Chapter Summary Of Planet Taco By Jeffrey Pilcher

Planet Taco, a non-fiction book by Jeffrey M. Pilcher, writes about the history of Mexican food. He begins the book in Mexico and ends up talking about how it impacted and spread through the whole world. In the introduction of the book Pilcher begins by writing about this taco cart his guide takes him to. Pilcher then tells you how much time it took for his tacos to be ready about 2 minutes. Little do we realize he ends up comparing the tacos he received in Mexico to the tacos he received in Taco Bell. Starting the first chapter of the book he begins by writing about the civilizations of the Aztec’s and the Mayan’s and the food they enjoyed back then. There most important food source comes from the genetic mutation of teosinte, aka maize. Maize

This was very different then the other parts of Mexico, which enjoyed the corn, based meals based on the vegetarian corn variety. Pilcher then brings us to the late nineteenth century in San Antonio, Texas where workingwomen would cook to make their income mainly during festival; eventually the legend of the chili queens was born. These legendary women brought many tourists to San Antonio and began to establish the reputation of Mexican food in the United States, which would eventually travel around the world. Like all great things there are always people looking to make money businessmen that weren’t apart of the Mexican community started selling chili con carne, chili powder, and canned tamales in mass quantity and made fortunes compared to the little street vendors that started it all. The end of the chili queen’s dynasty happened when the city ordered the queens out of the Alamo Plaza for construction. In the beginning the women thought that it was just temporary, but it ended up being permanent bringing a end of the chili queens of San

He also has background in Latin American history The viewpoint I felt Pilcher was a mixture of positive and negative. The negative part being not wanting the taco to change from the way the Mexican people did it before the “Mexican American Generation”. The positivity comes from the way he talks about the Mexican people through the book. The most important evidence Pilcher uses are how he does his research all the way back to the Aztecs and compare it to Mexican food today. The way the Aztecs made there food is so different then how Mexican food is made in the United States today due to the mass production of products used by most