Whatever Happened To Taco Bell's Seafood Salad?
There's a lot of things you can get at Taco Bell nowadays — the fast-food chain can supply hungry consumers with tacos (who would have guessed?), burritos, nachos, quesadillas, bowls, sweet treats, and even a variety of hearty breakfast options to satisfy those morning cravings. However, if you were to pull up to a Taco Bell today and ask for anything with seafood, you probably would get a confused response. But while it certainly didn't last very long, Taco Bell did once upon a time serve a "Seafood Salad." Back in the 1986, this bowl of shrimp, whitefish, crab, and taco toppings served in a tortilla bowl debuted and then was quickly removed from the menu due to several reported cases of food poisoning (per Spoon University). Now, it has faded into obscurity alongside other failed fast-food concepts. But we can't help but wonder: What made Taco Bell try this fishy experiment in the first place?
What's the story behind the Seafood Salad?
You see, in 1962, a certain golden-arched food chain introduced a square fish patty on a bun to the general public, and it quickly became a major hit (via Smithsonian). The popularity of the Filet-O-Fish would go on to inspire other fast-food chains to try and "dive in" to the seafood craze (via Thrillist). One of these fast-food giants was Taco Bell, and they made a pretty bold entry onto the fast-seafood scene. The commercials for the Seafood Salad were grandiose and took some clear hits at other restaurant chains, from marketing the salad as "adventurous," "tantalizing," and "fresh" (via YouTube) to denouncing other fish sandwiches as square hunks of faux fish (via YouTube).
The results were certainly less than stellar, and nowadays it appears that the only thing most people remember about the Seafood Salad is how disgusting it was (via Reddit). It's probably for the best that Taco Bell left the seafood — and the accompanying digestive distress — behind.