The most delightfully-named taqueria in the city—the truck on 15th and Burnham takes its handle from an annual indigenous cultural festival in Oaxaca—has a handy translation placard for available meats: “lengua” is “tongue,” “cabeza” is “head,” “Alambres” is… “Alambres.” Meaning, seemingly, that there is no translation. As in, if you don’t speak the language, you won’t get it. It reminds me of a time a well-meaning prankster member of my Mexican in-law tribe tried to let me in on the ultimate Spanish cuss, the one to use if anybody is really giving you a hard time. When I asked my wife to explain what it meant, I didn’t think the translation sounded so offensive. Until, later, at one of those extended relative gatherings, when, backed into a corner, being mocked for my broken espanol, fumbling for a face-saving zinger, I let the unmentionable phrase slip in front of an abuela, a tia, and a gaggle of cousins. All eyes on me, mouths aghast in collective terror and befuddlement, with crickets suddenly echoing around the awkward silence, it was like Lenny Bruce joking about Adolf Hitler. I haven’t been invited to a family funeral since.
What can’t be lost or misconstrued in translation is taste. So if you stumble through the three-syllables, you will be rewarded with an alambre of crispy asada, tender pastor from a bulbous stationary vertical spit of seasoned pork, and bacon wedges in varying levels of doneness. The multitude meat stuffs exist in loose, pepper-inflected affiliation, messily inconsistent chops leave incongruous bites—some onion-y, some gooey, all meaty and salty and dense.
Such variety is the spice of life, as they say. Which is not true. Salsa is the spice of life. And the rojo here is blood red and angrily smoky, thick enough to hold its own on the mass, spicy but short of overpowering, so that the massive container of chopped, pickled habanero and onion sitting on the counter should still be utilized. Though, in the spirit of those male enhancement drug disclaimers, maybe consult with a doctor if there is any history of heart problems.
A crumbly baked papa also sits atop the two-meal mash. nd by now, it feels like, why not? It’s a spongy starch addition that is better to soak it up—the debris, the salty carnage, all the messy drip of life itself. Piquant, earthy, foreign, comforting, a concentrated slop of intricacy and nuance, the whole thing is really a beautiful sense bastardization, an amalgamation that only leaves trace amounts of grease guilt.
Sometimes saying things you don’t understand really pays off.
