Tacos Are a Little Taste of Heaven Here on Earth
A culinary love story
According to the font of all knowledge that is Wikipedia (and other even less reputable sources), the taco predates the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in Mexico in 1519. Ancient native peoples used soft corn tortillas and filled them mainly with small fish. The Twisted Taco in Atlanta further states that the name “taco” originated with Mexican silver miners in the 1700s. These are all fanciful tales, and all completely wrong.
As every child in the Lone Star State knows almost from birth, one sunny day in 1816, God was sitting under a live oak tree in Sonora, Texas, enjoying a delicious lunch of seasoned ground beef, lettuce, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese, and salsa, all conveniently nestled in a crispy tortilla bent into the shape of an open clamshell. A young boy stood nearby, staring forlornly into the can of Vienna sausages his mother had given him and wishing he had whatever it was the man under the tree was eating. Being the enterprising sort, he walked up to the man, and using the classic misdirection maneuver of “Oooh, a squirrel!” snagged one of the tasty treats and scurried away. That boy was Juan Seguin, future hero of the 1836 Texas Revolution, mayor of San Antonio, and the man who brought tacos down from heaven.
