How To Read A Taco (Reheat)

Professor Steven Alvarez believes you can read a taco. Look at the meat, the spices, and the tortilla. Each ingredient has a story that unlocks something about Mexican and American history and culture.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  There's nothing quite like Aruba. The white sand beaches are truly unlike anything you've seen. But what really stands out is the food. Because Aruba's not like other Caribbean islands. French pastries, Spanish paella, Peruvian barbecue, papardelle that has no business being that good that far from Florence. Not to mention the local fair. Aruba's food scene pulls you in with its astonishing variety of cuisines and beyond satisfies you with its unexpected flavors. So plan your escape to culinary delight at aruba.com. Your taste buds will thank you. Start the day strong with Quaker protein products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious to get a good source of protein. No matter what the day has in store, Quaker protein products give you a variety of ways to reach your protein goals.

• 0:45Dan Pashman?

  Oatmeal, granola, bars, and rice snacks in flavors you already love, like maple and brown sugar and blueberries and cream. Quaker protein helps fuel you to start whatever's next. Get your protein with Quaker, available at a store near you.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  Sirius XM Podcasts.

• 1:10Dan Pashman?

  All right, it's Dan here with another reheat for you. And look, I love every episode we do here on The Sporkful, but some of them involve me getting to do something especially fun. And you know, sometimes I meet someone and eventually we're chatting. They say, what do you do for a living? And I say, oh, I host a food podcast. And they say, oh, food podcast? So it's like restaurant reviews? No, not really. So it's like cooking and recipes? No, not really. And sometimes I'd be like, well, you know, like I hung out with this professor and his students and we went on a taco crawl. And they're like, wow, you do have a good job. So that's one we're sharing with you today. I joined Professor Steve Alvarez at St. John's University, who teaches a class called Taco Literacy, all about the idea that you can actually read a taco. You can interpret its different components and learn a lot about Mexican and American history and culture in the process.

• 1:55Dan Pashman?

  But what exactly does it mean to read a taco? Well, listen to this episode and find out. Now, one quick reminder, if there's an episode of The Sporkful you want us to pull out of the deep freezer and reheat, drop us a line. Send me an email or voice memo to [email protected]. Tell me your first name, location, what episode you want to hear, and why. Thanks so much and enjoy.

• 2:18Dan Pashman?

  Steve Alvarez is a professor at St. John's University in New York. He teaches a class there called Taco Literacy. Yep, you heard me right.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  The class where you can study tacos, and it's the one in college.

• 2:31Dan Pashman?

  So you and I, Steve, we have something in common. We both managed to find our way into careers.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Hey, yeah.

• 2:36Dan Pashman?

  With some real good fringe benefits.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I mean, I can't complain about the research.

• 2:45Dan Pashman?

  This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Okay, let's talk tacos. Taco Literacy is based on the idea that you can read a taco. You can look at the meat, the spices, the tortilla, and each component unlocks something about Mexican and American history and culture. Who needs Shakespeare? Every ingredient of a taco is its own kind of poetry to be analyzed and interpreted. What a piece of work is a taco? How noble in flavor, how infinite in seasonings. In portability, how like an angel. In deliciousness, how like a god. So pack up your Bob Marley poster in your mini fridge, because we're going to college. But this won't be a lecture, it's a field trip.

• 3:29Dan Pashman?

  We're going to join Steve Alvarez and his students for their end of semester taco crawl. But before we get to that, I wanted to understand why Steve created a class called Taco Literacy, why literacy and language are so important to him. So before we left, I spent some time talking with him in his apartment in Queens. Steve grew up in Safford, Arizona, a small mining town about two hours from the Mexico border. Safford was a pretty segregated place. There was one area where the white folks lived. Many of them were Mormon. The Mexican neighborhood was across the highway. Both Steve's parents are Mexican-American, but their family lived on the Mormon side of town.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Knowing that I didn't quite fit in with the white folks, but then when I was with the Mexican folks, similar. And food always became this thing. When I had some of my Mormon buddies over, they were always like asking, what's for dinner? They could smell things and they had a lot of questions. And they were happy when they got some of my mom's beans. My mom's beans were really, were pretty famous. But I never really had those kind of same cravings, for example, when I went to their places. So through the food, I definitely, you know, was being introduced to different kinds of flavors. And also sometimes be able to be proud of being Mexican. A lot of times, too, there was... As it happens everywhere with folks, especially being near the border, a way of shaming people

• 4:44Speaker 02

  for having Mexican roots. And that was definitely something that came through both in my generation, my parents' generation, I'm sure down the line.

