Warning: The following contains whimsical foodie nonsense.

It occurred to me about a month ago that what is and is not taco fare is not limited to the picture on the Old El Paso box. I’m pretty open minded, especially with food. I love turning conventions on their head (I have a grilled eggplant parm on the menu for this weekend, for example) but for a number of subtle reasons, a ‘taco’ always meant ground beef (grilled chicken if you’re feeling frisky), some shitty shredded iceberg lettuce and a few other accouterments straight of of the Taco Bell mise en place.

Then one morning I heard this story on NPR about a taco truck in LA using Twitter to announce the location of their increasingly popular style of taco. Cool use of Twitter (a service as hard to confine as it is easy to define), but what came as a revelation was what they were sticking in their tacos: korean food. Kimchi and chilies. Lemongrass and Tofu. Amazing concepts made into apparently amazing tacos with a surprisingly simple but successful business model.

That night I went to the grocery store with a mission. I took leftover grilled chicken and reheated it with a Mojo glaze. Over that went a slab of sharp cheddar (no shreds, thanks) with a line of sracha. Next came a generous slice of fresh mango. Finally I topped it all off with a broccoli slaw of my own making, featuring a cilantro dressing.

It was one of the best things I have ever created.

The tanginess of the mojo paired with salty cheese and spicy chili sauce. Cool, sweet mango with fresh, brilliant cilantro and crunchy, creamy broccoli. All of this, in every bite. It was synergy defined.

Last night I took another whack at it, but as I am venturing into the world of Szechuan and  Cantonese cuisines I decided to go the asian route. Starting with a pillow of Basmati, I then layer a fresh wok-seared combination of sweet onion, shredded chicken thigh and a touch of teriyaki, soy and a little corn starch. On top of that I added a slice of fresh (though still way too expensive) pineapple and finally some chow mein noodles. I wish I had the experience in Asian cuisine to know a better way to introduce crunch than the chow mein noodles, but they did the trick. Julienne bok choy stems crossed my mind, but the Grocery store’s bok choy was stupid expensive and I had already broken the bank on the pineapple. The Napa cabbage looked like crap.

All of this creativity has redefined my notion of what a Taco is, but it has also wrongly caused me to discount traditional tacos. Indeed, the Mexican culture produces some outstanding tacos with a list of ingredients eerily similar to the ones every soccer mom in the world uses.

So no more should I, or hopefully anyone reading this, consider myself confined to the Old El Paso formula for tacos, but neither should anyone look at fresh, well seasoned beef, crispy cool greens, sublime tomatoes and salty, creamy cheese and see anything necessarily inferior. The devil, as always, is in the details.