<P> Taco al pastor with guacamole </P> <P> Beginning from the early part of the twentieth century, various types of tacos have become popular in the United States and Canada . An early appearance of a description of the taco in the United States in English was in a 1914 cookbook, California Mexican - Spanish Cookbook, by Bertha Haffner Ginger . The most common type of taco in the US is the hard - shell, U-shaped version, first described in a cookbook, The good life: New Mexican food, authored by Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert and published in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1949 . These types are sold by restaurants and by fast food chains, while kits are readily available in most supermarkets . Even non-Mexican oriented fast food restaurants have sold tacos . Mass production of this type of taco was encouraged by the invention of devices to hold the tortillas in the U-shape as they were deep - fried . A patent for such a device was issued to New York restaurateur Juvencio Maldonado in 1950, based on his patent filing of 1947 (U.S. Patent No . 2,506,305). Such tacos are crisp - fried corn tortillas filled with seasoned ground beef, cheese, lettuce, and sometimes tomato, onion, salsa, sour cream, and avocado or guacamole . </P> <Ul> <Li> <P> A hard - shell taco, made with a prefabricated shell </P> </Li> <Li> <P> A crispy taco from a Sacramento, California taqueria </P> </Li> </Ul> <Li> <P> A hard - shell taco, made with a prefabricated shell </P> </Li>

What part of mexico do tacos come from