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E-book
Author Pilcher, Jeffrey M., 1965-

Title Planet taco : a global history of Mexican food / Jeffrey M. Pilcher
Published Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2012]
©2012

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Description 1 online resource (xv, 292 pages) : illustrations, maps
Contents Introduction: A tale of two tacos -- Part I. Proto-Tacos. Maize and the making of Mexico ; Burritos in the borderlands -- Part II. National Tacos. From the pastry war to Parisian mole ; The rise and fall of the chili queens ; Inventing the Mexican American taco -- Part III. Global Tacos. The first wave of global Mexican ; The blue corn bonanza -- Conclusion: The battle of the taco trucks -- Glossary
Summary 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 this book the author 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. The author 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 he 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 Los Angeles., the author 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
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 268-282) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Cooking, Mexican -- History
Cooking, Mexican -- Social aspects -- History
Food habits -- Mexico -- History
Ethnicity -- Mexico
Tacos -- History
Mexican Americans -- Food -- History
Sovereignty -- Social aspects -- Mexico -- History
Globalization -- Social aspects -- History
COOKING -- General.
Cooking, Mexican
Ethnicity
Food habits
Globalization -- Social aspects
Mexican Americans -- Food
Sovereignty -- Social aspects
Tacos
Mexico
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780199908486
0199908486
1299879586
9781299879584
0190655771
9780190655778