Steak Tacos

In the unit Birth for the course Food For Thought we studied processed food vs. organic food. We watched a movie on Netflix called Food Inc. It was about the way big food companies treat the animals and how the companies feed the animals corn so they can get fat. We also read chapters from Pollan's books, about his view on todays food. A major thing that we are using from his reading are the 5 transformations on the foods. For our project we study the difference between restaurant food vs. homemade food. We had to chose a food that we like and that we can make. Then after that we had the option of doing a written food review or a video about our experience. I chose steak tacos and I did a video. I made the tacos with the help with my mom and I have cooked steak tacos before so it was easy for me to make. I really liked the experience because this project made me think of processed food and organic food. For that I had to use my 5 senses so it was very interesting to try something that is the same but has a difference. Throughout this project, I learned how to distinguish processed food and organic food. Another thing that was interesting was one of the ingredients that I used, which is the seasoning.It had an ingredient called citric acid. Citric acid is a flavoring and it is cheap so it is used a lot and it is safe. One thing that I am proud of was my voice over because I basically had to the write  review, then do the voice over and I was the only student who made a video.

Script -

Taqueria:

I went to a taqueria called Los Dos Primos. Once I got there I ordered two steak tacos and waited 10 minutes. When the dish came the aroma of the steak tacos filled the room and as it came closer to my table I became more hungry. Once I got my plate I was able to hear the steak bubble a little. In taquerias they give you two tortillas so I had four tacos. The tacos had steak, cilantro and chopped onion. When I took the first bite the steak was soft and juicy in my mouth. The tacos were a little salty and spicy (because of the hot sauce) but overall they were appetizing. From what I tasted and what I could see the meat wasn't dry or old it was fresh, the cilantro and onion were also fresh.

Home made:

A day after I went to the taqueria I made my own steak tacos. I bought all the ingredients necessary to make good steak tacos. In the process of making them I sprinkled the meat with a sour/salty dressing. Then I put it in a frying pan and started cooking it. When the steak was cooking it released a pleasing smell and while the steak was cooking I heated up four tortillas. Once the tortillas were ready, the meat was almost ready too. When everything was cooked I put the meat in the tortillas. Then I added cilantro, onion and a little bit of hot sauce on the tacos. The tacos looked small, a little dry but delicious. The meat sounded a little crunchy but soft in my mouth. The good thing is that there was a lot of meat in the taco. Since the tacos were small, I could eat more than I usually eat with regular size tortillas in tacos. I would say the tacos were fresh because of the cilantro and onion. The meat was also fresh.

Comparison:

In comparing both tacos, I prefer my homemade tacos because the meat tasted better and I could put whatever I wanted on the taco. Since I am a picky eater I prefer to make food my way. A difference that I noticed between the two tacos was the size of the tortilla and the quality of the meat. I like the meat that I used for my tacos better than the one the taqueria had. I would recommend home made steak tacos because you can make them how ever you want and you know what ingredients are in your food.

Pollan’s food transformations:

My experience relates to Pollan’s Food Culture to Food Science transformation. It relates to it because people now think of foods as numbers instead of just eating a delicious food.People now are concerned about calories, fat, sugar, ect and they don't actually enjoy eating food. The reason why we now think like that is because since processed food loses its nutrition people add different ingredients to the food. An example would be my tacos, if the taqueria used processed meat then they add different ingredients from other countries to get the same nutritional value or taste. Tacos is Mexican food and they are delicious but in the US the tacos are americanise or are in the process of being americanised, how? Well american culture and Mexican culture are being mixed together and the food loses its original culture. Mexican tacos are greasy and have lots of meat but now there's barely any meat and mostly no grease.