The Philosophy of Street Tacos

The Philosophy of Street Tacos

Written By: Dean Liscum

“That meeting was endless.” Professor Bernal sighed as if he’d had to expend all his mental and emotional energy to survive it.

“You've been here long enough to know the culture. You should anticipate that meetings will run twice as long as planned. Longer when the Dean runs them.” Claudia still looked fresh as if she’d slept through the entire 2 hours of institutional grievances and petty infighting by the faculty.

“True. But I never do,” admitted the pale professor. “I forgot that meetings in Kent or Stuttgart are equally as bombastic and boring.”

“A will to ignorance?” Claudia shrugged.

“I wish but I fear sometimes my ignorance is my foundation.”

“If only administrators worldwide made their point and moved on. Ravage me with your bureaucratic brevity and brilliance and leave me wanting more.” She smiled.

“Ravage?” The professor rubbed his belly. “Ravaged.”

“Que hora?” Claudia looked at her watch.  “We should eat. Have you tried any of the street tacos?”

“No.” He sighed. “I don't know where to start.”

  “Anywhere. You can’t go wrong.” She pointed toward a row of small shops. “In this neighborhood, the best are at Los Cocuyos or El Huequito.”

“The best? According to the New York Times? Bon Appetit? The Google algorithm?” He frowned. “Remember my specialty is Axiology. I'm all about value and how value is derived. Although I am very grateful for your hospitality, I’m immensely skeptical of a visiting professor advising a visiting professor about the best of anything concerning the culture or place they’re visiting.

“Skepticism duly noted.” She smiled. “I’ve been here six months. I've learned not to believe self-proclaimed foodies or the algorithms of gastronomy. I choose to believe the people. The lines of the taco carts speak for themselves.”

“Are they safe?” he asked, belying his Euro-American food prejudice toward any thing that wasn’t hermetically sealed and vacuum packed prior to being cooked.

“Safe?” She mocked. Her voice rose as she attempted something between indignation and umbrage. “They are essential like earth, air, and water. Aristotle’s fire was actually a Street Taco with jalapeno salsa.”

“What is the Greek equivalent of hot sauce?” Bernal wondered.

“Some cultures celebrate small penises and bland food. Others prize size and spice. Bienvenidos a la Mexico!”  She nodded in the direction of a queue that ended in a simple food cart. “Get in line. I'll explain the philosophy of street tacos as I, una turista, have come to understand it while we wait.”

“Of what value is the opinion of an outsider?” he said in a way that could only be taken as an insult.

“Sometimes, the outsider can see the truth and beauty to which an insider has become inured.” She placed her fingertip on a vein in the crook of his arm traced it to the heart of his palm.

“When did you transition from semiotics to street tacos?” Pulling his hand away, he giggled.

“Our challenge as philosophers is applying the tools of our trade to the real world. I have turned my critical thinking skills to eating.” She rubbed her small belly “I made my subject the street taco.”

Then, she reached out and rubbed Bernal’s tummy. “I’ve been wanting to do that for some time.”

He grinned. “What’s next? The ethics of elote? The political philosophy of posole? The metaphysics of menudo?”

“I specialize in street taco. Nothing more. Those possibilities are for my peers.”

“Please proceed, professora.”

They both took a small step forward toward the cart along with the rest of the procession.

“I'll start with Metaphysics,” Claudia declared. “I am either HERE anticipating eating tacos or I am SOMEWHERE ELSE, somewhere unspeakable and unfathomable, contemplating the eating tacos. I could be in a prison cell in Guayaquil or in Vienna in Schrodingers's box snuggled up to his cat…or not. I could be the taco, as well as being a constituent part of the taco, all that it is: the meat, the onion, the cilantro, the tortilla, the salsa.

I cannot be sure if what I perceive is actual or a figment of my imagination. Is my experience of the street taco absolute? Knowable? Real? Do both the taco and I exist to an independent observer like my fellow taco lovers in line or the security guard watching us via the CCTV camera across the street or does the taco materialize only in my thoughts? How do I address this doubt? I taste the taco, therefore I am.”

“How very Cartesian of you.”

She nodded ever so slightly and then pressed on.

“Epistemologically, we can discuss how we know via inductive reasoning that flows from the constituent parts: tortilla, tongue, onion, cilantro to the ends of the logical universe where stars hurdle towards the ever expanding limits of space.

Or we can deduce from the ostensibly infinite universe with its planets, asteroids, and stars, the heat of the Capsaicin in the salsa, the scintillating flavors that sparkle from the combination of salt, lime, and cilantro.”

Spying a passerby with its hands full of tacos, professor Bernal licked his lips. Claudia waited until his attention wandered back to her.

“Onward into the tribal epistemology that brings us all together at 1:33 p.m. on a Tuesday to experience the street taco,” she continued, “standing in line with our fellow Citizens of the street taco, with no more or less purpose than purchasing one or two or five casuistries of selfishness, savoring them, deriving nutrition and thus strength from them, experiencing a moment of centeredness, of home, and then moving on to the rest of our day, to our next task, our pending future, be it a more complete and fulfilled life or a sudden death by taxi.”

