Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/19/one-of-our-favorite-kitchen-it.html
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They must be good. [March 2016]
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One of these days I’m going over all these posts, trying to calculate the cubic space needed to store all these favorite, indispensible, essential items
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<- My Taco Holder
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A local build-your-own-falafel bar utilizes them to hold falafel pitas while you pay for your food.
So these things are multipurpose!
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I sincerely want Mark to give us a video tour of his kitchen someday. Seriously, I can’t even imagine 
Then again, my partner continually reminds me that at one point I owned four mandolins because I couldn’t find the perfect one…
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i’m pro-taco holder, and i vote.
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nice item - only problem is - those aren’t tacos. tacos are soft. I guess we can call these “american tacos” but why not let people know there is a better way? anything you can enjoy on an america hard fried “taco” is better applied to a nacho (also american). I grew up on these hard crispy shells you’d get from the supermarket in vacuum sealed packs…loved them, but I always sensed there was something wrong w/ the concept. I was recently berated by a podcast on how these aren’t real tacos…etc…and I give in…the logic makes too much sense. And yes, it let’s me act like a foody hipster just like Anthony Bourdain (who ironically decries hipsters…but I would argue is the biggest one of all).
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When people discuss taco holders, do they have to preface it by saying “this is a holder for non-traditional American-style crunchy-shell tacos”, or can we just agree that something that’s shaped like this is, by default, made for American-style crispy tacos, and know that when someone says “taco” in reference to this device, that’s what they mean?
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sorry - google it - they were invented for americans: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/nachos-inventor_n_1515233.html
I guess if there were technically invented location wise across the Texas border in Mexico we can give it to you, but it isn’t really Mexican food.
Also - “can we just agree that something that’s shaped like this is, by default, made for American-style crispy tacos, and know that when someone says “taco” in reference to this device, that’s what they mean” --> No we can’t, The point is to lose the cultural appropriation of the term “Taco”…I prefer “Crispy Tortilla” (I’m just sort of kidding here BTW…but my point is … we should all frown on crunchy tacos…not everything needs to be subjective…you wouldn’t call a mexican chef in Tel Aviv who makes his “crunchy taco” from fried pita w/ crushed falafel balls a taco right? not a "Israeli/middleastern taco right? how about crunch mooshu pancakes wrapped around meat? I’m a convert to the fundamentalist bent of neo-american-hard-taco-denial.)
It seems kinda weird to consider a dish invented by a Mexican and made famous while being sold out of a Mexican restaurant in Mexico to be a dish of American origin. But I’m not really in a hair-splitting mood, like you seem to be, so I’ll just enjoy a plate of tasty nachos. Mmmmm nachos.
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But at what point does the use of a term become so pervasive that trying to divest the “new” culture of the term is a greater harm than protecting the original?
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I’m just gonna call 'em “bent tostadas.”
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I want to go to there.
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where the purpose (or result) is education and being lifted up…there is no harm. and in this case, where is the harm? here’s a harder one for you. is a burrito a sandwich? burritos don’t really exist in Mexican cuisine - they are just big tacos I guess (again knowledge gained from the angry podcast)…but I deflect/digress.
god bless nachos. 1 of the 7 essential food groups.
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I love fish tacos and occasionally get them in these metal structures. I thought they were clever at first, but I’m no longer happy to see them. They’re just messy, sorry. There’s usually more stuff on the plate than just tacos. Rice, black beans, and gloppy stuff like sauce and whatever precipitates down from the tacos. A fair percentage of that aims directly for the large space on the plate that’s under this gadget. So I either have to chase the food back and forth on either side of it, or move it off the plate. Summary: more style than function.
In my experience these just break and taco shit falls out everywhere.
Not a fan.
Besides, softshell is the coolest. 
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