• 4:52Dan Pashman?

  And did you speak Spanish at home?

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Well, no. This is also kind of complicated and it's not a, it's not a unique story. Previous immigrant groups can think about the generation when, for example, Italian starts to fade away. Spanish was around, especially among my parents, and whenever they spoke to other folks. But with the younger folks, it was more English dominant, except for words for members of a family and words for food.

• 5:17Dan Pashman?

  Did you wish that you spoke Spanish?

• 5:20Speaker 02

  I think in Safford, not really. I think the wish was always to be heard. And any kind of, let's say, trace of Spanish or Mexican Spanish accent, in terms of one's English, was a way for folks to, to be discriminated against. And if anything, I thought speaking better English would give me more advantages.

• 5:40Dan Pashman?

  So, so you're, growing up, you weren't, you were basically monolingual?

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:45Dan Pashman?

  Do you remember when you first started to have a different feeling about the fact that you didn't speak Spanish?

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Well, early on, I do remember having some cousins who were bilingual and then be able to have conversations with my grandparents, because my grandparents only spoke Spanish. I was a little bit of jealousy there because I noticed that the way they spoke Spanish sounded a little bit more informal than the way we were trying to speak English to them. And then later on, I would say, especially when I moved from Safford in Tucson, and there was a lot more people who were speaking Spanish, and I started traveling more to Mexico, especially to places like Emo Cio and Nogales. That's when I started really having questions about, well, why don't I know this? I mean, people expect me to, and I don't. So, you know, a lot of people would, even my own cousins would be disappointed that I didn't speak Spanish. And then sometimes I felt like, yeah, maybe that is my fault. And then, you

• 6:37Speaker 02

  know, there's also the other side of me that thinks about this kind of journey of recovering it and as being something that is an opportunity. And certainly, that's made me have a more enriched understanding about myself.

• 6:48Dan Pashman?

  You feel that learning Spanish has given you a richer understanding of yourself?

• 6:52Speaker 02

  For sure, yeah. Now, I'm, well, now there's a lot more words that made a lot more sense, that people were calling me, like especially a lot of bad words. My mom says a lot of this one word. I guess I probably can't say it because, you know, it is a swear word. But I didn't know my mom was saying that all these years. You know, when I get to college, I'm like, oh, my goodness, my mom speaks like a sailor. This is incredible. So things like that, and then also different words for foods, especially sometimes I didn't know what I was eating. I didn't know what it was called.

• 7:20Dan Pashman?

  Steve first started learning Spanish in his freshman year of college. When the professor saw his last name, Alvarez, he thought Steve was trying to score an easy A. But Steve needed his mom's help with the homework. Soon, though, he started picking it up.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Really, early back, I do remember when I would go taking the stuff I learned in my university undergrad class and go to places like Nogales and Sonora or El Mocio and just be able to order tacos, for example. Practicing on food was one of some of the first places where I would go and just try it out. And when they were able to understand me, that was pretty cool.

• 7:54Dan Pashman?

  How did that feel? I mean, you were in Mexico.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:57Dan Pashman?

  Speaking Spanish, ordering tacos in Spanish.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes it would be, for example, I mean, because it's close, you know, close to the border, so people would speak English, too. And they would speak to me in English and I'd answer back in Spanish. And they would be sometimes amused because they could see my, hear my accent, and then they would speak to me in Spanish. At that point, it's like, oh, that's pretty cool. All right. So now I can start to do this and maybe, maybe not be a local, but also have a different kind of relationship with people.

• 8:23Dan Pashman?

