During the past few weeks, tacos seem to be enjoying an inexplicable resurgence, even though they never really went away. I’ve been seeing the word “taco” everywhere on social media, and it started me thinking about first causes, although I must concede that chicken is not my personal favorite choice of taco filling.
At the TriMark food service supply company website, Patrick Maness has a concise “History of Tacos in America.” Most readers already know the basics: Mexican immigrants in California, Texas and the southwestern states started food carts and vended street food, prominently tamales and tacos (made with soft tortillas).
At this point, a more capital-intensive form of entrepreneurialism intervened.
In 1952, Glen Bell started selling tacos from a stand he called Taco-Tia. He didn’t know it then, but this was the beginning of a major revolution in taco history. At this time, tacos were still made with soft tortillas, which had to be served within hours of being made or they would go bad. This was a big drag on efficiency. Necessity, ever the mother of invention, prompted one of the biggest changes in what we know as the taco.
Bell would later claim that he came up with the idea to fry tortillas in a U-shaped form, thereby inventing the hard shell. Some would later dispute this claim, but the hard shell, which was easy to stuff, quick to serve and had a long shelf life, was here — and it transformed the American taco.
As you may have guessed, Bell went on to found Taco Bell, opening the first store in 1964. After more than a decade of successfully franchising his stores, he sold the company to PepsiCo in the 1970s.
Writing from Austin in Texas Monthly, Jack Herrera approaches tacos from a more existential perspective: Out of All Mexican Foods, Why Did the Taco Win America’s Love?
For at least a few years now, America’s fixation on tacos has left me with a constant, low-grade frustration. I love tacos, but seeing them everywhere makes me unhappy. I find myself asking, out of all the different kinds of Mexican and Mexican American dishes—sopes, flautas, huaraches, enfrijoladas, tlayudas—why did gringos latch on to the taco?
But amid all this talk about tacos, how is the word actually pronounced? Is it “tahk-oh” or “tack-oh”? As we’ve come to expect, Gastro Obscura has the breakdown: There’s No Right Way to Say ‘Taco’, by Dan Nosowitz.
“There’s something very strange going on with that particular ‘A,’” says Lynne Murphy, a lexicologist at the University of Sussex who explores the differences between British and American English on her blog, Separated by a Common Language, and further in her book, The Prodigal Tongue. The way the Brits pronounce “taco,” as well as “paella” (pie-elluh, with the English L rather than the Spanish LL), “salsa” (the first vowel rhymes with “gal,” the second with “duh”), and “Nicaragua” (nick-uh-rag-you-uh), among others, is a glaring siren of weirdness to an American ear.
What’s going on is a complex blend of tongue positioning, imperial history, code-switching, language exposure and accommodation, and an unconscious, or uncomfortably conscious, desire not to seem like you just got back from a semester abroad in Barthelona and brought with you an inability to see your friends rolling their eyes.
Whatever the verdict on pronunciation, I stand ready to do my part as we make goat (birria) tacos great again.
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“Edibles & Potables” is Food & Dining Magazine’s Sunday slot for news and views that range beyond our customary metropolitan Louisville coverage area, as intended to be food (and drink) for thought.
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