Hearing the taco described as an unsound reasoning of selfishness, the professor grew despondent as if his mind had dropped the feast of tacos she had described.

“The taco giveth. The taco goeth away. It is the Epicurean paradox in the form of the street taco. Either god wishes us to always have street tacos but can’t supply them or she can but she won’t. The reality is we rise; street tacos appear; we make them disappear; we sleep, then rise, street tacos appear again. They are finite within the confines of a 24 hour cycle, yet infinite in the continually repetitive cycle of the day.”

He shrugged, contemplatively staring down the line of his fellow street taco chauvinists. She continued.

“Delving into the truth values of tacos, we can know simultaneously a priori and a posteriori, that the taco es bueno. Because we know its constituent parts are bueno in the abstract and on the tongue, we can conclude that the composite, i.e. the taco, es bueno.”

“Verdad!” Bernal interrupted to demonstrate él entiende.

“The ingredients in and of themselves are neither beautiful nor aesthetically pleasing.” Claudia continued. “However, when combined and presented in the context of the whole, no one can deny the intrinsic beauty of the experience whether it is El Pastor or the Suadero.”

“That may be so but why can’t I find a treatise or a tractus on tacos?” The professor said, his hunger making him argumentative.

“Tacos do not necessitate essays or doctoral defenses because their essence, their flavor negates the need. Street tacos need only the instance of a street taco to prove their existence. Confronted with street tacos, the Hegelian dialectic reduces to taco, no taco. To prevent philosophical revolt, the Marxists resolve their dialectical materialism with tacos para todos. No one goes without!

The customers ahead of them got their order and stepped to the side. They told the waiter their wants. He wrote them on a ragged yellow pad and then tore it off and placed it on the pile in front of the chef. The chef tossed the tortillas onto the flat grill and then measured out the various ingredients with the same casual precision that he’d used all day. The meat sizzled and scented the air.

“That succinctly solves the economic conundrum by satiating the demand with tacos. But what of its political polemic?”

The chef pushed the piles of lengua, chorizo, and bistec around the heated metal. The scent of grilling meat enveloped the professors. Claudia continued as Bernal stared, mesmerized, at the grill.

“In the realm of political philosophy, the question is not why does the government exist? Innately, we know that the complex apparatus of the state exists to create a socio-economic environment in which street tacos are available for everyone. The street taco has inspired the traditions of philosophy from idealism to realism to pragmatism to existentialism. From classifying and ordering the street tacos in various hierarchies, to believing that the essence of a street taco could only be acquired through the senses, to reinterpreting it as a metaphysical experience, to understanding the gestalt of it as a pragmatic experience that is more than the sum of its parts, we experience the street tacos as THE phenomenological and delicious apparatus that it is.”

She paused to watch the waiter as he returned from the customers behind them in the line, huddled next to the chef with an attitude of reverence and supplication, and then held out two plastic plates wrapped in saran wrap. The chef assembled the tacos, placed them on the plates, and turned his attention to the next order.

Claudia resumed.

“The subjunctive of the street taco is the wish of all humanity. It is the self-fulfillment experienced by an individual who eats, and thus becomes one with the street taco. It is both the teleological means and the end in itself.”

The professor’s eyes were closed and his breathing was rhythmic and measured. “Professor, are you following me?”

“Which of course led to the onslaught of the structural factions I assume?” he said without opening his eyes.

The waiter circumnavigated the cart and presented the plates to them. Perhaps because the waiter was shorter or the sun was shining in their eyes or the weight of the day and their hunger had settled upon them, they received the offering with their heads bowed.

“Gracias.” They uttered in unison and then stepped over to the sidewalk adjacent to the cart and joined the other patrons eating their tacos.

“As it is in academia, it is in street tacos.” She announced and pushed her taco plate into his hand. Once he grasped it, she began to unfurl her tacos and separate the ingredients into piles.

He gasped in both desperation and disbelief as she played with their food.

“The taco deconstructionists unmade the street taco. By separating street tacos into their constituent parts: mounds of meat and salsa and cilantro and onion adjacent to empty tortillas and presenting them as such, they started a revolt. Anyone could combine or not any ingredients in any way. It was pandemonium.”

“I see and smell only a thing of beauty.” he said, pushing her plate toward her so that he could free his hand and begin eating his tacos.

Refusing him, she continued.

“The result of this unmaking was quickly and forcibly followed by the structuralists. Their rally cry was Es posible, pero porque? They formalized all the processes related to street tacos: the marketing, purchasing, consumption, and reviewing. They established a rigid and exact definition of the constitution of a street taco. They even inaugurated the STE, Street Taco Enforcement. On their watch, no one would violate the street taco by un-tacoing it. Some of the extremists resorted to sewing, stapling, or gluing the ingredients together. There would be no deconstructing of or dissembling of the street taco. To prove their point and get free tacos from the Taconistas, they often ate them, adhesive and all.”