  Those experiences inspired Steve to create Taco Literacy. He uses the class to explore a central question of all his work. What happens when language, food, and people cross borders? Steve used to teach at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. It's a city with a large Mexican-American population. They even have a neighborhood nicknamed Mexington. He's written about the ways that Mexican food is changing America and the ways America is changing Mexican food. Before we started reading tacos, I was curious to have Steve read a menu.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Oh, wow, that's, that's a big menu.

• 9:00Dan Pashman?

  You can tell by looking at the menu. I showed Steve the menu for a Mexican place in my town in the suburbs. A place I like a lot called Trace Amigos Mexican Grill. It's owned by a man named Moel Gomez, who's Ecuadorian. Right off the bat, Steve noticed the restaurant's logo.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, first thing that strikes me are the chili peppers with sombreros and the mustache. And they're also wearing those little white gloves.

• 9:22Dan Pashman?

  What are your thoughts on that?

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Well, I don't need to get too much into it, but there was something that came out recently about those white gloves being involved with minstrel shows with cartoons. But that speaks for itself. Let's just take a look at the food. I mean, the first thing that struck me is when I saw wraps. This is a burrito, but they do have a burrito.

• 9:39Dan Pashman?

  Well, I don't want to start a big fight here, Steve, but I do technically believe that a burrito is a type of wrap.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Oh, man, I could go, I would go the other way. I think a wrap is a burrito. That's what I, I was like, come on, don't even front. You're putting in tortilla, that is a burrito. I don't care what you put inside. I used to put macaroni and cheese inside tortillas, and that was, that was a burrito.

• 10:01Dan Pashman?

  We let that debate go, and Steve continued to study the menu. And this menu is so interesting to me because I feel like you can see cultures coming together right there on the paper, but not in a melting pot sort of way. A melting pot would just be middle of the road, watered down Mexican food. This menu has opposite extremes side by side, coexisting or doing battle, depending on how you look at it.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Nice jalapeno, okay, bowl of chili, pinto, refried amigo chili.

• 10:28Dan Pashman?

  What? What, what'd you see?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Crispy calamari burrito, I'd do that.

• 10:33Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, there's actually a law on Long Island, you're not allowed to open a restaurant and not serve fried calamari. You can't even get a license to operate.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Hey, they do got lengua.

• 10:40Dan Pashman?

  Well, that's what, so this is what, so this menu to describe is like an 11 by 17 piece of paper. There's, there's probably at least 50, maybe 75 items.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:49Dan Pashman?

  But, but way down in the bottom right hand corner in this tiny little box, you see the section called Authentic Mexican Tacos.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, yeah, the smallest one, and it's right at the very bottom.

• 11:00Dan Pashman?

  Lengua is tongue, and those authentic tacos are done on two corn tortillas with cilantro, chopped onion, and lime. Classic. That lengua taco is my jam. But at the very top of the menu, there's another section called tacos, and that's the American hard shell taco with the shredded lettuce. Steve noticed the difference in those two placements.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  And you know, that this would be the first one you encounter assumes something about the audience and that this is sort of relegated to the bottom of the menu also says something to us too.

• 11:30Dan Pashman?

  I sort of, I feel like on my more optimistic days, I can look at a menu like this and be like, it's so great that authentic Mexican tacos are on this menu in a place like the suburbs or a place like Kentucky where you lived and worked for a while.

• 11:44Dan Pashman?

  And that feels like progress on my more optimistic days. And then on my less optimistic days, I look at a menu like this and it feels like the authentic part of the menu is getting eaten alive.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, you know, I guess it depends on the day as well. And maybe on the day that sombrero wearing chili would be more offensive to me. And some days I was just like, ah, you know, I got other things to worry about.

• 12:12Dan Pashman?

  One note to add, I did speak with Manuel Gomez, the owner of Trace Amigos. He declined to be interviewed on Mike, but he did tell me more about the thought process of his menu. First off, the logo, he found it on the internet. He said he just got a kick out of peppers wearing sombreros. As for the food, he was pretty blunt. He said, quote, "This is Mexican food for Americans." He says he needs to offer all these options to run a successful business. And he knows what he's doing. He's been owning and operating Mexican restaurants in my area of Long Island for 20 years. And in that time, he says he has seen some changes. About 10 years ago, that's when he introduced that little section at the bottom of the menu, authentic Mexican tacos. At first, they didn't sell. But eventually, Manuel tells me, a lot of the Hispanic people in the area who work in landscaping started

