[1] While many different versions of hard-shell tacos exist, the most common form of the hard-shell taco is served as a crisp-fried corn tortilla filled with seasoned ground beef, cheese, lettuce, and sometimes tomato, onion, salsa, sour cream, and avocado or guacamole.

[1] Beginning from the early part of the twentieth century, various types of tacos became popular in the United States, especially in Texas and California but also elsewhere.

[1] In 1949, a recipe for a hard-shell taco first appeared in a cookbook, The Good Life: New Mexican food, which was written by Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert and published in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

[5] Juvencio Maldonado, a restaurant owner from Oaxaca living in New York, is sometimes credited as the original inventor of a hard shell taco-making machine, and received a patent for it in 1950.

[8] At this time, Los Angeles was racially segregated, and the hard-shell tacos sold at Bell's restaurants were many white Americans' first introduction to Mexican food.