Tacos de sal (salt tacos).
They're a time-honored treat for both people who love the simple things in life and those struggling to make ends meet in Mexico and the U.S. southwest. They are a traditional snack to taste your tortillas while still tender and steaming from a neighborhood tortillería, usually offered by the business to try their wares while you patiently wait in line for your hot tortillas.
But at the hands of an emerging chef popular on social media from Mexico, they've been turned into an object of social media ridicule.
Nineteen-year-old Isaias Espinoza, who's proven himself quite capable with appetizing past recipes for caldo de pollo, flan, and ribeye steak, and a green-haired friend posted a 43-second video showing him warming what he calls a "recently milled" tortilla that looks anything but, then filling it with salt, perhaps as a counter to frequent troll-like criticism that home-cooking recipes on the platform tend to get.
He fires up a comal, heats up his corn tortilla, absolutely floods it with salt (many who viewed the video later call the salt out as actually sugar), then rolls that motherfucker up before offering a finishing sprinkle all over the top with his own Salt Bae-ian flair. Definitely seems like something funny is going on with the pure excess of sodium chloride contained in the tortilla.
Then he hands it over to fellow TikTok famous taste-tester Didiwinx, who takes a bite and without taking the time to even swallow anything, tells him "honestly, I can't feel the salt, I can't tell where you put it" before throwing it to the side. She storms off and he fake-cries, revealing it to be nothing but a viral joke.
And like most things we struggle to understand these days, it worked.
The video quickly got 1.5 million views, with over 6,000 commenters, some of who take the stunt a little too seriously or simply don't get it. Espinoza starts the rallying off with a simple comment, "Harsh criticism, but I promise to improve."
Among the many pointed barbs fired back at him:
"Today's children are afraid of salt."
"The excess salt can damage your health and p.s. obviously reaches the kidneys"
"It didn't come out right because he forgot the lime."
"The salt was missing a taco"
"You're going to get kidney stones"
"RIP Kidneys"
"Eeeeeee i I served that recipe"
"But if it lacks salt it's not a salt taco" followed by screwfaced emojis
"Miss There's No Salt is going to vomit"
All of which is to say, the internet is still apparently not ready for the genius that is the salt taco. But feel free to make your own judgments on the video below:
@didiwinx Le falta sal😡 @chefenproceso #tacos #tacodesal #culinaria #cocina ♬ Plan A - Paulo Londra
