Our Tacos, Ourselves: How Southern California Reinvented the Taco

How Southern California discovered, gave birth to, reinvented and loved the taco for more than a century

Comments (0) By Gustavo Arellano Thursday, Apr 5 2012

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From Olvera Street, the taco's spread was almost biblical. Taco house begat taco house in the 1940s; Bell's initial Mexican fast-food operation, Taco-Tia, begat El Taco, which begat Taco Bell. And Glen Bell, fast food's Johnny Appleseed, begat Del Taco by hiring its founder, Ed Hackbarth, back when he owned Bell's Burgers; Hackbarth, in turn, begat Dick Naugles of the much-missed Naugles chain. King Taco begat other soft-taco operations, which begat loncheras, which begat Kogi, which begat the Bell and other fast-food operations to offer those specials. And the days of tacos after its introduction to downtown have been wonderful.

We Southern Californians can't claim all the innovations in taco technology. The first patent for a taco shell–making machine went in 1950 to Juvencio Maldonado, a Guanajuato native, who operated a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan. During the 1950s, the El Paso–based Ashley's Foods pioneered the sale of prefabricated taco shells and also fashioned an aluminum taco mold, sold to American housewives so they, too, could fry like their Mexican counterparts.

Irene Montano's father-in-law taught Taco Bell's founder everything he knew about tacos.

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LA Plaza De Cultura y Artes

501 N. Main St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

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Region: Downtown

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Yet we remain Tacolandia, U.S.A. That's thanks to the Reconquista having its base here, sure, as well as our tendency to customize food to the trend of the time. But the taco also speaks to who we are. Like the taco, we come in different forms, sizes, shapes and levels of tolerability, but we are still fundamentally the same: Whether our shell is hard, soft, crispy, puffy, flour, corn, whatever, we live life in the name of creating a better Southern California — and, hence, the world — for everyone.

OK, enough of this PC crap. I need to get me cuatro de asada with a hell of a lot of green salsa. Anyone else hungry?

Gustavo Arellano is editor of OC Weekly and author of syndicated column ¡Ask a Mexican! His book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, will be released April 10. He'll sign copies that evening at L.A. Plaza, 501 N. Main St., dwntwn., at 7 p.m.; free, book is $25. (213) 542-6200.