Where did the taco come from?
Jeffrey M. Pilcher, professor of history at the University of Minnesota, has traveled around the world eating tacos. For the past 20 years, he has investigated the history, politics and evolution of Mexican food, including how Mexican silver miners likely invented the taco, how Mexican Americans in the Southwest reinvented it, and how businessman Glen Bell mass-marketed it to Anglo palates via the crunchy Taco Bell shell. Pilcher is author and editor, respectively, of the forthcoming Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food (Oxford University Press) and The Oxford Handbook of Food History. His previous books include The Sausage Rebellion: Public Health, Private Enterprise, and Meat in Mexico City, 1890-1917 and Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity.
To where have you traced the birth of the taco? And what about the origin of the word itself?
The origins of the taco are really unknown. My theory is that it dates from the 18th century and the silver mines in Mexico, because in those mines the word “taco” referred to the little charges they would use to excavate the ore. These were pieces of paper that they would wrap around gunpowder and insert into the holes they carved in the rock face. When you think about it, a chicken taquito with a good hot sauce is really a lot like a stick of dynamite. The first references [to the taco] in any sort of archive or dictionary come from the end of the 19th century. And one of the first types of tacos described is called tacos de minero—miner’s tacos. So the taco is not necessarily this age-old cultural expression; it’s not a food that goes back to time immemorial.
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You note that in Mexico, what constitutes “authentic” national food has been an ongoing discussion. When have Mexicans alternatively embraced European or Indigenous foods, and why?
The Spanish conquistadors looked down on Native foods and tried to bring European foods with them. One of the reasons for this was religion. Corn was associated with Native deities, and wheat was the grain used for the holy Eucharist. These foods also had social connotations. In the 19th century, Native food was considered lower class and European food was considered elite, but here’s the catch: there was recognition that these Native foods were Mexican. So the patriots, the Mexican nationals, wanted to claim that they were really Mexican. So mole poblano, which is a turkey in this chili pepper sauce—very spicy—was considered somewhere in between [upper and lower class]. It was not associated with the Natives who were still alive; it was associated with the glories of the Aztecs. People who were of European ancestry claimed, “We are the descendants not of these lower-class Natives all around us, but of the Aztec emperors.” It gave them a political legitimacy.
Lots more at the link, including how and why the taco came to be a common food here in the US.
Read more:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Where-Did-the-Taco-Come-From.html#ixzz1vEywmh3Q