The Epic Question That Divides Texas: Who Invented the Breakfast Taco? [UPDATE]

AUSTIN, TX -- In the Austin vs. San Antonio breakfast taco wars: It’s really on now, as one of San Antonio’s top chefs, Johnny Hernandez, has thrown down the gauntlet.

A recent Austin writer’s assessment declaring his city as the birthplace -- and best place, for that matter -- of the breakfast taco, drew the ire of residents in the Alamo City. The ensuing debate has galvanized forces on each side of the debate, both staking claim to the distinction of being the true home to the beloved Texas staple.

Hernandez has now raised the stakes with the precision of a military campaign that would make George Patton proud. He’s challenging Austin to a taco throwdown.

“Austin. You have gone too far this time,” Hernandez begins in putting Austin on notice for a tortilla showdown.

“We, as a city, feel the time has come to settle this feud once and for all,” Hernandez continues. “Austin has no right to our taco heritage! Hello?! Doesn’t Austin know how much we love tacos? We have art devoted to our love of tacos.”

Hernandez is no mere culinary wannabe. He owns the extremely popular La Gloria restaurant on the edge of downtown San Antonio, and is considered one of the finest chefs of Mexico-inspired cuisine in the entire nation. No less a venerable figure than McCormick’s Spices once solicited his help in creating a new seasoning line to appeal to the burgeoning Hispanic market.

For God’s sake, the man was listed in Texas Highways “Extraordinary Texans” feature. And one cannot achieve greater culinary human status than extraordinary.

Now Hernandez is really hot under the collar, and that’s outside of the kitchen even:

“San Antonio is calling on Austin for a breakfast taco throw down,” he challenged Austin. “One day, two cities, numerous chefs, and the people will be the judge.”

Like a benevolent general, he suggests any proceeds from the throwdown be donated to charity rather than either side of the fight making ”suitable amends,” he adds.

“Lets cook about it!” he suggests. “It’s not about where it started, its about who can do it best!! And what better cause to bring these two amazing cities together than…TACOS!”

Hernandez’s missive came late on Friday, and, so far, no Austin chef has accepted the challenge. Patch will continue to report from the front lines of this skirmish, and will provide details as warranted.

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From Feb. 23:

AUSTIN, TX — Austin home to the breakfast taco? Them there’s fightin’ words. The longtime rivalry between San Antonio and Austin just heated up after a local scribe’s claims that the breakfast taco was invented not in San Antonio but in Austin.

A primer for the uninitiated or the people from places not Texas: Certain things are sacred, as much a part of a geography’s paternity as tequila is to Mexico, champagne is to France, vodka to Russia.

Now to continue. The website Eater Austin fueled the debate after a recent posting staked claim over the breakfast taco for Austin, and even went so far as to suggest the very term “breakfast taco” was coined here.

Not so fast, San Antonians said in rebuttal. Breakfast tacos are in the very DNA of the city, as much innately a part of the city’s identity as the Alamo and the Riverwalk, they suggested.

It doesn’t stop there. The ire in San Antonio is so great, a Change.org petition is now circulating, calling for banishment of the author.

Protesters have taken umbrage at the mere headline, which they say is suffused with the kind of smug sense of superiority that Austin has long been accused of having toward its more laid-back neighbors further south down Interstate 35, just over an hour away.

“How Austin Became the Home of the Crucial Breakfast Taco,” the headline reads.

That proved to be the (head)line in the proverbial sand.

Other blog sites have piled on to launch invective against the young scribe, including OC Weekly in California. The site wades into the controversy further, hurling accusations of journalistic malfeasance against the blog post author, Matthew Sedacca.

“Sedacca’s article commits a cardinal sin: [expletive deleted] reporting, which happens again and again with these newfangled web-only publishing concerns,” OC Weekly charges.

A single source (other than personal insights from the author’s obvious love of breakfast food items) was used, in the form of Galveston-based food writer Robb Walsh.

Worse, the source wasn’t fully attributed, OC Weekly adds. (Important side note: Journalistic best practices dictate that two, if not three, sources are required on important issues such as this.)

“He credits Walsh (without directly quoting him, in a punk-ass journalistic sleight-of-hand) with saying that Austin ‘is the birthplace of the phrase [Sedacca’s emphasis] breakfast taco, and thus the original catalyst for its widespread, and originally unexpected popularity,” OC Weekly notes with palpable disdain and journalistic outrage.

Then a low blow aimed at the scribe’s youth, calling his alleged editorial inexperience into question: “In a way, I feel bad for author Matthew Sedacca, for wading into the ever-sticky issue of cultural appropriation with all the naiveté of an infant.”

Ouch.

In fairness, Sedacca didn’t exonerate himself well in a response that wasn’t exactly imbued with the sober, measured tactics of a grown-up. Rather, it was a tweeted picture of himself munching down on a burrito -- as if surrendering to the taco debate -- with the caption “burritos 4 life.”

Not exactly Lincoln-Douglas debate-style rebuttal.

The fray has escalated to the highest levels, as reported by News 4. San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor tweeted out: “Even this native New Yorker (me) knows San Antonio is the mecca of the breakfast taco. I’ll treat.”

Austin Mayor Steve Adler didn’t take that tweet sitting down, suggesting his counterpart’s Twitter feed had been hijacked: “Mayor Taylor, call your office. Someone has hacked your Twitter account. I’d hate for this to reflect poorly on you.”

Not content, Adler added in another tweet: “Some cities are so sensitive.”

But Sedacca has taken on the brunt of the attacks. San Anto critics have taken to calling him a “gabacho,” which is a notch or two below “gringo,” but in the not-as-term-of-endearment-but-insulting usage of the term.

The breakfast taco war is on.