• 12:57Dan Pashman?

  buying them. And they shared them with their bosses. And the bosses started bringing their families in to the restaurant. Now Manuel says, he sells about half those authentic tacos to non Spanish speakers. When he opened his latest place, he tried to get more ambitious. He offered items like chile rie nos, chile quiles, and huevos rancheros. But they didn't sell. He took them off the menu. So baby steps. Coming up, Steve Alvarez and I join his students and go from reading menus to reading tacos. Read this taco.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Well, the first thing, of course, we had to unwrap it before we opened up the book cover. But as you see, the first thing you see is, well, you notice it's a flour tortilla. And that already is very different.

• 13:39Dan Pashman?

  And we go looking for good tacos in a very unlikely place. Stick around.

• 13:57Speaker 03

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• 15:06Dan Pashman?

  There's nothing quite like Aruba. The white sand beaches are truly unlike anything you've seen. But what really stands out is the food. Because Aruba's not like other Caribbean islands. French pastries, Spanish paella, Peruvian barbecue, papardelle that has no business being that good that far from Florence. Not to mention the local fair. Aruba's food scene pulls you in with its astonishing variety of cuisines. And Beyond satisfies you with its unexpected flavors. So plan your escape to culinary delight at aruba.com. Your taste buds will thank you.

• 15:39Dan Pashman?

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• 17:15Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to a Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. Hey, if you're not already following the Sporkful in your podcasting app, what are you waiting for? In Apple Podcasts and Spotify, go to our show page and click Follow. In other apps, it might be like a plus sign, or a subscribe button, or a heart. Whatever it is in your podcasting app, please do that thing. It's the best way to ensure you'll never miss an episode, and it's good for our show. So please, go ahead and do it right now while you're listening. Thank you. Now, back to this week's reheat.

• 17:44Dan Pashman?

  After I spoke with Professor Steve Alvarez in his apartment, he and I went to meet up with his taco literacy students at a nearby restaurant. They had spent the whole semester interviewing the cooks and owners at local Mexican restaurants and bakeries, reading about the history of Mexican cooking and ingredients, and writing about what they learned. This end-of-term taco crawl would be part culmination, part celebration. Steve had picked out several spots in the Corona section of Queens, where there are a lot of Mexican immigrants. The first featured food from Puebla in southern Mexico.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  So we are going to, known as Beja Puebla, but really the full name is Aquí en Beja Puebla, where we're gonna try some tacos arabes.

• 18:24Dan Pashman?

  Now tacos arabes, that's Arab tacos.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and this has a lot to do, or really ties in directly with some of the Middle Eastern migration, particularly Lebanese immigrants to Mexico. Here we are.

• 18:36Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  You're in beautiful Puebla, in Queens, Mexico 7 train.

• 18:41Dan Pashman?

  Let's do it.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's go. All right, let's go meet the students.

• 18:45Dan Pashman?

  Inside Beja Puebla was decorated with streamers in the colors of the Mexican flag and Mexican tapestries. Spanish-language TV was on in the corner. I started meeting the students.

• 18:55Speaker 04

  I wanted to take this class because the theme of this seminar was just different from anything I've ever seen before. And usually for English majors, it's like British literature or contemporary literature, but to have something, say, like Mexican food, it just sounded unique.

• 19:12Dan Pashman?

  And more delicious than British literature.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  Yes, definitely.

• 19:17Dan Pashman?

  That's Cindy. She and I agreed we were both starving. While we waited for the food, I also talked with Rochelle.

• 19:23Speaker 05

  Knowing the history of the food you're eating, it's kind of important because you know where it comes from. So now I'll know more about tacos, the history of tacos. I'll know burritos aren't really like Mexican, the whole history of that.

• 19:35Dan Pashman?

  What is the whole history of that? Pop quiz.

• 19:39Speaker 05

  They're more like a borderland type of food. It doesn't really come from Mexico. Like a lot of, they called it, quote-unquote, like the handlers of Mexican people who would come to do work, that's the food they were given. It was really like food of shame. Nobody really wanted to bring out their tortillas because it also showed like your social class and all that. So I think now when I order a burrito, I'll be like, I'll just like flashback in my mind, all the assignments I wrote on that, and then still enjoy it, but at least now I know where it comes from. I think that's really cool.

