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| USA Usage, 1950-2006. Blue = tamale Red = taco Green = enchilada |
I finished reading the first five chapters of Gustavo Arellano's TACO USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (New York: Scribner, 2012). Fascinating. From this, I began wondering with what frequency certain words like tamale, taco and enchilada have swept through the vernacular. One fancy indicator is to check Google Ngrams, a sweep of select book texts. It appears from narrowing the selection to American English books that tamales ruled in the USA until about 1967, when tacos seized power. The whole enchilada didn't surpass the tasty tamale until about 1992, however. In published discourse, and on tables, the time is ripe for tamales to make a surging comeback in the USA!
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| UK usage, 1950-2006. Blue - tamale Red = taco Green = enchilada |
Today's Rune: Signals.
7 comments:
Erik, Went to El Charro last week. I love their avocodo cheese crisp. And Margaritas of course! Their stuff seems so authentic and I was full for two days! Yummy...
some song from US Air Force ROTC days: blah blah selling hot tamales // he said the earth was round-o // he said it could be found-o // that hypothetical navigating son-of-a-gun colombo
The marching/motivational songs were called Jodies. I'd completely forgotten. Here
If I had to choose, and I aint got none :) since 2007 - it would be oh those little pork tacos (carnitas I think they were called) from Rubio's and the big fat burritos from Chipotle's with extra guacamole. Enchiladas were a safe choice in many restaurants that served that sort of thing. Too many dry tacos and "wrong" burritos out there.
Restaurants on South Lake Ave. in Pasadena
Darn, man. I wasn't so hungry until after I read this. I want some tacos. lots of tacos
Taco Bell moves in to take over the American fast food industry! Plaza de Mexico on 9 mile.
Thanks all for the comments ~! All sounds good right about now . . .
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