The taco and the torta are the twin pillars of Mexican street food, but where the taco is small and sexy and has long since seduced all of America in its many forms, the torta (with its many Mexican sandwich siblings) is just teetering on the brink of international stardom. The small size of a taco makes it an easy step into new flavors, but a sandwich is a meal, it’s a commitment to the milanesa, the carnitas, or the pierna (pork leg) inside. But it’s a commitment spread with butter and refried beans, topped with creamy avocado or delightfully addictive spicy peppers, and piled with any of an endless array of flavorful meats and cheeses. The Mexican sandwich takes the same taco flavors and turns them up to eleven, offering a world of fluffy buns and spicy meats that no food lover should leave uneaten.
Back in 2005, Rick Bayless was still introducing Mexican “submarines” with extensive explanation in his book Mexican Everyday. Four years later, he’d open his own torta shop, called Xoco, and bring tortas to a much wider crowd. By 2012, Roberto Santibañez didn’t even feel the need to explain what a torta is in the introduction to his book Tacos, Tortas, and Tamales