• 20:11Dan Pashman?

  Then I met Ariana.

• 20:13Speaker 06

  Okay, so I actually got into this class on accident. My advisor signed me up for it. And on my schedule, it just said that it was an English lecture. Didn't specify like taco literacy or anything like that. So when I first walked into class, I was late. And I was like, is this the right class? But I sat down and I was like, okay, if he doesn't call my name, then I'll leave. I'll apologize and I'll leave. But he called my name. I was like, oh, okay. He asked me, oh, what's your relationship to Mexican food? I was like, well, I'm Mexican, so I grew up eating it.

• 20:43Dan Pashman?

  What did you learn about Mexican food from taking this class that you didn't know growing up as a Mexican-American?

• 20:48Speaker 06

  Well, I've definitely, okay, so I'm from Texas. And there is kind of this idea of Tex-Mex not being real Mexican food. And I had always just kind of accepted that, like, okay, it's not real Mexican food. But this class has really taught me about authenticity and what authenticity really means and how it's really subjective. Because, you know, Mexican people came to Texas and in a lot of cases, already lived there and just made the food that was available with the ingredients that were available to them. So I don't know, it's really made me question that when someone says, oh, that's not real Mexican food, I'm like, how do you know that?

• 21:25Dan Pashman?

  At this point, the tacos arabes started coming out. Like Steve said, they're called Arab tacos because around World War I, there was an influx of Middle Eastern immigrants to southern Mexico. They brought the shawarma tradition of spit-roasted lamb served in pita bread. In Mexico, that morphed into spit-roasted pork in a flour tortilla. It's seasoned with cumin, oregano, onions, and sometimes Mexican chipotle sauce. All right, taco number one, taco arabé. I'm going in. Oh, my God.

• 21:56Dan Pashman?

  Oftentimes, when you get the meat off one of those spits at a less good place, it can be kind of like dried out. It sits in front of that heater for hours and hours and it gets kind of dry. This is so juicy. And a little bit of lime juice on top.

• 22:12Speaker 06

  I think this is the best thing I've ever had for breakfast.

• 22:17Dan Pashman?

  My ordering game was on point on this day, my friends. I ordered two tacos arabes, one to eat right away, one to read with Steve.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Well, the first thing, of course, we had to unwrap it before we opened up the book cover. But as you see, the first thing you see is, well, you notice it's a flour tortilla. And that already is very different.

• 22:34Dan Pashman?

  What does that, what does that tell you?

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Uh, well, it could be one of two things. One is that we're dealing with a norteño taco, or we're dealing with a taco arabes. Um, in this case, we're going with the latter.

• 22:45Dan Pashman?

  And why are flour tortillas more common in northern Mexico?

• 22:48Speaker 02

  It's a, it's a long story, but really it was the ease of producing wheat in the northern frontier, and also the encouragement by the government. I guess you'd say economic development, and also a kind of stigmatization of corn as being backwards, or somewhat quote-unquote primitive. So the north was a part of-

• 23:07Dan Pashman?

  Where did that idea come from?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Well, that's been there since the Spaniards arrived, I'd say. And it was the food of the conquered being understood as part of the reason why they were conquered. And a superiority of especially bread, and the ideology of European or Western progress was also a conquest culinarily.

• 23:26Dan Pashman?

  So, so you're saying when the Spanish arrived and conquered Mexico, they were, they were like, "You people are eating corn, this is why we were able to kick your butts."

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:36Dan Pashman?

  And we, we don't have these silly tortillas, we make bread with wheat and it's superior.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 23:42Dan Pashman?

  And, and, and so, so corn was stigmatized and wheat rose in the north, and it became, and that is why we have flour tortillas today?

• 23:50Speaker 02

  I mean, really, in the metropolitan centers, so that ideology takes hold in Mexico City, and it became a way to, one's diet that was more wheat-based was the idea you were a higher status of a person. Oftentimes tied to race and class as well, but really it was a way to move away from indigenous cultures, indigenous foodways, and really to start to prize a European way of thinking of what is human, really.