“Who wouldn’t?” He salivated.

“After a number of emergency room visits and other gastrointestinal fiascoes including salacious stories of love and cousins and gastroenterology, Post-structuralism organically followed. Post-structural tacos devolved into chaos. Some contained radishes or tofu or candied yams. The vegan street taco self-actualized! These Taco-abominations flourished for a period but their popularity couldn't be sustained. Eventually, as spring heated up into summer, the many forms of Deconstructionist street tacos devolved back into the ideal platonic form of the street taco.”

“The street taco goes full circle such that street tacos are once again simply and only street tacos.” He sighed with relief. “It's a tautology. Nothing more or less complex.”

“Si. Eso es. But I'm using street tacos only because they are at hand and delicious.”

“If only they were at lip and teeth and tongue.” He pouted.

A wicked smile spread across her face. “Comparative analysis links the evolution of the street taco to similar movements in BBQ, both Texan,  Korean, and South African, to chaat, to pasta and to hundreds of other culturally and culinary essential dishes.”

“Either this is a defense of street tacos or a love-story or an elaborate ruse to taco block me?” Professor Bernal protested.

“It’s NOT, not-a-love story. It is the only story. All other stories are derivative.”

She took the plate from Professor Bernal’s hand. He hastily threw some ingredients onto a tortilla, rolled it into a loose taco and stuffed it in his mouth.

“Can you say the animals are loved in the making of street tacos?” He snorted, bits of taco falling from his mouth. “Does the agribusiness industry manufacture, process, and distribute them con amor?”

“What could be more passionate and intimate than being confined in a pen, force fed, drugged, slaughtered, and packaged?” She suggested still waiting to take her first bite. “We have colleagues that yearn for such attention and intention.”

“One philosophy at a time,” he protested and then took another bite of a taco. “The philosophy of love and subjugation is a separate discussion.”

“Sinceramente.”

“I attest, para mi,” He smiled proudly showing the cilantro in his teeth. “That I consume them reverently and instinctually.”

“And then we become one with them. We feast upon their deliciousness recognizing that we will be metaphorically feasted upon by the earth soon enough. Neither philosophy nor political positioning can save us.” She demurely took a bite of a taco.

“What about Vegetarians? Vegans?”

“Political and ethical posturing is disingenuous in unethical environments. It's vainglorious. We cannot expect animals to be treated well when people are not. It's a mash-up of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and survivalism.”

“Are you asserting that -Isms are positions of privilege and resources?" He said forlornly eyeing his last taco.

“There are no agnostics in war, and there are no vegans at birth. If everyone had enough street tacos, humanity would assure that all animals would be ethically raised. Until then it is quite literally man eat man. Luckily for the children’s sake, the meat industry fills us up with animal flesh before we can sink our teeth into theirs.”

She snaked her tongue into the corner of her mouth. “Solutions align with predispositions. Vegans make vegan street tacos as a facsimile of the ‘Carne’ version. In the end, no es bueno.

Therefore, the purest no es give a fuck.

Tacos ahora!

Postmodern tacos fail not because of the flavor or the texture. They fail because of their attempt to disrupt the essence of the taco and the inevitability of what it is to be alive. To cite a pop culture Disneyification of the issue, it is the circle of life. Eat, shit, die, decay, and get eaten by the earth. Despite human beings’ degrees, commendations, and convoluted logic, we are part of the food chain: well-educated, well-lotioned fertilizer.”

The professor licked his lips and looked lasciviously at her plate.

“The economic reality is this: money is exchanged for temporary sustenance and pleasure on the daily while we live. How we enter and re-enter this continual cycle is a matter of art or style. That we enter it is inevitable, unavoidable. Eventually, worms deconstruct kings and beggars without distinction. The Axiological end, the value, is not beyond us but within us.”

The professor farted and blushed.

“Salud.” Claudia raised her taco reflexively and laughed. “Sometimes even its value escapes us.”

“Besame!” He whispered forcefully as he watched her push the entire street taco into her mouth. She kissed him. Cilantro and onion spilled from their lips and smeared on to their chins.

“Was that appropriate?” he asked both her and himself.

“What else is there after tacos besides love and the making of it?” Claudia playfully licked some cilantro from his chin. Then she took his plastic plate and handed both plates to the waiter, who traded her for a plastic bowl containing a handwritten bill. The professors counted out their respective sums into the bowl and she returned it to the waiter.

“Muchas gracias.” She said.

“You're welcome.” The waiter smiled.

She turned to the professor to kiss him. In perfect Hollywood English, the waiter smiled “Move along, professors. We have masses to feed.”

“Street Tacos are foundational, but then so is love.” Claudia winked at the waiter to thank him for urging them on, “We have masses to make.” She took Bernal’s hand and led him into the city.

* * *

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