Posted by arkansas_girl "Wouldn't a piece of meat cooked for two days at such low temps(129F) be spoiled? I don't get those super low temps? The meat certainly looks like it would taste good but doesn't seem hot enough to even kill the bacteria etc." That is a very important question. Very important. Fortunately today with internet, you can check out all kinds of information, and you do need to go to multiple sources to confirm your information. I am not going to be very specific, just some general ideas here. The general guideline given by the authorities are safe to the extreme, they need to account for all those young, old and the immunological challenged. Furthermore, to make things simple, the guidelines do not take into account the time factor. In other words, when they say (again, I am not giving any specific information here, just talking about concepts) 160F is safe for chickens, they are not telling you that is also safe for 150F if you cook at that temperature for 30 minutes, and 140F for 60 minutes. For beef, (for me, may not be for you) it is generally very safe that you can eat raw beef, if the beef is handled properly. Since you can not be sure of if the outside of the beef is handled properly, you can sear/torch using quick high heat to sanitize the outside before you cook the meat in very low temperature. It is entirely not recommended to eat raw ground beef because you cannot sanitize ground beef. There are charts available showing safe temperatures for all kinds of meat based on time and temperature. dcarch

John, My husband corrected me. I made corn tortillas. Super simple recipe on the Masa Harina package--just cornflour, salt, and water. I rolled out the 2" balls between pieces of parchment paper. Then the tortillas are used to make tacos. I didn't know that! Here is a link that might be useful: This is the Masa Harina I used.

LOL! Sushipup, that's the thing. There are some northern places in Mexico where there just aren't corn tortillas. I wouldn't put al pastor in wheat. Fish tacos, which really are a Baja thing, as well as San Diego, are another story. And fry bread tacos are amazing! Writersblock, from what I can ascertain, the al pastor story about the shwarma is as real as any origin story from the first half of the 20th C. can be. For instance, it's well known that the French Dip and Chili Size started in Los Angeles, but there are conflicting stories about who was the first, and how it happened. Nachos, however, only have the one story about the shopping ladies coming into the restaurant between service times, when the kitchen was mostly shut down, and Ignacio (i.e., Nacho) who was serving them throwing together some bits and pieces to make them something to eat. The actual name of the maitre d' in Tijuana, Cesar something, for whom the Caesar salad is named, is known. I don't remember his full name, nor if he invented it or if it was just named for him within the restaurant, but that's a known fact that can be looked up easily. The story behind al pastor, from many unrelated sources, with sufficient drift to be pretty sure that they aren't recently from the same origin, is that there was an influx of Middle Eastern immigrants to Mexico City in the 1920's or '30's. They made schwarma. The vertical spit was embraced and adapted by their native Mexican neighbors. I suspect that it was originally lamb on the spit. That would be more consistent with what people from the Middle East would have eaten and would have spit roasted, and would make the name "by the shepherd" make sense. Easy for the Mexicans to substitute pork for lamb and add their own kinds of marinades. Note: I think everyone agrees, now, that "chili size" came from Ptomaine Tommy's and that it referred to the size of the ladle, but a number of years ago there were a bunch of other stories floating around. At that time, there was an article published, which seems to have been seminal in settling the dispute, but at the time it was printed, I thought they'd gotten the meaning wrong, saying it had come from the smaller scoop. A chili size, as I knew it from childhood in SoCal, was not a chili burger. It was a burger, with or without a bun on the bottom, smothered in a dish of chili. Thus, the original call would have been "chili size" for the bowl of chili sized ladle of chili on what, in the beginning, might have been a proper burger that the patron wanted overflowing with lots of chili, and "hamburger size" for the amount normally put on a chili burger. That's a much simpler derivation that fits the evidence better, but I couldn't tell you for sure. Ptomaine Tommy's closed well before I was born!

Tacos can be kind of anything around here, depends on what's in the house and how many people are eating. Table is a taco bar and everyone can build as they will. I tend to like to build a salad on my plate. Then fill a tortilla or shell or two, maybe have a few chips, probably eat a bunch of it as a salad. Meats can be ground beef, shaved beef, steak, slow braised beef. Chicken that's sometimes cooked from cut up fajitas style, sometimes slow cooked and shredded. Pork and ham is usually slow cooked and shredded. Fish or shrimp tends to be quick cooked/seared or grilled. Pintos, black beans, and mayocoba beans- I cook those from dry and sometimes leave whole, sometimes mash up for refries. Sometimes shredded cheeses like cheddar or a jack, sometimes quesos, occasionally a cheese sauce. Chopped tomatoes, onions or green onions, shredded lettuce or other tender greens, lime wedges, sour cream, salsas or hot sauces, sometimes black olives. Avocado or guac. Shells and/or tortillas, sometimes hard corn sometimes soft, sometimes flour. Usually some tortilla chips, occasionally boats. Sometimes street corn, grilled or seared veggies, cole slaw, fried potatoes or sweet potatoes. Pickled jalapenos, pickled carrot salad, quick pickled red onions and radishes. Seasoned rices or rice and beans. Most of the time I'm seasoning from Tex-Mex, Central, and Northern South America. Sometimes I go more Jamacian or Cuban. I make my own taco seasoning or recipes for a lot of it. I also have a nice stash of seasonings ordered from Amigo foods for flavor profiles I might not have otherwise. If I'm going more Asian or Indian with it, a lot of the seasoning profiles and some of the fillings and extras change. Chapati/roti isn't exactly like a tortilla, but it's also not easy to find around here. During the summer I sometimes make "sushi tacos" for work lunches- cream cheese smear, packet tuna or whatever leftover cooked fish from last night I have in the fridge, white rice. Nasturtium leaves or other peppery leaves from the garden, green onions or sweet and sour onions, pickled edamame. Flour tortilla. And not exactly tacos, but around here... socca is used like soft tortillas too. Socca is a thin chickpea pancake. Usually socca is used with Mediterranean or Middle Eastern fillings and profiles. But the more usual fillings and profiles from the Americas work great too. And chickpea can be a nice alternative to corn or flour for some folks. Tacos I've had that I don't really make. Stewed goat was good, I like goat. Roasted lamb, not so much, but ground lamb like a kebab nug or moussaka filling is good. Duck was OK. Turkey can be OK, but often can be kind of the most boring of the meats. Venison was good, stewed and brisket kind of smoked style. Jackfruit is really good. Crab and lobster are OK, but there are better uses for those and I like fish tacos better. BBQ can be surprisingly good, especially using corn tortillas or shells for it.