• 24:18Dan Pashman?

  Despite the complicated history of the flour tortilla, Steve says he loves them. His family is from northern Mexico, so he grew up on his mom's homemade flour tortillas. I downed my second Taco Arabe, and we left Baeja Puebla. All right, so we're gonna walk this way to 90th Street. Let's go. Next, we arrived at Taqueria Sinaloense. It's one of the few restaurants in New York that specializes in food from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, which is in the northwest part of the country. There's a lot of ranching there. While we waited for our tacos, I talked with a student named Swanee. The next time you sit down to a plate of tacos, what would you be thinking about that you wouldn't have thought about before?

• 24:55Speaker 07

  Um, the process of how everything was made. I think we take that for granted, where it's like, oh, the next thermalization of tortillas and like...

• 25:03Dan Pashman?

  What is the next thermalization of tortillas? Pop quiz.

• 25:05Speaker 07

  Uh, so basically, it's where you would get the corn and you would put it in either calcium or like limestone and like in water, you leave it there. And then the following day, you would rinse it out. And they do this so it gives vit- um, nutrition to it and also prevents people from diseases. And it also, uh, gives it flavor and preserves it. And that's where the Europeans, when they took corn back to their homelands, they failed because they noticed that everyone was getting sick and dying.

• 25:31Dan Pashman?

  Okay, good job, Swanee. A, you got an A in your pop quiz.

• 25:36Dan Pashman?

  I also talked more with Ariana, the Mexican-American student you heard earlier. She's the one who signed up for Steve's class by accident. She's glad now that she did.

• 25:45Speaker 06

  I'll definitely be thinking more about the past, you know, of corn. Corn has been something that I've actually written a lot about and done a lot of research on, and like NAFTA and the importance of corn.

• 25:54Dan Pashman?

  How does NAFTA relate to tacos?

• 25:56Speaker 06

  Well, NAFTA, um, Mexico had to open up its corn sector to foreign imports of corn. Um, so American corn kind of flooded the Mexican markets, and it was a lot cheaper. And people who used to be able to make a living off of growing corn could no longer do that. A lot of them actually immigrated to America for opportunities. So NAFTA had a lot of unintended effects, you know, for Mexicans in Mexico and also for America, because that's how the, what they call the immigration problem began. That's one of the huge reasons it started, so...

• 26:29Dan Pashman?

  All right, you passed your test. You got an A. Congratulations, Ariana.

• 26:31Speaker 06

  Thanks.

• 26:34Dan Pashman?

  Our tacos arrived, and at this place, Steve had selected tacos de machaca. Steve read mine to me.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Machaca, because in Sinaloa, a lot of people from the ranch, they would have to preserve their meat by drying it. So this one is egg mixed with dried beef, tomato and onion on a flour tortilla, like a breakfast taco, really, really tasty.

• 26:54Dan Pashman?

  Ariana was especially excited for this one. She grew up eating machaca in El Paso, Texas.

• 26:59Speaker 06

  So there's actually a cafe that my dad would take me to growing up. He'd take me to school and we'd wake up super early and he'd go to this cafe like every morning. And I would always get the machaca plate. And it's basically almost like a brisket with scrambled eggs and they would like slather it in this cheese that was almost like a queso that you would dip chips in. So good and definitely not healthy. But, so I have a lot of like good memories about machaca. So I'm really looking forward to eating it here.

• 27:30Dan Pashman?

  Did you tell your parents about this class?

• 27:32Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 27:33Dan Pashman?

  What do they think of it?

• 27:35Speaker 06

  I actually interviewed my mom about her relationship to Mexican food for an assignment and she was really into it, so.

• 27:40Dan Pashman?

  What did you learn from that?

• 27:41Speaker 06

  A lot of people feel like if you grew up and like your parents, for instance, my mom's parents were way too busy working all the time to be able to cook, you know, really traditional foods. So she grew up with a lot of American food, but she later rediscovered how to cook Mexican food and now she makes it all the time and I grew up eating it. Yeah, it's just interesting that you can rediscover these things and reconnect to your culture later in life.

