Anyone who’s eaten a taco knows the struggle: you get all your taco fillings tucked in just so, but as soon as you bite into one end, the delicious guts start falling out the other.
If it feels like you have to choose between a messy taco experience and a bad tortilla-to-filling ratio, you’re not alone. But there’s a brilliantly simple—some might even say divine—solution.
The mess-saving superiority of the ‘Moses fold’
A video viewed millions of times shows the “Swedish brother-in-law” of @bsquaredtravels_ folding a taco in a remarkably handy way. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, the “Moses fold” involves parting your taco fillings, folding the sides into the empty chasm, then pulling the other two ends together to form two fully contained little pockets.
It’s hard to explain. Much easier to see:
That was no small amount of taco guts, either. Trying to eat that the “normal” way would’ve been a huge mess, with meat, beans, and cheese everywhere. The Moses fold looks almost impossibly neat. Does it really work that well?
According to people who’ve tried it, yeah. The only thing people seem to disagree on is whether what we’re looking at is a taco or a burrito. But whatever you call it, the innovative fold got some enthusiastic seals of approval:
“Take it from a Mexican: this is pretty smart TBH, who cares if you call it a taco or burrito. You made it work and it looks delicious!! You’re invited to the Carne Asada!! “
“Im Mexican and if its inside a tortilla you can call it taco 😂 and this looks genius I’ll try it now with my breakfast 😂”
“I’m a Latina and I approve this message. We can all unite and say the way people eat tacos should never be judged but appreciated.”
“Mexican here, and that is genius!”
“I’m from Mexico, and that is, in fact, not a taco. Also, we don’t care how people enjoy Mexican or Mexican-adjacent food. We’re just happy they do ✌️”
Wait, are Sweden and tacos actually a thing?
While researching the origins of the Moses fold, I found a 2021 TikTok video showing the same fold, just without the name. Oddly enough, that video also appears to have a Swedish tie-in, based on the “fordig” (Swedish for “for you”) in the caption:
It’s one thing to casually mention, “My Swedish friend showed me the Moses fold,” but another to find multiple sources linking Swedes and tacos. I smelled a mystery.
More searching led to more evidence that tacos and Sweden somehow go together. You can’t get much further from Mexico than Sweden, geographically or culturally, so why are the Swedes showing us how to fold a taco? How did we get here?
Apparently, Taco Friday (aka Tacofredag) is a modern-day tradition in Scandinavia. Who knew?
According to scandi.co.uk, Sweden and Norway got hooked on Friday tacos largely due to a spice brand’s successful marketing campaign decades ago:
“In the 1980s and 1990s, the Swedish spice brand Santa Maria began advertising its Tex-Mex products under the name Nordfalks with great effort – including TV adverts proclaiming Friday as Taco Day.”
Why it’s Taco Friday instead of Taco Tuesday in Sweden
Why Taco Friday instead of Taco Tuesday? Well, Friday evening is a thing in and of itself in Sweden, where the end of the work week is seen as a time for cozy gatherings. In fact, it’s literally called fredagsmys, which means “Friday cozy.” A 2021 article from the BBC reports:
“A study for a food delivery firm last year suggested 98% of Swedes enjoy fredagsmys at least once a month, and the majority would choose a ‘cosy Friday’ above any other activity, including a gig, a cinema night, exercising and even sex. This might come as a surprise to those in awe of Sweden’s famously healthy, outdoors-focused lifestyle. But fredagsmys has become a deep-rooted ritual that affords Swedes a weekly treat, while upholding the country’s strong family values and obsession with work-life balance.”
Tacos make a perfect Friday cozy meal. Everyone gathers around a bunch of ingredients and puts their taco together however they please. And from what it looks like, Swedes use larger tortillas than the street tacos we often see in Mexico and the U.S. No wonder someone figured out the optimal way to fold them to keep the taco guts in.
