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Tacos de cabeza is a Mexican street food that allows customers to choose which part of an animal’s head to use as meat for their tacos. It is a delicacy in some areas and can include parts such as the brain, tongue, cheeks, lips, and even eyes. The meat is typically shredded and served in a tortilla with traditional taco ingredients and salsas. The heads are cooked overnight or slowly in an oven to make them tender, and a recipe for making them at home involves rubbing the heads with spices and baking them for up to three and a half hours.
Cabeza, the Spanish word for head, is also a Mexican street food custom that allows the customer to choose which part of an animal’s head to use as meat for their tacos. Available in taquerias and street trucks across the country and in several places abroad, tacos de cabeza can include a number of parts from the faces of cows or goats, which have been steamed intact overnight or cooked slowly in an oven to make them as tender as possible. These unpleasant proteins are typically shredded and disguised in traditional taco attire: a hard corn or soft flour tortilla on the outside, with ingredients like chopped onion, chiles, and cilantro inside. A number of distinct Mexican salsas are regularly poured on top.
As you might assume, cabeza is one of the cheaper taco options. However, many in Mexico still consider it a delicacy. According to the Mex Connect website, these tacos are particularly popular in the more depressed areas of the Mexico City metropolitan area. They are also well received in the Baijo and Sonora regions, where people often eat them for breakfast.
Parts such as the brain, tongue, cheeks, lips and even eyes are regularly offered individually. A medley is also commonly offered, called a surtido. Depending on the part, it can be shredded, chopped, or left untouched to look back on – in the case of eyeballs. When ordered in a formal restaurant, the cabeza is often brought to the table on a platter and diners are encouraged to try the sides they would like to try.
According to LA Weekly food writer Farid Zadi, a noted culinary instructor, the goat brains he tasted tasted like sweet, mushy bread, while the eyeballs were like chewing on giant sinew. It’s customary to strip a little bit of each part for the taco, including a little tongue, some crispy skin, the tender meat around the mouth, and even some brains and fat cheeks for a range of flavors in a single taco.
Zadi’s recipe for tacos de cabeza doesn’t call for steaming overnight. Instead, he rubs the heads, inside and out, with coriander, cumin, salt and pepper, and then bakes them on a baking sheet in a 350°F (about 177°C) oven. Holding the heads to one cheek, they are regularly turned to cook evenly, which takes up to three and a half hours. For the cow’s head, even more time is needed for the meat to cook.
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