MIAMI (AP) — Salsa overtaking ketchup as America's No. 1 condiment was just the start.
These days, tortillas outsell burger and hot dog buns; sales of tortilla chips trump potato chips; and tacos and burritos have become so ubiquitously "American," most people don't even consider them ethnic.
Welcome to the taste of American food in 2013.
This is a rewrite of the American menu at the macro level, an evolution of whole patterns of how people eat. The difference this time? The biggest culinary voting bloc is Hispanic.
"When you think about pizza and spaghetti, it's the same thing," says Jim Kabbani, CEO of the Tortilla Industry Association. "People consider them American, not ethnic. It's the same with tortillas."
Another Hispanic beverage making ever more rounds in households across America is tequila.
In 2006, nearly 107 million of liters of tequila were exported to the U.S., a 23 percent increase over 2005, according to Judith Meza, representative of the Tequila Regulatory Council. Tequila entered the top 10 of liquors in the world five years ago, she said.
AP
18 comments:
I'm not a big fan of tequila, Lem. Ethnically, I'm a gin and beer guy.
I've had a long running and as yet unprovable theory that certain ethnicities have become food conditioned so that their bodies and dna have adapted to process these specific types of regional ethnic foods more efficiently and cause many less issues/diseases to the regional ethnic food that have originated in these regions.
Personally I'm more interested in the US debt jumping $328 billion in one day. But that's just me.
We don't eat ethnic food here in 'Merica. We eat what someone thinks my be ethnic food, mostly.
Taco Bell does not sell food one would find in Mexico, for example. And unless you've befriended a Chinese family, you're not getting Chinese food with eyeballs and snoots and chicken feet in it, the authentic stuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't all food ethnic?
I love me some ethnic food. Especially if it's free range.
AllenS - for you, deer is an ethnic food.
When do we see the 'dozer photos? And the snowplow Jeep?
I had a grilled sweet chili chicken wrap at McDonald's yesterday. It was sort of nasty, however...
It wasn't a burrito, in that it wasn't Mexican, and sweet chili sauce on chicken is Asian.
I figured that a tortilla was less of an assault on my diet than a bun would be.
The sushi in town has green chili in it and pizza has green chili on it. But I'm assuming that the McDonald's menu isn't adjusted to have tortilla wrapped items just because we're in New Mexico.
If it was, there'd have been green chili in it.
Shortly, Michael. I haven't loaded them into the computer. Then, I have to use image editor, because the photos, while they look good on the camera, need to be lightened up using image editor. Otherwise, they come out too dark.
Not to worry.
Soon, my friend, soon.
Assimilation works both ways. As Hispanics become more Anglo, Anglos become more Hispanic......That said, I've eaten In Mexican restaurants in Mexican neighborhoods, and the food is nowhere near as good as the Mex food in restaurants that cater to whites. What's with retried beans? Is there some kind of potato shortage in Mexico? Why would anyone eat rice and beans when French fries are readily available. Perhaps as Mexicans become more adapted to our higher civilization they will give up rice and beans and take up French fries.
Assimilation works both ways. As Hispanics become more Anglo, Anglos become more Hispanic......That said, I've eaten In Mexican restaurants in Mexican neighborhoods, and the food is nowhere near as good as the Mex food in restaurants that cater to whites. What's with retried beans? Is there some kind of potato shortage in Mexico? Why would anyone eat rice and beans when French fries are readily available. Perhaps as Mexicans become more adapted to our higher civilization they will give up rice and beans and take up French fries.
Some of that is a crock, meant to scare people.
"Tortilla" chips have been around since the 70s and salsa's been used almost that long as a low-fat chip dip.
As for the rest, I can't say, but, if you go back as far as "The Partridge Family", you remember the kids on it were into tacos even then.
My family had tacos all the time when I was a kid in the south, 30+ years ago. We didn't consider them foreign food. Mexicans probably would have, though, the way we made them.
I was in traffic, at a stop light yesterday, in front of this Mexican restaurant. On its business sign was an illustration of a very pretty Mexican woman. She was young, wearing one of those festive dresses, all colorful with the white blouse. Long beautiful hair. Huge smile.
Standing on the corner, underneath the sign, waiting for the bus, was a real Mexican woman. A peasant. Short, fat, squat, dark-skinned, drab, and illegal.
The scene would make a good cover for The New Yorker, it occurred to me at the time.
In all fairness, I should add that the woman on the corner was more like a Peruvian Indian.
So there goes my magazine cover idea, all shot to hell.
Damn!
The thing is when they start demanding that we put the fish taco on the menu that is where we have to draw the line.
AllenS, I was up in your neck o' the woods last weekend. About 20 miles nw of Danbury, just over the Mn. line. Folks are really fed up w/ wolves. The dogs were afraid to go out and shit. PETA people put in for the lottery licenses and then tear them up.
Love salsa on my eggs.
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