As late as the 1960s, tacos were virtually unknown outside Mexico and
the American Southwest. Within fifty years the United States had shipped
taco shells everywhere from Alaska to Australia, Morocco to Mongolia.
But how did this tasty hand-held food--and Mexican food more
broadly--become so ubiquitous? In Planet Taco, Jeffrey Pilcher traces
the historical origins and evolution of Mexico's national cuisine,
explores its incarnation as a Mexican American fast-food, shows how
surfers became global pioneers of Mexican food, and how Corona beer
conquered the world. Pilcher is particularly enlightening on what the
history of Mexican food reveals about the uneasy relationship between
globalization and authenticity.
The burritos and taco shells that many people think of as Mexican were
actually created in the United States. But Pilcher argues that the
contemporary struggle between globalization and national sovereignty to
determine the authenticity of Mexican food goes back hundreds of years.
During the nineteenth century, Mexicans searching for a national cuisine
were torn between nostalgic "Creole" Hispanic dishes of the past and
French haute cuisine, the global food of the day. Indigenous foods were
scorned as unfit for civilized tables. Only when Mexican American dishes
were appropriated by the fast food industry and carried around the world
did Mexican elites rediscover the foods of the ancient Maya and Aztecs
and embrace the indigenous roots of their national cuisine. From a taco
cart in Hermosillo, Mexico to the "Chili Queens" of San Antonio and
tamale vendors in L.A., Jeffrey Pilcher follows this highly adaptable
cuisine, paying special attention to the people too often overlooked in
the battle to define authentic Mexican food: Indigenous Mexicans and
Mexican Americans.
The accompanying reference guide is included as a PDF on this disc.
