Page 37 - Exotic | May 2024

ronment for many types of tacos. Ladies would set up stands, each claiming that theirs (from wherever they were native) was the best. To me, that sounds incred- ibly awesome. I’ll take one from each of them. The taqueria became an institu- tion in Mexico City, spreading far and wide, as people could not get enough.
with Mexican food at the time, the far- ther north he expanded, the more con- fused people were. However, when they got their first taste of those tacos, they came back for more. Back in the 1960s, when Taco Bell was starting to expand, they even had pronunciation guides on the menu, “Taw-ko,” to familiarize folks with how to say the names of these things, as people at the time were not accustomed to them.
The taco, as it exists in the USA, has come full circle. We saw Mexican tacos and Americanized them, and now we’re like, “Naw, we want more authentic ta- cos,” and now we lean towards street tacos and real Mexican places rather than joints like Taco Bell, which is really only good if you’re drunk at 4 a.m. Sure, they still sell plenty of tacos, but in the end, the real deal is the way to go. If the owner’s name is Paco, go get that taco.
Fun taco facts:
If you’ve read my articles before, you know that most of the time, I have a list. This is the taco list.
• Americans alone eat 4.5 billion tacos a year.
• The biggest taco ever made weighed 1.654 pounds and was constructed, of course, in Mexico. I must wonder how many people it took to eat it.
• Soft shell tacos are the preference of 64% of Americans, and 36% would rath- er have hard shell tacos. (I personally prefer the double-decker, where you use refried beans to glue the soft shell over the hard shell to make sure that if it breaks, it ain’t going anywhere.)
• In the USA, 72% of tacos are made and eaten at home, while 28% are eaten at restaurants.
• Taco Bell is the highest-volume taco seller in the USA, with a 32% share of the fast-food market. Better than Jack in the Box, though I love their tacos. Jack tacos are like watching “Plan 9 from Out- er Space”—so bad, it’s good.
• The city in the USA with the most taco
places is San Antonio, Texas. Not really a big surprise, there.
• 37% of Americans would rather have ground beef as a taco filler and 30% for shredded chicken. The remainder is a mix of pork, shrimp, shredded beef, fish, or tongue, in smaller stats.
There you have it: a succinct history of the taco, our beloved Tuesday meal and cultural institution. Tacos have both returned to their roots and gone crazy with those fusion cuisine people put- ting Chinese food in a taco and what- not. That said, a taco is but a canvas upon which one can paint delicious- ness however they see fit.
Enjoy life, and go get a taco—or ten.
-Wombstretcha
PS – My favorite is birria tacos. Fight me if you disagree, and try ‘em if you haven’t.
Tacos came to the United States only later, around the late 1800s to early 1900s. The first mention of a taco in American media was an article from a newspaper in 1905. Mexicans were in- creasingly coming to the USA to work in mines, on the railroads, and on farms. Naturally, when you have something you like, you bring it with you. Tacos were that thing. The prevalence of ta- cos in the American working class, re- gardless of national origin, took off. This is where the more modern incarnation of the taco shows up. Rolled tacos... they’re still there, but the “dump stuff in a tortilla and fold it” method became the dominant technique. Californians and Texans embraced the taco, and the prevalence of taquerias in the USA took off, to the delight of Americans and Mexicans alike.
Fast-forward to the 1940s. Tacos began making it into cookbooks like Betty Crocker and Good Housekeeping, and so America began its conventional rela- tionship with the taco. Later, in 1952, a man named Glen Bell had worked in a taco shop earlier in his life and decided that his current business selling burgers and hot dogs was stupid. He opened a new business: Taco Bell. He soon ex- panded, franchised, and sold Ameri- cans tacos like a maniac.
As many Americans were unfamiliar
* This is true.
** Pulled that one straight outta my ass, as I couldn't get good data, but it would seem likely.
Wombstretcha the Magnificent is a taco advocate, hot sauce enthusiast, honor- ary Mexican, writer, and retired rapper from Portland, OR. He can be found at his website, wombstretcha.com, on X (Twitter) as @wombstretcha503, and on MeWe and (begrudgingly) Facebook as "Wombstretcha the Magnificent."
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