Fajitas are a Tex-Mex dish made with marinated and grilled meat served on a tortilla with onions and peppers. Originally made with skirt steak, fajitas are now made with various meats and served with traditional toppings. The dish was born out of a need to make cheap food more palatable and was first called tacos al carbon. Sizzling fajitas were first served in 1982 by Chef George Weidmann.
Fajitas are a Tex-Mex dish made with marinated and grilled meat served on a flour or corn tortilla. While originally made of beef, fajitas are now commonly found made with chicken, fish, shrimp, and pork. Onions and peppers are often grilled with the meat, and traditional Tex-Mex toppings, such as salsa, cheese, sour cream, and guacamole, can be served on the side.
The word fajita is the Spanish diminutive of “cintura” or “belt.” Along the Texas-Mexico border, butchers historically used the word to refer to diaphragm beef, known as “skirt steak” in the United States. This cut of meat was the fulcrum of the first fajitas, consumed perhaps as early as the 1930s.
Like the soul food of the American South, fajitas were born out of a need to make cheap food more palatable. The thin, tough diaphragm is one of the least desirable cuts of beef, and typically all the ranch hands along the Rio Grande of the 1930s and ’40s could afford. Fajitas make such good use of skirt steak that that cut of meat is still the most popular to use in the dish, and some argue that using any other meat is inauthentic.
The dish known as fajitas today was called tacos al carbon, after a Mexican dish, in its earliest incarnations sold at food stalls. While carbon tacos are served ready-to-eat by hand, with the meat wrapped in a tortilla, many restaurants today serve fajitas with a twist. Sizzling fajitas, brought to the table on a hot iron skillet, were first served up in 1982 by Chef George Weidmann of the Hyatt Regency in Austin, Texas. The dish is served with tortilla chips and toppings on the side, so the diner can whip up fajita tacos to his or her taste.
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