¡Yo adoro tacos!

Tacos.


I consider them to be one of the world's most perfect fast foods.
They are simple, versatile, self-contained bundles of joy. No utensils are required. They're made to be eaten on the street, purchased from a food cart, filled with parts of the cow or pig that most people nowadays have never even considered eating, victims of a modernity where eating the unsavory parts is no longer a necessity.

But wait, tacos are so much more, aren't they? 


Some have tried to tie the advent of the taco to the conquistador Cortes around 1520, noting that many a grand feast was held during his occupation of what is now Mexico, these feasts being well chronicled by several of Cortes's soldiers and members of the clergy. These chronicles included descriptions of flat corn breads, what the native Nahuatl peoples called "tlaxcalli" and the Spanish call "tortillas", filled with the meat of pigs Cortes brought over from Cuba. But, anthropologists have found evidence of indigenous people in the Valley of Mexico eating tacos filled with fish, insects, and snails well before the arrival of European explorers.


In the U.S., the first English-language taco recipes began to appear in California in the early 1900's.


Tacos have since gained a level of ubiquity in the United States that is not seen anywhere else, not even Mexico. Mexicans generally eat tacos for either breakfast or as a late night snack. Trying to find a taco between 12 and 6 in the afternoon in Mexico is a exercise in futility. In this age of instant gratification, I can grab a taco in one form or another at almost any hour of the day or night, even here in medium sized Madison, and if I look hard enough, I can find fillings such as lengua, (beef tongue) cabeza, (meat from a cow's or pig's head) and other types of offal wrapped in a soft corn tortilla. Or, I can have ground beef with lettuce, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, sour cream, guacamole, pickled red onions, etc. For all of the vitriol and anger aimed at Mexico and its people these days, Americans have come to embrace one of its greatest imports, doing so in the best way we know how; by taking the basic idea and expanding upon it, utilizing foodstuffs and techniques from many ethnic backgrounds, finding a particular recipe or recipes that appeals to the largest demographic, and then placing our stamp of approval, making it our own. This is what we've done with Mexican food, and other ethnic cuisines in general, for the past 100 years or more. 


Thinking about this has me thinking of other facets of this topic as well. In the past decade, we've come full circle on the "homogenization" of ethnic cuisines. There is a greater demand for the "authentic" experience in ethnic dishes. But what, exactly, does authentic mean? What is an authentic taco? Would someone from Oaxaca find the same taco to be authentic as someone from Mexico City? What does it mean if they do agree or they don't agree?


This will be discussed next time. It may be a bit drawn out and I'm not sure where it will lead us, but I know I'll be hungry at the end.


Until then...¡Tenga una gran semana! 

Why I'm not a "foodie".

I had said to folks on Facebook that my next post was going to be about pizza.

I lied.

I thought it wold be prudent to explain why I started this blog. As I have said in the past, I am notorious for starting blogs out of anger, only to have them fade into the ether along with whatever it was that made me angry in the first place. This blog is different. Food is my passion, my first and only true love. I was a picky eater as a kid. So, after a career in the military cured me of turning my nose up to just about everything, I made up for lost time by eating anything that was stupid or dead enough to get anywhere near my mouth. Food is more than just utilitarian for me, as it is for many people in the world. Food is one of the foundations of culture. One of the clearest windows into any given society is its foodways...and I have come to appreciate that at a higher level. So much so, in fact, that studying food and foodways is what I want to do for a living, which is why I am studying anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

So, I started a blog about food so that I could write about my favorite subject.

But, I don't consider myself to be a foodie.

At one point, I identified with that label. My friends and I have shared some extraordinary meals together, eaten at great restaurants, cooked with the best and freshest of ingredients, pontificated upon what makes great food and drink "great", and have argued endlessly about terms like "authentic" and "artisanal". Despite this, I'm still not a foodie.

There is one term that I associate most with the foodie movement that describes neither me, nor my food-loving friends: pretension.

I can ramble on endlessly about my dream to someday eat at the French Laundry just as easily as I can defend, with every fiber of my being, my pick for best hot dog in Chicago. I don't turn my nose up to much of anything these days. Now, don't mistaken this for going soft on what I consider to be mediocre or even bad food. I'll rip a restaurant or a "latest food trend" a new asshole if I think it sucks. But, when I say that something is awful, it is never due to me disliking a particular type of food and/or preparation. There are a few foods I don't like, such as beets. But I won't slag on a place just because I tried a beet dish I was told I might like and end up hating it. (Don't laugh, I know people who have done this.) I usually dislike a restaurant if I think they're trying too hard to be something they're not, or if they specialize in a particular food item I love and half-ass it.

One other thing I'll mention here is the idea of the "complete experience". I recently visited a barbeque joint just outside of Madison called Porktropolis. I had heard about it from a friend and decided to try it. Before I left to pick up said friend for lunch, I looked up some reviews about the restaurant. Several of the reviews bitched endlessly about the "decor" and the "shabbiness" of the place...and said NOTHING about the food! I think this is what separates me from the foodie mindset: they want the complete experience. A foodie wants every aspect of their dining experience to be just right, otherwise it's not worthy of their time or money. I am all about the food. The barbeque we had for lunch that day was awesome! The restaurant was a little shabby. But the food was so good, I would have eaten my lunch on a folding card table with milk crates for chairs!

In short, I'm going to leave the foodie label behind. Those folks can whine incessantly about rude waiters and sub-par restaurant amenities. I just want to eat.

That is why I am an eater, and not a foodie. And that is why this blog exists: to discuss food in all of its wondrous forms.