60 Fun Facts About Taco

Traditionally, a taco tortilla is made from which grain?

Wheat-flour tortillas are a later northern Mexican habit; both are now standard around the world.

Aside from food, what does the Spanish word 'taco' also mean?

The Real Academia Española lists wedge, wad, billiard cue, ramrod and even 'short, stocky person'.

One popular theory says the culinary word 'taco' was coined by which Mexican workers?

Their explosive charges were paper wrapped around gunpowder, and the little plugs were called tacos.

Before the Spanish arrived, what did people of the Valley of Mexico reportedly fill their tacos with?

Bernal Díaz del Castillo recorded the first taco feast eaten by Europeans, a meal Cortés laid on for his captains in Coyoacán.

Which region's local name for the taco was 'codzito'?

In Guanajuato and Michoacán the same thing was called a burrito, before Mexico City's word won out.

In 2024, El Califa de León in Mexico City became the first taco stand to receive what?

The stand is barely bigger than a hallway and serves just a handful of cuts of beef.

Tacos al pastor are cooked on what?

The spinning trompo is a direct descendant of shawarma brought by Lebanese immigrants to Puebla.

Al pastor descends from a dish brought to Mexico by immigrants from which country?

The Lebanese made it with lamb; Mexicans switched to pork, added adobo, and topped it with pineapple.

Which Mexican state is considered the home of tacos al pastor?

In some regions the same taco goes by tacos de adobada or tacos árabes.

What does 'al pastor' literally mean?

It comes from asado al pastor, the countryside spit-roast used at rodeos and cattle brandings.

Where did fish tacos originate?

In the U.S. they were first popularised by the Rubio's chain and remain most popular in California, Colorado and Washington.

Which U.S. chain is credited with first popularising fish tacos north of the border?

The classic version: fried fish, cabbage, pico de gallo and a creamy citrus sauce.

What are tacos dorados better known as in the U.S.?

'Golden tacos' are rolled and fried; the flauta gets its name from its flute-like shape.

Why are tacos sudados called 'sweaty tacos'?

The same tacos are sold as tacos de canasta, basket tacos, by bicycle vendors in Mexico City.

Tacos de lengua are made from what?

There is a saying that a taquería without lengua on the menu is not a real taquería.

What is a mulita?

It means 'little mule'; in the south of Mexico the flour-tortilla version is called a gringa.

Birria, the stewed meat now famous in dipping tacos, comes from which Mexican state?

It was traditionally goat; the beef version took off in Tijuana after a taquero named Guadalupe Zárate found goat too pricey.

The quesabirria, a cheese-stuffed birria taco served with consommé, was first developed in which city?

It swept North America in the 2010s; a ramen version called birriamen followed in Mexico City.

How is traditional barbacoa prepared?

The pit is lined with agave leaves; the Nahuatl called the method nakakoyonki and the Maya píib.

Carnitas, 'little meats', are traditionally made by cooking pork in what?

Three to four hours of simmering, then a blast of heat to crisp the outside; the dish is a cousin of France's rillons de Tours.

Corn for tortillas is soaked in what before being ground into masa?

The alkaline soak, nixtamalization, loosens the hulls and unlocks the niacin that plain cornmeal cannot deliver.

Populations that ate untreated maize without nixtamalization risked which deficiency disease?

European settlers in the American South skipped the lime soak as unnecessary, and pellagra became endemic among the poor there.

What does the word 'tortilla' literally mean in Spanish?

In Spain the same word means a potato omelette, which has confused many a tourist.

Flour tortillas are typical of which part of Mexico?

Wheat arrived with the Spanish and took root in the arid north, which is why Sonora is famous for its enormous flour tortillas.

What is the traditional stone used to grind nixtamal into masa called?

The comal is the griddle the tortilla is baked on; the molcajete is the mortar for salsa.

Where did the hard-shell, crispy taco tradition develop?

By the late 1930s, companies were selling appliances for frying shells, and the first patents came in the 1940s.

The first U.S.-published cookbook with a hard-shell taco recipe came out in 1949 in which city?

Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert's The Good Life: New Mexican Food got there years before Taco Bell existed.

Glen Bell got the idea for his tacos by watching queues at which restaurant across from his hot dog stand?

The Rodriguez family's San Bernardino café was famous for its tacos dorados, and Bell sold a simplified version.

In which California city did Glen Bell open the first Taco Bell in 1962?

The building was about the size of a two-car garage, with mission-style arches over a walk-up window.

What did Glen Bell sell before tacos?

Bell's Drive-In opened in San Bernardino in 1948 after Bell served as a Marine Corps cook in World War II.

How much did Glen Bell charge for a taco at his early Taco-Tia stand?

The tacos were sold from a side window; the fryer that shaped the shells was built by a man who made chicken coops.

Which company bought Taco Bell from Glen Bell in 1978?

PepsiCo spun its restaurants off in 1997 as Tricon, which later renamed itself.

