There are many days to celebrate different dishes, but the taco day Without a doubt, it is one that Mexicans are very proud of, since it is a very simple stew, but incredibly varied and, of course, that identifies us throughout the world. It could be said that every day or almost every day of our lives, we eat at least one taco a week, but do you know its history?
The exact origin of the taco is not well defined, although it is considered that from the prehispanic era the corn tortilla was already prepared, which was used to wrap a stewpossibly of fish or herbs, to eat, although it has also been mentioned that the Mexica emperor Montezuma used the tortillas for hold your foodforming something similar to a taco.
Some scholars point out that the word taco comes from the Nahuatl Tlahco, What does it mean “half” or “in the middle”referring to the fact that a stew is served in the middle of the tortilla. Although the taco was not as we know it today neither in Mexico nor in the world, since at that time there was no beef, chicken or pork in our continent, until after the Arrival of the Spaniards.
Taco’s history
In accordance with Bernal Diaz del Castilloin his book True History of the Conquest of New Spaina was held first “taquiza” organized by the Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes.
Some point out that it was then that the tortilla was combined with the pork meat, to make a carnitas taco, although historians specializing in the subject rule out that this was possible, since it would have had to be transferred to the animals on the first trip. from the European continent.
Other theories link the origin of the word taco until the century eighteenthsince with this term reference was made to a rolled paper with gunpowder inside that was placed in holes and served to excavate the rock between the miners.
Hence the first academic references from the heel they emerged towards the XIX centuryin which they were first described, and were the miners studs referred to, defined as a soft tortilla with a spicy filling.
However, it was after the arrival of the Spaniards that this happened and over time, the taco was evolving and has been transformed. It is no longer only made in corn tortillas, but also in flour tortillas or a wide variety of doughs combined with corn, nopal, beets or prickly pear.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the armored tacosin Morelos, who were like the Stew tacossince they consisted of a corn tortilla with a base of rice and pork rinds in green sauce, chorizo and potato, green mole or smoked pork.
For the decade of 1950, the inhabitants of San Vicente Xiloxochitla, Tlaxcala create the basket tacosand ten years later the tacos al pastor emerged, with a combination of the Arab shawarma and the arrival of emigrants from that culture to our country.
Taco varieties are many and you can learn more by enjoying the preparations that exist in each state. The idea of the taco is always in our culture, since it is even common to invite someone to “lie down even if it is a salt taco“, by way of saying that you are welcome to eat at a Mexican’s house and that, although there is nothing, at least there will be the basics, salt and tortillas.
The taco is a wonder of our gastronomya dish that should make us proud and that is part of our history.