertheless, had been of the insulting, threatening kind, particularly from San Antonians. Austin mayor Steve Adler made it worse at a rally, when he instructed a nasty joke about declaring battle on San Antonio and exclaiming there can be a march on the Alamo Metropolis. At that time, San Antonians had been able to greet Austinites with flaming boulders of refried beans and shredded cheese fired from trebuchets. The battle was intensifying, in keeping with the San Antonio Categorical-Information.
However quickly sufficient, San Antonio’s grudge and insecurity grew to embody all tacos. The same scenario occurred in August 2018, when my function was revealed on the duvet of D Journal. (At the moment, I used to be working as a contract author.) Splashed throughout the duvet had been phrases declaring Dallas a taco metropolis. The remainder of Texas had a match. Even San Antonio mayor Ron Nirenberg tweeted a dismissive “LOL.” Nothing in my article disparaged San Antonio. In response, I invited the mayor to Dallas so I may lead him on a taco tour. He didn’t reply.
The next yr, the San Antonio Present accused Meals & Wine of making an attempt to revive the taco battle with the journal’s article about the very best breakfasts in each state. What ire was there shortly fizzled.
In a 2021 article in regards to the inaugural Taco Rumble, a cooking competitors amongst Austin and San Antonio taquerias hosted by the San Antonio Meals & Wine Alliance, MySA.com author Camille Sauers led with, “Who has the higher tacos—San Antonio or Austin? It’s an age-old debate between the 2 (dare I say warring) cities. San Antonio, ever the underdog, is usually assured that we deserve the title, regardless of nationwide media typically highlighting our neighbors to the north.” Their worries had been unfounded. San Antonio taquerias gained the primary Taco Rumble in addition to the 2022 occasion.
On the pink carpet forward of a SXSW 2022 screening of The Insufferable Weight of Large Expertise, star Pedro Pascal was requested which metropolis’s tacos are higher: San Antonio’s or Austin’s? After a protracted pause, he answered: San Antonio. San Antonio media and residents thumped their chests with delight. Considered one of their very own had thrown down the gauntlet—by no means thoughts that Chilean-born Pascal solely lived in San Antonio between the ages of six and eleven.
Then an actual property firm entered the fray. In protection of a research discovering Austin to be the “greatest taco metropolis” within the nation, Shepard Worth of the Categorical-Information wrote, “Are you mad but? You’re about to be.” Town’s day by day was baiting its readers, however why? San Antonio has lengthy been acknowledged because the historic culinary and cultural capital of Texas.
In February 2023, Timothy Fanning of the Categorical-Information wrote, “Since 2016, there’s been a full-fledged battle between Austin and San Antonio—a breakfast taco battle. Hoping to settle it as soon as and for all, we requested ChatGPT to settle the problem.” The AI bot botched the job. It claimed, for instance, that Austin had extra breakfast taco choices than San Antonio, that Austin’s breakfast tacos are typically extra numerous, and that San Antonio’s breakfast tacos are simplistic in comparison with Austin’s. This foolish train was one which a number of media shops, together with this journal, tinkered with final yr, which offered one other excuse for San Antonio to revisit the taco combat.
It’s wonderful to get just a little defensive when somebody in entrance of a microphone or a keyboard or throughout the desk mentions how a lot they love “Austin” tacos. It’s irritating to see people who skilled a life-changing gastronomic epiphany within the capital metropolis open their very personal taco joints throughout the nation. Nano Wheedan, proprietor of Taco Coronary heart in Philadelphia, defines his taqueria as an homage to Austin. Native Austinite Liz Solomon Dwyer refers to her New York restaurant King David Tacos‘s wares as “Austin breakfast tacos.” When she first opened a cart in Brooklyn’s Grand Military Plaza seven years in the past, passersby requested her to clarify breakfast tacos. That they had by no means heard of such a factor. “It was an intentional reference that helped at first,” she says of mentioning Austin. Fortunately, the general public’s taco literacy has elevated immensely since then.
“It’s a collective chip on our shoulder about how different cities are cited for his or her meals however ours isn’t,” says San Antonio poet Eddie Vega. “Or actually, that’s our notion as a result of those that do know (and write) know the reality. We all know we’re the seventh-largest metropolis in America, however nobody else appears to,” Vega continues. “The Spurs are an incredible franchise, however nobody appears to say them anymore. Tex-Mex was invented right here, however the New York Instances solely cares about Austin.”
In our dialog, Vega additionally talked about the reluctance of many in San Antonio to embrace innovation in tacos. Brenda Sarmiento, proprietor of Mexico Metropolis–type taco joint El Pastor Es Mi Señor and Mexican sushi spot Yellowfish, echoes Vega’s remarks. “Our drawback is that there’s probably not a lot room for innovation or, dare I say, enchancment,” says the San Antonio–raised enterprise proprietor. “We don’t like outsiders coming in to vary our panorama and palate so we . . . lob insults over ‘authenticity.’ ”
San Antonio, you deserve recognition and respect to your dusty, thick flour tortillas. The taco choices at most eating places are unequalled. As for tacos basically, San Antonio is dwelling to 2 of the very best nixtamal tortillerias in Texas, Sanitary Tortilla Firm and San Antonio Colonial. One of the best taquerias in Austin buy corn tortillas from Colonial. I feel you must get extra credit score than you do from coastal influencers. However selecting at that scab isn’t going to repair something.
A novel plan of action is required.
Extra San Antonians ought to embrace the brand new wave of taquerias in addition to their previous favorites. “San Antonio just isn’t seen as hip or stylish,” Sarmiento says. “At one time San Antonio was seen because the Mecca of Tex-Mex. It’s now seen as ‘your grandpa’s Tex-Mex.’ ”
Sarmiento instructed me her eating places battle to interact native prospects, and Gaby Hinojosa and Charlie Gonzalez, the house owners of San Taco—a joint specializing within the unique breakfast tacos, guisados—and Panfila Cantina, have additionally expressed frustration with the problem of getting a foothold.
If San Antonio refuses to maneuver previous old-school Tex-Mex to embrace the variety of the taco, it dangers getting left behind in Texas’s taco scene. As Vega places it, “If we don’t change our angle about innovation—modifying a traditional whereas sustaining its foundational integrity—we’ll fall into complacency and stagnancy.”
San Antonio, it’s time to vary the narrative, seize your future, and cease worrying about Austin.
