Published May 1, 2002. From Cook's Illustrated.
Are supermarket brands a passable substitute for homemade?
Prefab taco shells simplify the process of taco making, but we wondered if all shells were created equal. We conducted a tasting to find out, trying six brands of store-bought taco shells (warmed according to package instructions) as well as home-fried shells. The runaway winner was the home-fried shells. Uneven and imperfect, they looked rustic and real, not manufactured. Most important, tasters preferred their clean, toasty corn flavor and crisp yet sturdy texture. One taster noted that the home-fried shells brought flavor and texture to the assembled taco, whereas most other taco shells seemed no more than convenient containers.
Rating the rest seemed more a matter of choosing the lesser of evils. The brand that finished a distant second was described as "dry." Some tasters picked up "plastic" and "chemical" flavors, but a few appreciated the shells' crispness and faint corny sweetness. Two other brands tied for third. The former were crisp but "too delicate" and "absolutely tasteless"; the latter were hard, dry, and tough, but some liked the "well-seasoned" corn flavor. Our fourth-place finisher was bland, with a decidedly stale texture. The entry made with organically grown blue corn and costing almost a dollar more than some other brands, took fifth. The shells' color was off-putting and their texture too brittle and delicate to support the taco filling. Our sixth place finisher was disliked for a rancid flavor and a stale texture.
