I've arrived at another reason why HEB is so great.
Most, probably all, supermarket chains share markets with states with little to no tradition or appreciation of great food: your Ohios, your Indianas, your upstate New Yorks and your downstate Illinois’ and so on. And those people must be catered to, and because their diaspora is wide now, thanks to the Rust Belt meltdown, they've carried their bland non-traditions far and wide.
See Cincinnati-based Kroger for example. Even in Texas, they operate as if their clientele craved an Indianapolis-type diet.
HEB on the other hand is from Texas, and while it has expanded beyond our borders, it has been only to tap into Mexico, a country with a vastly superior cuisine to our own.
HEB is moving with the times and even changing them themselves. Little by little Mexican, or Rio Grande Valley, products are moving into the HEB pipeline and into Texas cuisine, first via HEB’s Mi Tienda supermarkets (if you’ve not been to one, you really have to go — imagine a Mexican Central Market, and…well, that’s all. That’s what they are: Mexican Central Markets) and then into the more Mexican of the Texan HEBS. From there these products go first to the more adventurous Anglo HEBs and eventually filter down to their lowliest outposts.
From the inside of the Eastex Freeway Mi Tienda looking out, feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 2019.
One such is my local, in West Columbia. It’s basically a Pantry store without the designation. It lacks a deli and house-made prepared salads. The carbonated water section is pathetic; a man of my refined thirst must drive to Bay City or Lake Jackson if I am to find my blackberry- or mango jalapeño-flavored waters.
BUT — they are right now aggressively marketing their home taco feast kits and tamales, and these have changed my life.
What you need: Mi Tienda brand RAW tortillas. They come in flour, corn, or mezcla (a blend of flour and corn) varieties. The flour are very easy to deal with; the corn variety is a bit trickier, as they tend to stick together in the package. Read the instructions before you mess with them — they need to come to room temperature, and peeling them apart takes a gentle and steady hand.
Your reward: basically home-made tortillas, piping hot and pillowy. Finding them in the store can be tricky; they are kept refrigerated. Ask your HEB associate and prepare to never buy tortillas any other way.
There are a variety of pre-marinated meat fillings, ranging from al pastor, to bistec Norteno, to beef fajita, to several varieties of chicken. You will find one that you love. The al pastor cooks particularly well in my Insta-Pot on sautés/sear setting.
Thus far, that is my favorite. I’ve yet to try the beef fajita, and I think I preferred the chili verde chicken variety the most of the yardbird variations.
They also sell “fajita vegetables” pre-sliced. I don’t use them for my tacos but they might come in handy for vegetarians. Myself, I’d do something with meaty mushrooms and pumpkin seeds.
Now we come to the salsa: El Gallo. Get this salsa and no other. I love the jalapeño green variety best, but I’ve tried most of them and your mileage may vary.
As I sink deeper and deeper into this obsession, I am sure I will find more perfect unions of salsa and tacos, as I kind of already have — I favor the not-ridiculously-spicy orange-red habanero on the bistec tacos — but I have yet many miles to travel down those roads.
I will vouch for their sales pitch, word for word:
What makes it different? Our salsa is unique because of the steps we take to prepare our fresh ingredients. We do not use canned paste, flavoring additives, food coloring, vinegar, nor do we water-down our salsa. The reality is that the majority of every salsa you’ve purchased is simply canned ingredients mixed together and called “salsa”. We don’t throw ingredients into a blender and walk away! Instead, we hand select our ingredients and roast our peppers in a custom-built 60-gallon stainless steel fire pit. Fabricating our roaster was no small feat, but it results in a unique, naturally smoky flavor that’s infused throughout. Real Texans go out of their way to get their hands on Salsa El Gallo.
Amen brother. Until I start making my own, in the molcajete I bought and have yet to use, this is the best you can get.
Cheese — another recent revelation. Queso Menonita. You will find it with the Mexican white cheeses at any HEB. It’s a very melty cheese and unlike so many cheeses today, has a bit of flavor. It’s also perfect for quesadillas, as would everything else I’ve mentioned here.
Produce: avocado, cilantro, white onion, key limes. I prefer the wee limes because I believe, perhaps with basis in fact, that they are tarter than regular limes. One thing I do know — they dry up fast, so you might want to find a secondary use for them if you are super thrifty.
Anyway, as of a couple of years ago, taco night at my house meant something like this:
Though not that lame. That is not my picture; I would have incorporated avocado and rid them of tomato and lettuce, replacing both with salsa and cheese that did not seem to be shaved off of an orange candle. (The only way that picture would make me ragier would be the presence of sliced canned black olives.)
But anyway, these are what my tacos look like now:
And that is just part of how HEB is changing my taste. I’ll elaborate later.
I am prepared to make a cooking video of these; five more paid subscribers, and I will allow the cameras to invade my kitchen, haha.
Help H.E.B. - we need you up north in the "IT City". Come on in and kick some Kroger/Publix butt!
Is that green sauce El Gallo too? Looks great!