Why Taco Bell's 1972 Menu Had To Include A Pronunciation Guide
If you're looking for some quick, affordable American-Mexican food, then Taco Bell's cheap menu is here to help. Since the mid-20th century, Taco Bell has led the way in Mexican fast food, per Atlas Obscura. It all began in 1951, according to Taco Bell, when Glen Bell was inspired to create a unique spin on the crunchy taco; the key for Bell was forming the taco shell ahead of time, making it easier to serve tacos with speed (via Altas Obscura). From there, the dish was sold at Bell's Hamburgers and Hot Dogs until Bell began overseeing two Mexican restaurants called Taco Tia and El Taco, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. However, it wasn't until 1962 that the first official Taco Bell opened.
Taco Bell became a rising star in no time. By 1964, the company was franchising. By '67, the business opened its 100th location. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Taco Bell was acquired by PepsiCo Inc. in the 1970s, and the brand spread cross-country quickly after. During the '80s and '90s, the brand advertised itself both heavily and creatively, experimenting with new food service offerings before leaving PepsiCo and becoming a subsidiary of Tricon Global. By the 2000s, Taco Bell was everywhere and stayed relevant with constant additions like the well-known Mountain Dew Baja Blast, a breakfast menu, and the crispy chicken sandwich tacos (via Business Insider). The chain is so ubiquitous today that nearly everyone in the United States is familiar with the unique pronunciations of Taco Bell's food items — but that wasn't always the case!
Becoming familiar with foreign food
As recently as the 1970s, Taco Bell was teaching its customers how to pronounce the names of its Mexican-inspired offerings. A 1972 Taco Bell menu posted on Reddit shows nearly all of its culinary options accompanied by a pronunciation guide — "buh-ree-toh" for burrito, "en-chi-re-toh" for enchirito, and so on. But why was this necessary? Apparently, customers were originally coming in and ordering "tay-kohs."
The history of the taco serves as a prime example of how this ignorance may have come about. According to Atlas Obscura, even though tacos are of Mexican origin, as long as tortillas have been around, people have put filling inside them. By the 1800s, tacos were widespread in Southern and Central Mexico; and by the 1900s, their popularity spread north, where beef replaced the original chicken, pork, and seafood as their protein.
Innovations in mass production and food preservation helped Mexican food cross the border into the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. However, unlike chili con carne, the taco received little attention before the 1950s. Admittedly, that's an oversimplification, as many Mexican-Americans prepared tacos regularly. In as early as 1937, Lucia and Salvador Rodriguez — two immigrants from Jalisco, Mexico — opened a Mexican restaurant called Mitla Cafe in San Bernardino, California, per the BBC. That successful Tex-Mex restaurant was how Bell got the idea for Americanizing hard shell tacos.
The introduction was slow, but the impact is long-lasting
For a long time, Mitla Cafe's influence on this Mexican-American chain was one of the many things people didn't know about Taco Bell. Even though, the entrepreneur behind Taco Bell hadn't been particularly tight-lipped about the inspiration. Bell had vaguely mentioned a taco spot across the street from his old burger place as part of an anecdote in his biography, but the mainstream media didn't put two-and-two together until the 2010s when a writer investigated and confirmed that Mitla Cafe was Taco Bell's forgotten muse (via the BBC).
Mitla Cafe's relative anonymity is reflective of the taco's slow introduction into the United States. Per Atlas Obscura, it took the broad fast food industry adopting tacos to make Americans at large recognize them easily as Mexican food. So, you can see why Taco Bell originally had to provide pronunciation guides to its mostly unfamiliar customers during its early history.
Taco Bell's menu has changed a lot since then, and not just because folks tend to know how "taco" is pronounced nowadays. Gone are the days when the chain carried only a handful of items for only 19 cents each, per Business Insider. And new items often stick around for only a little while — like the Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes, Mexican Pizza, and Nacho Fries. However, Taco Bell's main attention grabber — tah-cos — isn't going anywhere any time soon.