Every restaurant has a soul. Not literally, but when you walk through an establishment’s doors, you just feel something. A family-owned diner will make you feel right at home, as you wait for your parents to sit down at the table so everyone can dig in. A Michelin Star oozes refinement, with each bite reminding you of the rigorous effort and time invested in each morsel. Each restaurant has an aura rooted in authenticity and origin. For chain restaurants, though, it’s hard to replicate the feeling of home.
But who can define authentic? Well, according to Merriam-Webster, authentic is “what is made or done the same way as an original”. However, that definition is a shallow, technical definition. It doesn’t apply in real life. Let’s say an immigrant moves from their country of origin to another. They feel homesick and wish to make food that reminds them of home. Yet, in this new country, they don’t have the exact ingredients to recreate the taste of home. So, this person replaces, mixes and matches, and supplants missing ingredients to approximate their view of home. The result is not authentic by definition, no. It’s a mishmash of technique and ingredients that deviates from the original recipe. Yet, it’s entirely authentic to that person, their view, and their circumstances. The soul of the food is still there.
Taco Bell is a Mexican-inspired restaurant chain founded in 1962 by Glen Bell, a white man from Lynwood, California. It’s been described as Americanized Mexican food, a cardboard imitation of the tacos sold in real Mexican restaurants.
I’ve never been to one before until Oct. 24.
From the outside, it looked like nothing special. It was a blocky, rigid building, defined by its sharp edges and gray exterior. There was nothing to distinguish it from a warehouse. No giant bucket of chicken, no golden arches, nothing. The pueblo-style I had seen from each Taco Bell I had driven by vanished.
The cashier was closed, so I had to order from a screen, scrolling through many different names that were indescribable. Like, what exactly is a Chalupa? After I ordered four tacos and Baja Blast, which smelled like an affront to everything that God had created, I sat down and looked at my friends, mentally preparing myself for the meal I was about to put into my body. I started with seasoned fries, dipping them into vibrant yellow cheese that tasted like a sea of mediocrity. Looking at it certainly didn’t help my appetite, so I resigned myself to literally biting the rigid tortilla-shaped shell.
I had to take a deep breath, before unwrapping my first taco, drizzling mild sauce, which was a very unhelpful descriptor because it was essentially liquid that wasn’t flavored at all, up and down across ground seasoned beef. It tasted like nothing, but a few notes of spice. To top it all off, I bought some cinnamon crisps, which were literally cinnamon vigorously lathered over what seemed to be air. I’ve been to Mexico before and I’ve tried real Mexican food. It’s a delightful mix of acid, fat, spice, and heat. This wasn’t even trying to replicate the taste of Mexican food. It tasted more like something that would be found in a bar. It was not worth the money I had put in, roughly $15 or so.
That was fine, though. It didn’t have to imitate Mexican food, as it never claimed to be Mexican food. But somewhere along the line of ground beef, wilted lettuce and tomatoes, heavy cream that left a sour taste in my mouth, and a shell that splintered into tiny little pieces, I really didn’t know what I was eating. At the end of the meal, I felt like I had somehow been scammed. I was somehow still hungry, and yet disgustingly full.
Sitting at that table didn’t feel like a meal, but a transaction. I felt like I was giving my time and money to write an article for the New Trier News, not to be nourished in a deeply satisfying way that only food can do.
With a heavy heart, I must say that the soul of Taco Bell is gone. The image I had of it as a representative of the teenage American experience is gone. It was lost somewhere in the promotional ads for a crunch wrap Dorito supreme or chicken fajita fries. It was lost in the hard lines and box shape of the restaurant itself. It was lost in the screen staring back at you while you ordered by pressing buttons. Who’s to blame for this? Maybe it’s us, we who always need a new promotion or fad food to get us off our seats to go to these restaurants. Maybe it’s us who reinforce these decisions by buying these products.
But, overall though, the Baja Blast smelled really weird and the tacos tasted like nothing. Six out of ten.