Un taco de ojo
One of the first things a foreigner thinks about when the word “Mexico” is mentioned, is the food, especially tacos. So it is quite natural that the word taco have many meanings and be used in many different situations. Of the 27 different meanings found for taco in the Academic Dictionary (drae), however, the eating variety arrives as meaning number 10: “Typically Mexican, it is a corn tortilla rolled up around some kind of food filling”. The dictionary doesn’t say so, but the filling could be meat, cheese, chicken, a vegetable, just plain sauce or a combination of any of the above.
There is an enormous difference, by the way, between a Mexican tortilla and the Spanish variety. As a matter of fact, the only thing they have in common is their shape: round. Mexican tortillas are flat and made basically out of ground corn (called nixtamal), water, and some lime. They can be patted round and flat by hand or squeezed that way by machine; either they are baked on a comal or by the same machine that gave them their shape. They are delicious and seem to be habit forming. The Spanish tortilla, on the other hand, is a kind of omelette, made basically with eggs, onions, and potatoes. One can add just about anything else he or she desires. It’s thick, chewey, and also delicious, but it has nothing to do with the Mexican tortilla.
That having been said, let’s get into some taco lore: If someone thinks he or she is very important, if they take on airs, are boastful, or just generally strut about like roosters or as if they were God’s-Gift-To-The-World, we say that they “give themselves a lot of taco”, or darse mucho taco, in Spanish. Another version: darse su taco or darse mucho su taco. If Epigmenia walks in, for example, showing everybody the Christian Dior tag that she hasn’t removed from her new dress, one might say: Qué insoportable, esta mujer siempre se está dando su taco. (How unbearable! This woman is always showing off.)
And if one tends to exaggerate one’s own virtues, luck, or attributes, he or she not only can be accused of “giving themselves a lot of taco,” but also of “heaping a lot of cream on their tacos.” This saying, echar mucha crema a los tacos [de uno] is very colorful and descriptive. Even though the basic taco is a plain tortilla with some meat, cheese, chicken, vegetables, or sauce (with a dash of salt if necessary), many people, on top of all that, slobber on some of that unbearably delicious sweet or sour cream, which we can never seem to get enough of. Thus, it’s perfectly natural for this to be a metaphor for someone who goes around bragging about his accomplishments, or whatever. Listen to this quick conversation:
—Ahí viene Gerardo otra vez. Qué horror.
—¿Por qué lo dices?
—Se acaba de casar su hija con un sobrino del Presidente y no deja de mencionar que, ahora que son parientes, él y el Preciso son íntimos amigos y que éste lo toma en cuenta para tomar todas sus decisiones importantes.
—Bueno, así es Gerardo: siempre echa mucha crema a sus tacos.
(Here comes Gerardo again. What a pain. / Why do you say that? / His daughter just married one of the President’s nephews, and now that they are family, he keeps mentioning at the slightest provocation that he and “the necessary one” [el Preciso is Mexican slang for “the President”] are the closest of friends, and that the latter always listens to his opinions before making any important decisions. / Oh well, that’s the way Gerardo is. He’s always bragging.)
One can make a taco out of just about anything, and people do: there are tongue tacos (tacos de lengua), brain tacos (tacos de sesos), pork tacos (carnitas), fried pigskin tacos (tacos de chicharrón), basket tacos (tacos de canasta), which can be made of anything and are usually prepared ahead of time and sold out of a basket… But there’s nothing like an eye taco, un taco de ojo, which consists of ogling a beautiful woman (usually), or in these liberated times, a handsome man: Me encanta venir al Centro Comercial Santa Fe, aunque sólo sea para echarme un taco de ojo. (“I love to come to the Santa Fe Mall, even if it’s only to look at the girls” (women, boys, or men, depending on who’s talking: nobody said this column was politically correct.)
This taco de ojo saying is especially expressive because it is a metaphorical way of “possessing” something without ever having touched it. A virtual feast, so to speak. Although ogling is illegal in some parts of the us, here it is a national pastime, and most women actually like to be looked at. That’s to say nothing of men: they love it. So get your taco de ojo, but please be discreet. And, of course, none of that mamacita stuff. I don’t necessarily believe in being politically correct, but some things are just going too far. ¡Buen provecho!
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