What was the name of the Chihuahua in Taco Bell's late-1990s ads?

Voiced by Carlos Alazraqui, she gave the world 'Yo quiero Taco Bell' and 'Drop the Chalupa'.

In 2001 Taco Bell promised free tacos if which falling object hit a floating Pacific target?

Mir missed; the later 'Steal a Base, Steal a Taco' World Series promotion had rather better odds.

The 2012 Doritos Locos Taco first used a shell flavoured like which Doritos variety?

It was a Frito-Lay tie-up; Cool Ranch followed and was later dropped in a 2019 menu cull.

Which Taco Bell item debuted as a limited offer in 2005 and went permanent the next year?

The company tested a vegan version in three cities in 2023.

Which 1993 film used Taco Bell as a plot device, presenting it as the only restaurant left in the future?

In some overseas cuts the restaurant was swapped for Pizza Hut, since Taco Bell was unknown there.

Businesses have advertised tacos on Tuesdays since at least what year?

The phrase's later trademark battles were all about who owned two words that had been in use for decades.

Which chain, born in a Cheyenne trailer, held the federal trademark on 'Taco Tuesday' from 1989 to 2023?

Taco John's finally gave up 'Taco Tuesday' in July 2023 after Taco Bell petitioned to have the mark cancelled.

Which state was excluded from Taco John's trademark because a local restaurant owned the phrase?

Gregory's Restaurant & Bar in Somers Point had run Taco Tuesday since 1979 and registered it with the state in 1982; it too gave up the mark in October 2023.

Which NBA star's 2019 attempt to trademark 'Taco Tuesday' was rejected as a commonplace phrase?

His Instagram taco-night videos went viral; the USPTO said the term merely conveys a familiar concept.

In Norway, the tradition of eating tacos is attached to which day of the week?

Fredagstaco is a national institution; Sweden's Friday-night fredagsmys often means tacos too.

Taco John's signature side dish is called what?

The chain began as a 1968 trailer called Taco House at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming.

The Choco Taco ice cream novelty was invented in 1983 in which city?

Alan Drazen dreamed it up for ice-cream trucks; Klondike discontinued it in 2022 to widespread mourning.

Indian tacos, popular at pow-wows, are built on what instead of a tortilla?

Navajo tradition dates frybread to government rations issued during the Long Walk of the 1860s.

Henry's Puffy Tacos, which popularised the puffy taco, is in which Texas city?

The raw masa disc is dropped into hot oil until it balloons; Henry's brother opened Arturo's Puffy Taco in California soon after.

Pico de gallo is also known as salsa bandera because its colours match what?

Red tomato, white onion, green chile and cilantro; the name pico de gallo itself may refer to a serrano's beak-like shape.

The word guacamole comes from the Nahuatl for what?

Āhuacatl plus mōlli; U.S. avocado sales now spike every Super Bowl Sunday and Cinco de Mayo.

Nachos were invented in 1943 by Ignacio Anaya in which Mexican border city?

He improvised them at the Victory Club for a group of U.S. officers' wives from Eagle Pass, Texas.

A traditional chalupa from central Mexico is shaped like what?

Masa is pressed around a mould and fried into a shallow cup, nothing like the fried flatbread sold under the name in the U.S.

What garnish is typically served alongside tacos at Mexican taco stands?

Grilled cambray onions, pickled chiles and cucumber slices often join them.

One of the oldest printed uses of the word 'taco' for food is in an 1836 cookbook by which author?

Her rolled pork loin recipe told readers to roll it 'like a taco de tortilla', decades before the 1891 novel long credited as first.

Tacos de cabeza are cooked how?

The whole cow's head is steamed, yielding cachete, lengua, sesos and, for the brave, ojo.

Which company has been Taco Bell's parent since it renamed itself in 2002?

It shares the corporate roof with KFC and Pizza Hut.

One theory derives 'taco' from the Nahuatl word tlahco, meaning what?

The idea is that food was placed in the middle of a tortilla; a rival theory credits silver miners and their gunpowder plugs.

What is the vertical rotisserie used to cook al pastor called in Spanish?

The word means 'spinning top'; in Nuevo León and Chihuahua the dish itself is often named after it.

Tacos árabes, a cousin of al pastor from 1930s Puebla, are served in what instead of a tortilla?

They keep the shawarma-style spit meat of the Lebanese immigrants who inspired the dish.

In northern Mexico, al pastor served with cheese on a flour tortilla is called what?

On a corn tortilla the same filling goes by another name; the meat also turns up in alambres, huaraches and even pizza.

Which Texas city is sometimes claimed as the home of the breakfast taco?

Writer Gustavo Arellano countered that San Antonio never had to brag, because folks there just call it 'breakfast'.

A chicken version marinated al pastor style was exported back to the Middle East under what name?

It completed a circle begun when Lebanese Christian immigrants brought lamb shawarma to Mexico a century earlier.