One of my New Year resolutions is to learn Esperanto; thus, the title above, which means Happy New Year Tacos. Another resolution is charting the path for the sequel to my cookbook Tacos: Authentic, Festive & Flavorful. In college, I majored in Anthropology, and racked up enough credits for a minor, before switching to Spanish. Both disciplines have been invaluable to me as a rogue slacker savant, and I intend to use them in 2010 to dive deeper into the Taco Matrix. A little travel is in order too. I haven’t got out much in the last dozen years, what with building a homestead and not having much cash flow. The siren song of the taco calls me now and I shall endeavor to heed that bid.

OK, so I had a pig head in my freezer for awhile, a gift from some farmer friends. I debated whether to make head cheese again or to just make pig head tacos. The latter won. So it was that I cooked that head on December 30. The meat doesn’t take long to cook, about 2 hours. I stripped off all the meat and junk while it was still warm. I put the bones back into the stock and simmered it another couple of hours. When it cooled, it set up nicely and would have made a good headcheese. There is quite a bit of gristle and fat on the head. In order to make it more edible, as in not having to chew on big pieces, I mince it quite finely, which is also helpful to disguise to full nature of the endeavor from the children. The meat need not be cut as small, and indeed, the best pieces, which come from where the jaw attaches to the skull, are rich and delicious enough to be eaten solo.

We ate the Pig Head Tacos for New Year’s Eve, a strange nod to Auld Lang Syne. The fat in the meat is rich and does well to be cut with something tangy and hot. Though we didn’t have any, a cabbage slaw would have been a nice counterpoint. I’m not complaining though; there was a mild tomatillo salsa, canned Herdez salsa ranchera (ran out of homemade chile arbol salsa), grilled cebollitas, avocado, cilantro, white onion, limes, beer, tequila…!



My first tacos of 2010 came from our favorite local place, La Tapatia. Alas, they were closed on Jan 1st, so we had to wait until Jan 2nd to get our hands on some.