Taco Trivia: Fun Facts About Your Favorite Dish

Tacos are a delicious treat loved by many people all around the world. People have tacos for different events as their main dish, eat them after a long night out, and even have them pretty much every single Tuesday in the United States. In fact, nearly 234 million Americans in 2016 used Mexican food and ingredients.

With so much taco buzz, there are bound to be a few things that you probably don’t even know about your favorite dish! For instance, the word taco actually came into play in the 18th century in Mexico. However, at the time it wasn’t used to refer to a dish. It was actually used in the silver mines and referred to the charges that were used to excavate. During that time, tacos were actually a sheet of paper that wrapped around gunpowder and placed inside the rock. So, clearly, the meaning is a lot different now!

In the United States, another alternate meaning for the word taco appeared in the year 1905. In fact, you can actually find the first mention of it in the newspaper. Tacos back then were actually associated with pushcarts in L.A. and sold by a group of women called the Chili Queens. history says that customers would flirt with a Chili Queen and purchase the tacos.

Fast forward to the present. In 2016 in the United States, Americans actually consumed 4.5 billion tacos! In fact, half of the United States population pays a visit to the chain restaurant Taco Bell every 11 days. So, now that we have Taco Bell on the brain, the founder Glen Bell actually invented the u-shaped taco back in 1950. Although, a historian believes that taco shells with the round shapes should be credited to Mexican restaurateurs back in the 1940s. Regardless of who came up with the shape, the taco made fast food extremely popular and made its way into everyone’s daily life.

So, did you know any of these things? If so, you must be a true taco fan! If you didn’t know these things, host your own fiesta complete with a taco bar full of Mexican ingredients, other Mexican dishes, and taco pairings like drinks, and share all of your new taco knowledge with all of your friends!