• 28:05Dan Pashman?

  The machaca taco was very nice, especially with a few drops of hot sauce on there. But then Steve pulled me aside and told me about the other specialty here, chilorio. Chilorio is pulled pork simmered for hours with hot peppers, dash of vinegar, and served with refried beans. Steve recommended it in a taco, of course.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  One of my favorites, something that my grandparents used to make. So when I have this here, it just reminds me a lot of going over there. Because this is kind of really hard food to find in New York.

• 28:32Dan Pashman?

  The chilorios is what your grandparents used to make?

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Yes, Sinaloa food, for sure. It's where my father's side of the family, folks, came from. So when I saw this place in my neighborhood, I was really happy. And I come here a lot, so.

• 28:43Dan Pashman?

  That is really good.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Gracias.

• 28:46Dan Pashman?

  It's very, they get the pork and the pork and the beans make it so smoky. But then also there's like, I think she said there was vinegar in there. So there's like a little bit of like a vinegar bite zing to it. And then the fattiness of the beans and the pork, oh my god. You know, sometimes you don't realize how good something was until days later. During the taco crawl, the tacos arabesques were my favorite. But now, looking back, the chilorio is the one that I can't get out of my head. Just the depth of flavors, so much going on. Reading that taco was like reading Moby Dick. Only difference was, I actually finished the taco. Thank you, muchas gracias. From there, we made a quick stop at Nieves Tiamimi for some Mexican ices. I went with half mango and red chili, half tamarind. A perfect palate cleanser.

• 29:32Dan Pashman?

  It was time now for the final stop of the day. But this one wasn't on Steve's original itinerary. It was my request. And I didn't pick it because of the tacos themselves, I'd actually never had them. I picked it because I thought the location seemed meaningful. It wasn't in Queens. So Steve, all his students, and I hopped on the subway.

• 29:56Speaker 08

  This is Times Square, 42nd Street. Transfer is available to the 1, 2, 3...

• 30:03Dan Pashman?

  Alright, we gotta be a little more careful here crossing the street.

• 30:08Dan Pashman?

  Alright, you guys, so we're here in Times Square. The cliche nickname of it is that it's the crossroads of the world. And any given day, there's probably someone from every single state and many countries come through here. And there's a taco stand in the middle of Times Square, a taqueria.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 30:23Dan Pashman?

  So let's eat some tacos. Alright.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  Square tacos.

• 30:27Dan Pashman?

  Steve, what can you tell us about this place?

• 30:29Speaker 02

  I have no idea. I have never tried this place, I've seen it around before, but just like you said, that it's in Times Square, and that it actually is in Spanish, as taqueria, I think is really cool, and that it's next to a pizza spot, which I think will give you some indication of what street food in New York is becoming.

• 30:44Dan Pashman?

  I'm looking at the menu.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:46Dan Pashman?

  Read this menu with me a little bit.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Sure. The staples, guacamole and chips, chips and salsa. Elote, which is a pretty cool option, a corn on the cob with chipotle, mayonnaise, and some, well, some cheese on the side too there. And then, of course, you can see in the back, hanging out, looming, is the al pastor. And that looks like a winner. Definitely.

• 31:07Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:08Dan Pashman?

  I do notice a few... Curveball ingredients on this menu. I perceive them as curveball. You tell me what you think. The costilla has Thai basil.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:20Dan Pashman?

  I see that the pollo has chimichurri, which is an Argentinian spice, often served with steak sauce.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Right, and one of these quesadillas has arugula in it as well, yeah.

• 31:31Dan Pashman?

  So it's certainly, there's some upscale, but also some non-Mexican influences here. What are your thoughts on that?

• 31:38Speaker 02

  I think part of that is, is this restaurant is considered modern Mexican food. I mean, we can see some kind of hybridity happening here. And it makes sense, we're here in the middle of Times Square. So we've got a little bit of everything happening.

• 31:49Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 31:52Dan Pashman?

  What do you guys think?

• 31:53Speaker 05

  Amazing.

• 31:54Dan Pashman?

  Really?

• 31:54Speaker 05

  Actually, really good, yeah. I have no words.

