We eat 4.5 billion tacos a year. We eat them on Tuesdays, but we’ll say yes any other day of the week too. We’ve combined them with the internet’s favorite animal—cats—to come up with the world’s cutest palindrome. In other words: We can’t get enough of ’em.
But what makes a taco a taco? Who invented tacos? Where did tacos originate?
“Every taco tells a story about the land, the people that made it, migration, and immigration,” says Maite Gómez-Rejón, cultural historian and founder of ArtBites: Cooking Art History, which offers classes, recipes, and more. (She also co-curated the inaugural exhibit for LA Plaza Cocina, the first museum dedicated to Mexican food.) Read on to find out more.