Tacos de Canasta

Tacos de canasta are a 20th-century working-class street food of Mexico City, but the trade itself is traced to Tlaxcala. The town of San Vicente Xiloxochitla, southwest of the state capital, is widely called the cradle of the taco de canasta: from the 1950s its farmers, squeezed by poor returns on the land, turned to making and selling these tacos, and many still travel daily into Mexico City to vend them. Tlaxcala marked seventy years of the trade with a gastronomic fair in the 2020s, and a large share of Xiloxochitla's families remain in the business. The defining format is the vendor on a bicycle with a cloth- or plastic-lined basket; the name means simply "basket tacos," after the basket that keeps them warm and lets them sweat. Once food for labourers and the poor, they spread across the city's social classes over the century.

The tortilla is soft, oil-slicked and almost see-through — never crisp — warm all the way through from sitting in the basket. Bite in and the filling is soft and savoury: creamy mashed potato, or salty pressed pork rind, or earthy refried beans, or a dark, faintly sweet adobo. The whole thing is frankly greasy in a satisfying way, the chile oil staining your fingers; a spoon of salsa brings the heat and a pickled jalapeño the sharp edge. Two bites and it is gone, which is why you order three or four.

The tortilla starts from nixtamal: dried corn steeped and cooked in calcium-hydroxide lime water, an alkaline cook that loosens the hull, frees the grain's bound niacin and makes its tryptophan available — the step that historically guarded against pellagra — while turning the maize into a cohesive, gluten-free masa. The defining move comes after: the folded, lightly warmed tacos are drizzled with hot lard or oil coloured with chile or achiote, then sealed in a cloth- and plastic-lined basket. Trapped heat, oil and the tacos' own moisture make them sweat — the tortillas relax from firm to limp and pliant, warm through evenly, and the fillings' flavours meld, usually over twenty minutes or more. The oil does double duty: it keeps the stacked tacos from sticking and carries the fat-soluble chile colour and aroma into every layer. It is the opposite of a griddle taco, which is cooked to order and stays firm and dry.