Dr. Jeffrey Pilcher, proud practitioner of the taco lifestyle, and one of the nation’s top taco experts has spent a lifetime researching and sampling Mexican and other Latin American cuisines. All the while, he’s been documenting taco innovations and compiling them in a forthcoming book that is sure to be a big hit in the taco community. Currently a professor at the University of Minnesota, Pilcher graciously agreed to an interview with TACO.

TACO: What are the earliest known origins of the taco?

Dr. Jeffrey Pilcher: Well, if you consider the taco as just a corn tortilla with something in it, then the origins surely go back fifteen hundred years, to the pyramids of Teotihuacan, where construction workers munched tortillas and beans. But if you’re asking, what have people actually called tacos, the story becomes more interesting. Basically, there are various theories on the origins of the word taco. Some people think it comes from indigenous words, but if you want actually documentary evidence, the term dates back no further than 1891. That’s right, 1891. Manuel Payno’s novel, Bandidos de Rio Frio, is the first definitive use of the word taco. And an interesting use it is, if you want to check it out. Of course, he didn’t invent the term. He just picked it up from street slang. So where did the term really come from? My research indicates that it was first used by miners in Real del Monte, a silver mine northeast of Mexico City, in the late 18th century. And what was this first taco? Appropriately, a stick of dynamite!

TACO: Have there been distinct phases in the development of the taco?

JP: Absolutely, after the tacos de minero of the miners, there were Mexico City tacos, mostly barbacoa, in the late nineteenth century. By this time there were also tacos dorados. These two versions of soft and hard tacos spread out all over the Mexican republic, adapting to fit the various regional cuisines of Mexico. But the real innovation came with the invention of the Mexican American taco. Glen Bell claims to have invented the taco shell in the early 1950s. Wrong! If you look in the records of the patent office, you will see that the first patent for taco shells was assigned to a man named Juvencio Maldonado. That’s why I insist on calling the taco shell the Mexican American taco, not the fast food taco. The only thing Bell invented was the corporate commissary.

TACO: We know that there are many influences on the original Mexican taco including European, Middle Eastern, and local flavors. What do you think are the “building blocks” or most essential elements of today’s popular tacos?

JP: Well, start with the indigenous tortilla. And salsa. Then add the Spanish pig. Next, the Lebanese tacos al pastor. Finally, the Mexican American taco shell. All are contributions, if they’re made fresh with sazon.
(Continued)

4658 Melrose Ave @ Gabah

The first thing I noticed was the size of the tacos. Then the julienned onions and carrots, then the slice of cucumber laid across the shell. They were so pretty I almost didn’t want to eat them. But back to the size. These are not huge tacos but by gourmet taco truck standards they are massive and by massive I mean a regular size taco. Don’t get me wrong I am a fan of the whole nouveau truck scene as much as the next guy, especially if that next guy is Aziz Ansari (he’s hilarious). But if I have one complaint with them it is sometimes the portions are small. And by sometimes I mean most of the time. So when I got my food from Nom Nom and found these two hefty bad boys on my lap I was so excited I almost emptied a whole bottle of sriracha on them.

Did the excitement come to a crashing end once your humble taco correspondent bit into the massive tacos on my lap? And by massive I mean regular sized! No! I only became more excited! KEEP READING…

Professor Jeffrey Pilcher is one of the world’s authorities on Latin American foods, food migration, and general foodstuffs and he has come to a shocking conclusion: Tacos are the single most important food known to man. That may be overstating his case somewhat, but as the primary website trumpeting the global taco lifestyle, we feel entitled to crow a bit when academic research finally catches up to what we’ve known for years- tacos are the future of the universe. An excerpt from an article on Prof Pilcher:

You can find tacos in outer Mongolia, Amsterdam, Addis Ababa and Australia — even in outer space (the latter thanks to NASA). They have, in fact, become as ever present as the hamburger.

And that’s the rub. They no longer seem Mexican, but American, says Jeffrey Pilcher, a University of Minnesota history professor who will give a talk about “Planet Taco” on Tuesday.

Indeed, the taco revolution spread globally — and extraterrestrially — via entrepreneurial Americans and U.S. companies, not Mexicans. That might explain why, in part, the rest of the world looks at that overstuffed hard-shell taco spilling over with lettuce, tomato and Cheddar cheese and thinks “American.”

(Not so incidentally, Mexicans migrate almost entirely to the United States, Pilcher noted. If Americans hadn’t traveled with their tacos, he says he would be offering a very different history lesson.)

Fifty years ago, Mexican food could be found only in Mexico, California or the Southwest, including small roadside stands where tacos were sold. Los Angeles phone books from 1950 reflect the abundance of these taco spots. These were the very early days of food franchises. (Ray Kroc started the McDonald’s chain in 1954.) Glen Bell, the founder of Taco Bell and a fellow Californian, had an idea. Today we think of tacos as the lowest common denominator of Mexican food — well, maybe that would, or should, be nachos — but he was cutting-edge at a time when the rest of America was dining on tuna casserole, mac-and-cheese and cream of tomato soup.