Did the Lebanese invent Taco?

Taco is a well-known Mexican dish that also very versatile. You can get tacos in corn or wheat tortillas. You can have them filled with chicken, beef, fish, pork or vegetables. You can also add cheese, guacamole, avocado or other garnishes to it.

However, some questions have been recently raised about the origins of taco.

Jeffrey M. Pilcher, history professor and author of a recent book on taco, told the Washington Post that the notion that the taco is an authentic Mexican dish is simply not supported by the facts.

“The idea that all authentic Mexican foods date to the Aztecs and everything else is McDonald’s isn’t true,” Pilcher told the paper, arguing that Mexican food is the result of a mixture of many cultures, some of them local and some of them are foreign.

One of these cultures that might have influenced the taco comes from the Middle East.

Food writer and culinary guide Lesley Tellez told the newspaper the tale of how Lebanese immigrants to Mexico in the 1930s “turned the Middle East kebab into tacos arabes — lamb, later pork, tacos wrapped in pita bread.”

The Lebanese modification to the taco proved to be a hit, and two decades later it was used to create what has become Mexico City classic tacos al pastor which has spicier pork, wrapped in a corn tortilla.