Monthly Archive for September, 2007

An interesting analysis of the socio-political implications of Taco Bell:

Taco Bell made Mexican food safe for postwar white America by turning down the tongue-searing heat, translating alien ingredients into the gabacho idiom, and automating food prep: The queso fresco sprinkled onto Mexican tostadas became cheddar cheese; the fragrant, meltingly delicious tortillas made by hand in Tijuana taco stands became prefab taco shells, uniform as widgets…they were good. Or, at least, I remember them that way, in defiance of my gastronomic superego’s insistence that Taco Bell food is a dismal simulacrum of the real thing. That’s the perversity of memory: No matter how sophisticated my palette has grown, nor how politicized it has become, I still feel a nostalgic fondness for Taco Bell tacos, triggered by sense memories of that first bite, when the shell would disintegrate into a heap of tortilla shards and meat on the orange wrapping paper that doubled as a tray. The sublimity of that crunch, the sensuous contrast between brittle, ultra-thin shell (worlds away from the chewy, chamois softness of the griddle-warmed tortillas served by Tijuana taquerias) and moist, spicy-sweet meat: Taco Bell tacos combined the delights of Pringles chips and sloppy Joes. For a kid in the late ’60s and ’70s, what could be better?

Derrida argued that meaning can never be pinned down, since we define every concept in a system of knowledge using terms from within that system. In other words, there is no cosmic meaning that stands outside a self-referential system — no “transcendental signified,” to use Derrida’s term. Or, in this case, no authentic Mexicanismo. No transcendental taco to which all tacos refer.