• 31:59Speaker 05

  I didn't think it was gonna be good because we're in Times Square, but this is like a nice surprise.

• 32:05Dan Pashman?

  Ariana, what makes it so good?

• 32:08Speaker 06

  Well, I'm eating the costilla right now, and it's really good.

• 32:11Dan Pashman?

  That's the short rib, the beef?

• 32:12Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm, it has like Thai flavors in it, like, it feels like a, like a, I don't know, like a crust.

• 32:17Dan Pashman?

  That's the one with Thai basil in it, yeah.

• 32:19Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm, it's really good.

• 32:19Dan Pashman?

  So you sort of started off taking this class, reconnecting with your Mexican, Mexican-American roots. Now you're ending it eating a short rib taco in Times Square with Thai basil in it.

• 32:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, my ancestors are crying, but it's okay. But I'm loving it.

• 32:38Dan Pashman?

  Before we wrapped up, I checked in with Steve one more time. Often, that sort of cross-pollination that happens with food and that's happened with Mexican food in Mexico and in the US is a result of colonialism, it can be a result of oppression. We talked about corn versus flour tortillas and all that, but you're someone who grew up with flour tortillas. That's like your comfort food.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 33:00Dan Pashman?

  When you eat the food and enjoy it, I mean, how does that factor into it? You personally, how do you process that?

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, it goes a couple ways. One is that I'm the product of colonialism. And my identity is somebody who has mestizo, who has indigenous blood, European blood, African blood. Even people from Spain were already mixed, especially religiously, with people who were the Muslim faith, Jewish faith, and Christian faith before they even came here. And really, putting it into a bigger context of thinking about history, people. And the movement of people and movement of their food. There's a lot of talk about walls these days, a lot of rhetoric about walls. And what I would say is that, number one, walls don't stop people. Walls don't stop languages, and they certainly don't stop food.

• 33:50Dan Pashman?

  So wait, wait, gather around one more time. So, thank you all, first of all, for including me. You guys were fantastic. This was a lot of fun. Um, I was gonna say class dismissed, but I feel like Steve should say that.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  It's so sad to say that.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Well, some people are gonna keep eating tacos, so I can't say it's dismissed. But stay in contact with me. Let me know how everything works out. And then, of course, you got projects due next week, so don't forget. Of course. But thank you all. Thank you all for coming, too. Thank you so much.

• 34:16Dan Pashman?

  It was our pleasure.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Now say "class dismissed." Oh, class dismissed.

• 34:22Dan Pashman?

  No, do they not say that in college? Probably not. Yeah, no.

• 34:34Dan Pashman?

  That's Stephen Alvarez, Associate Professor of English at St. John's University in Queens. He'll be teaching that Taco Literacy course again this spring. If you want to learn more about Taco Literacy, check out his course website at taco-literacy.com. Or if you just want to drool over some pics of good food, check him out on Instagram at taco-literacy. And a quick update: we originally recorded this episode a few years ago. Since then, sadly, Taqueria Sina Louense has closed. But you can still get Sina Loen specialties at a restaurant called Cielito Historia in Queens. Note to self: go eat there.

• 35:09Dan Pashman?

  This episode was originally produced by Ann, Sandy, and me with editing help from Peter Clowney. Senior producer Emma Morgenstern produced this update. The show was mixed by Jared O'Connell, music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Peter Clowney and Daisy Rosario. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 35:26Speaker 09

  And this is Larkin from Ithaca, New York, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 35:44Dan Pashman?

  This reheat was produced by Gianna Palmer. The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app, all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful.

• 36:29Dan Pashman?

  Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 36:35Speaker 10

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• 37:19Speaker 10

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• 37:36Speaker 11

  Meet Craig. Craig manages the local haunted house. He's got a lot to juggle: tangled cobwebs, flickering lights, and scheduling vampires.

• 37:45Speaker 12

  Now, it's time for your break. I'll break when I'm dead. You are dead. That's like your whole thing. Here, have a Kit Kat. Hmm. Fine. 15 minutes, but no longer. Good. I'm grabbing a Kit Kat, too.

• 38:00Speaker 11

  Nobody should have to wait until they're dead to take a break. Have a break. Have a Kit Kat.