{"id":10069,"date":"2019-08-07T13:46:28","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T20:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=10069"},"modified":"2019-08-08T13:56:11","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T20:56:11","slug":"pastorero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2019\/08\/07\/pastorero\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastorero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

from KCET<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind a $1.50 Taco, a Deep Well of Expertise <\/h1>\n\n\n\n

by Lesley Tellez<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A\u00a0pastorero\u00a0at\u00a0Vilsito, a\u00a0taquer\u00eda\u00a0in Mexico City | Ana\u00a0Tello\/Eat Mexico<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To slice the juicy, crisp-edged al pastor meat off the roasting spit, Rolando Marcelino Martinez uses a 14-inch knife that he brought with him from Mexico. He sharpens it every day before customers arrive at Tacos Los Guichos, a bustling taquer\u00eda housed in a trailer near the 110 freeway at West Slauson Avenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scars of his job sit along his thumbs \u2014 faint, squiggly white lines set off against his dark brown skin. He cut himself when he was a novice, more than 15 years and three taquer\u00edas ago. Now he\u2019s considered a pastorero, or a taquero devoted exclusively to making tacos al pastor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every night, Marcelino\u2019s job has the same complicated set of rules: stack the meat on the spit; trim off the ends so it cooks more evenly; warm the tortillas, keep the cilantro and chopped onion at arm\u2019s reach; sharpen his knife; slice the meat into his outstretched, tortilla-lined hand; monitor the meat so it\u2019s cooked but not burned; and make sure he doesn\u2019t slice off a finger, all while standing in front of a hot gas grill with an open flame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe truth is that it\u2019s difficult,\u201d says Marcelino, who grew up in the village of Tamazulapan, Oaxaca. He first learned the taco trade in Guanajuato and eventually stacked trompos, or roasting spits for al pastor, at taquer\u00edas in Mexico City\u2019s trendy Condesa neighborhood. \u201cWith time, a person learns. But it\u2019s not easy like people would say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tacos al pastor, invented in Mexico City, are among the most popular tacos in Los Angeles, comprising marinated pork filets that have been stacked on a roasting spit and cooked over an open flame. (The spit is called a trompo in Spanish; the pile of meat is called a bola.) Taqueros slice the meat quickly into a warm tortilla and top it with a spray of cilantro and raw onion, salsa, and sometimes pineapple. Many stands in Los Angeles charge around $1 to $1.50 per taco, but the amount belies the expertise that\u2019s actually involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a complicated trade that encompasses knowledge of the kitchen, physics, chemistry, and separately, the soul of a taquero,\u201d says Alejandro Escalante, the Mexico City-based author of \u201cLa Tacopedia: Enciclopedia del Taco.\u201d \u201cTaqueros are in a way psychologists or expert salesmen. People come, and they know what each person is looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ click to continue reading at KCET<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from KCET Behind a $1.50 Taco, a Deep Well of Expertise  by Lesley Tellez To slice the juicy, crisp-edged al pastor meat off the roasting spit, Rolando Marcelino Martinez uses a 14-inch knife that he brought with him from Mexico. He sharpens it every day before customers arrive at Tacos Los Guichos, a bustling taquer\u00eda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}