A lot of Americans assume that Taco Bell is Mexican food simply because it sells things such as “tacos”. But claiming that Taco Bell sells Mexican food couldn’t be further from the truth. To claim such is a great insult to actual Mexican food. Nevertheless, I have to really convince my students that this is the case. Many do not believe me when I tell them that Taco Bell is not Mexican food.
Taco Bell is an American restaurant that sells American-style Mexican food. At best it could be called Tex-Mex food. Let’s start with the taco. Taco Bell sells a hard corn shell filled with “ground beef”, lettuce, tomato, and cheese. An truly authentic Mexican taco is served on 2 small corn tortillas, topped with meat, cilantro, and onion.
Chalupas? Try asking a Mexican what a chalupa is. Most have no idea. Taco Bell’s burritos and gorditas don’t even come close to the real thing. And nachos? Again, more of a Tex-Mex thing than anything else.
Also in Spanish
But here comes the stunning news: Taco Bell has opened up locations in Mexico! Taco’s Bell first foray into Mexico in 1992 was an unequivocal failure. Yet, the company has been at it again. Even Taco Bell knows its taco is nothing to compare to a Mexican taco, so they are changing its name to “tacostada” so they don’t confuse the Mexicans when they hand them what Taco Bell considers a “taco”.
This is as baffling as opening Starbucks locations in coffee-central Costa Rica. When will American companies learn that the rest of the world has better food than our chains?
SpanishPlans.org 
And, from an economic standpoint, it is imperialist entities like Taco Bell and Starbucks which threaten the authentic, home-grown establishments.
BTW: Where is your Pinterest button?
Sorry, we have to manually insert it. I have a “Pin it” button in my Firefox browser so I can pin any picture from any website that I am on. You can add it to your browser here: http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/
where you left the “chimichanga”
what is that?
so sorry… I’m not anonymous…..
Susana Mayrides
massmayrides@gmail.com
I totally agree about Taco Bell but I have to protest against the chalupas comment– any poblano, chilango, tlaxcalteco or anybody else from the central valley of Mexico knows their chalupas. If you’re out past midnight in Puebla, you’ll see an older woman sitting on an overturned bucket on the street corner with a large portable comal full of sizzling lard. She’ll drop four or five small corn tortillas on the comal, fry them briefly so that they are hot and wet but not crispy, then cover them in your choice of red or green sauce, plus shredded pork, queso fresco and chopped onions. If you ask for bandera mexicana she’ll put the green ones on the left, the red ones on the right and extra white cheese in the middle. You stand there with the other late night folks and eat them with your fingers off a styrofoam plate and they are so good. Here’s a picture from the City of Puebla Facebook page:
Anyway, real chalupas are awesome and bear no relation to the hard shell, ground beef / lettuce / tomato / cheddar cheese things they sell at Taco Bell. For fun once I had a mexican friend over and served him American-style tacos, with the hard shells, the beef cooked with the spices from the little packet, the lettuce, cheese, mild salsa and greek yogurt instead of sour cream, and he laughed so hard he almost cried and took pictures to bring home to his friends. I tell my students this story and they stare at me in disbelief. Good to see that somebody else is trying to dispel these Mexican food myths!
Genial eres de puebla , yo soy del edo mex , pero me encanta tu estado , es genial y tienen comida muy buena 😀
Yes i know it , I am mexican , and I just hate taco bell for that , last day I was talking whit a USA person , and she tell me ” dou yo like tacos” and I say yes ; and she tell me “lets go to Taco Bell” and I was like WTF… 😀 if you dont belive me that im from mexico i will speack spanish
Bien si estas usando traductor aqui tienes , si soy de mexico mi amigo , y si sabes español eres genial por que es un idioma hermoso el español 😀
I totally agree with this.
In my opinion they are stereotyping mexicans.
Mexicans dont only eat tacos.
Its very rude to say that taco bell is for mexican people.
People can be very stereotypical about certain stuff and not know the facts.