Tacos Made The Black Angeleno Way

Growing up in the San Gabriel Valley, Veronica Daniel remembers her mom Aliza making tacos differently than the ones she ate in a traditional Mexican restaurant.

Instead of just piling diced onions, cilantro, meat and freshly made salsa onto two lightly grilled corn tortillas, Aliza had her own approach.

“I didn't really realize that it was so culturally different until I became an adult,” says Daniel, who is now interning with LAist Studios.

Listen • 21:00

Listen • 21:00

Black Tacos Are A Thing In LA

#290: Today we're doing one of our favorite thing on HTLA: explore – and eating – LA's rich food scene. Every heard of Black tacos? Or as some people refer to them: Black people tacos?  Well, they're a thing, especially in LA, and they are delicious. Think traditional soul food spices and braised meats with all the Mexican fixins' that Angelenos love. 

It’s the ‘culture’

Daniel’s mom uses ground turkey in her tacos instead of traditional Mexican meats like carne asada or al pastor, and lightly sprinkles an assortment of toppings to her tacos — shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, cheddar cheese, sour cream and, more recently, avocado salsa — inside an juicy, oiled-up corn tortilla shell.

But the key difference is the seasoning. Aliza uses the Trader Joe's version of Lawry’s salt, a blend of salt, herbs and spices, like paprika, that has been a staple in Black households for decades. Plus, she adds cumin.

Aliza Daniel adds shredded lettuce to her signature ground turkey taco.

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Aliza moved to Los Angeles from Texas when she was 10 years old with her mom and five siblings, and she recalls her mother making classic soul food dishes growing up.

But once Aliza started her own family in L.A., she tells her daughter she started making tacos in the home. “For me, cooking and making Black tacos was a way of having something healthy for my children, but also something that they could pick from … they could choose what they wanted inside of it,” Aliza explains.

Fixings to make the tacos Veronica Daniel grew up eating.

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Aliza Daniel adds taco seasoning to ground turkey.

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In fact, Black families in cities like L.A, Houston and Chicago have been making these traditional Mexican quick meals in their own unique way since the 1950s, mostly because of the close proximity of Black and Mexican communities. Those in the know affectionately refer to the dish as Black people tacos or, simply, “Black tacos.”

“For me, it's like the culture — it’s how you make it, what you do with it and the spirit behind it,” Aliza says. “I think, especially for African Americans, for us, food … it’s about family. It’s how we all come together. I’m not only cooking for myself, but family and anyone else who walks in that door.”

All about the seasoning

“I think the Black taco really is an intermingling of two cultures that have come together using traditional elements from Mexican food,” explains Debra Freeman, a food anthropologist, “and African Americans are taking some foods that they're renefamiliar with and cooking techniques and putting a spin on it.”

That “spin,” she says, is typically applied to the protein, which could be anything from oxtail to chicken or even sweet potatoes but, like Aliza’s tacos, ground turkey is a typical go-to. The seasoning is also essential. Unlike a traditional Mexican taco where a lot of the flavor and heat comes from the salsa, the meat is what gives a Black taco some kick.

Veronica Daniel and her mom Aliza add fixings to a ground turkey taco.

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“So the emphasis really is on how the meat is seasoned … cayenne, garlic powder, onion, onion powder, and braising the meats instead of searing the meats,” she adds. “That's actually really important.”

Barbara “Sky” Burrell is the owner of Sky’s Gourmet Tacos in Mid City — the L.A. Times' Danielle Dorsey credits her with putting Black tacos on the map in Los Angeles. Burrell says she learned to cook and experiment with tacos at an early age with her mom.

Barbara Burrell, owner of Sky's Gourmet Tacos.

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“My mom started getting the tortillas and I started makeshifting,” Burrell says. “I would get up to the stove with a chair … and prepare things my folks would never think about eating at the time.”

When she first began to play around with ingredients, she stuffed tacos with foods she knew: baked potatoes, fried chicken, eggs and spices like oregano and cumin.

One favorite recipe includes chicken breasts baked in corn flakes. “Add some good seasoning, strip it up, put in that taco,” she says.

Fusion cooking

Freeman likens the evolution of the Black taco to American barbecue, which has its origins in Virginia with enslaved pit masters.

“There are so many different types of barbecue that spring up as African Americans migrate,” Freeman says. “People kind of have these fusions of barbecue and they're using different ingredients.”

Barbara Burrell, owner of Sky's Gourmet Tacos, prepares her signature shrimp taco.

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Sky's Gourmet Tacos has been open on Pico Boulevard since 1992.

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This fusion cooking is at the heart of Black culinary culture in the U.S., Freeman says. As enslaved Africans were forced to do most of the cooking in homes in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was about adapting to a foreign land while trying to preserve traditions from home that had been left behind.

“They are, without knowing it, creating a new cuisine, right? Let's say yams to sweet potatoes … Yams were in West Africa, very prevalent,” says Freeman. “That was not the case in America, but [sweet potatoes were] similar enough that they knew how to prepare it, they knew how to work with it, how to season and flavor it.”

A ‘moment’ for Black Tacos

Freeman acknowledges that Black tacos are having a moment but notes the blend of cultures has happened in various cities over the last several years.

“I think that this has been happening in certain pockets of America in the Black community, but there wasn't necessarily a name for it,” Freeman says. “It was just something that was going on at home, in kitchens and folks were adapting tacos to what ingredients that they enjoyed and preparing it in a way that they were more familiar with.”

The signature shrimp taco at Sky's Gourmet Tacos.

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Sky’s owner Burrell has been at it most of her life, including more than three decades professionally. Long recognized, she says, as the “taco girl,” Burrell has been running her restaurant on Pico for 32 years.

Sky’s tacos are deeply grilled, and include a variety of meats and her special “Sky’s Sassy Sauce.” At her restaurant, you can try the shrimp taco that helped put the eatery on the map, plus salmon tacos, turkey tacos and even filet mignon tacos.

When Burrell finally opened up her own restaurant in 1992, there were definitely skeptics, especially among her Latino neighbors in Mid City. She says she attracted a lot of curious questions as a Black woman selling tacos — and ones stuffed with turkey, no less.

Barbara Burrell welcomes customers to her restaurant.

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“And all of a sudden you've got this taco and it's a turkey taco and you say ‘who eats a turkey taco?,’” she remembers with a laugh.

But after a while, she says, the turkey tacos — and the other varieties — caught on.

“As years go on … you begin to, you know, experiment with this and that, and you understand cultures, and black and brown start coming together,” she says. “We break bread and it's like, ‘oh, these are different and they're good.’”

Where to buy Black tacos

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story said Aliza Daniel uses Lawry's salt on her tacos. She uses a version of the seasoned salt sold by Trader Joe's