As with a lot of holidays, the roots of the great Mexican festival of Cinco de Mayo have faded into dusty memory, obscured by a lot of parades, dances, speeches and, above all, food.

So, just for the record, it’s a celebration of the Battle of Puebla, back on May 5, 1862, where the forces of Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza, though outnumbered three to one, managed to defeat the invading French army, marching under the banner of Napoleon III. Were it not for that battle, they might be speaking French in Tijuana these days. And Mexican cooking would involve baguettes, snails and quiche. Taco Bell would be called Brioche Bell. And Johnny Hallyday would have sung “Run for the Border.”

Instead, come the Fifth of May, we eat burritos, enchiladas and flautas. And, in the great tradition, grumble that there isn’t any real Mexican food to be found in Los Angeles. Which, of course, is pure uncut nonsense.

I’m endlessly befuddled trying to figure out exactly what the people who say that are talking about.

Have they ever been in Mexico? What exactly is it they think they eat down there, kung pao and chow mein?

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I’ve spent a good chunk of my life traveling through Mexico, from Puerto Escondido near Oaxaca to Ciudad Chetumal on the Belize border, from San Cristobal de las Casas high in the mountains of Chiapas to Guaymas on the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve eaten plenty in my travels, and let me tell you — big surprise! — what we eat up here is, more or less, what they eat down there.

Tortillas are tortillas, with the exception of a few regional variations.

Oh, I’ll admit that we don’t find a lot of grasshoppers on the menus here. It was a dish I ate with great relish in the central market in Oaxaca. Pulque, that milky, nearly psychedelic first distillation of the maguey plant, cannot legally travel north of the border.

And the corn fungus called huitlacoche, a sort of Mexican truffle, doesn’t appear much out of Mexico City. But otherwise, what we eat here is the real thing, as with any cuisine sometimes prepared well, sometimes not.

All over Southern California, I’ve had meals that might have been cooked at any number of small restaurants in the heart of Guadalajara. We’re surrounded by the real thing — just ask the muy autentico Mexicanos who live here, living proof that the real thing isn’t only found south of the border.

And what we eat these days, more than anything else, are tacos. That the taco has become the sine qua non of Mexican dishes — more than guacamole, the burrito, the enchilada, the tamale, fajitas or any number of other culinary objects of desire — is a tribute to the near infinite variety of taco fillings … and to any number of taco chains, trucks, stands.

No matter where you go, there are tacos. Even though, according to food historian Jeffrey M. Pilcher, a renowned taco obsessive, the history of the dish isn’t especially ancient.

His theory: it dates back to the 18th-century silver mines of Mexico, where the word “taco” referred to the small charges used to excavate the ore — paper wrapped around gunpowder. The earliest type of taco mentioned is tacos de minero — miner’s tacos. So, there you are!

And here we are, with our (admittedly brief) list of a handful of our favorite tacos places in the San Fernando Valley; as you might understand, the list could easily be phone book in size.

But first, a tribute to what’s arguably the Southern California taco stand everyone should go to — must go to! — at least once in their lifetime. The stand against which all others will have to be measured!

La Super-Rica Taqueria (622 N. Milpas St., Santa Barbara; 805-963-4940) is, as they say at the Michelin Guide, worth a special trip. I don’t think there’s a time I’ve driven through Santa Barbara when I haven’t taken the convenient Milpas Street off-ramp and gone the mile or so up the road for a taste of what Julia Child called the best Mexican restaurant in America.

La Super-Rica is a stand that’s expanded into a covered dining room in what was probably the parking lot at one point. It all looks very homegrown and organic, as if it’s been at that particular Santa Barbara intersection since dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Simply speaking, I’ve never tasted a dish at La Super-Rica that isn’t the Platonic ideal; this is probably as good as California Mexican cooking gets. If anything, La Super-Rica reminds me of the legendary Fonda El Refugio in Mexico City, a shrine to the regional cooking of Mexico. Which is what La Super-Rica does as well, with lots of small dishes — and lots of tacos that are as close to religion as a taco can come.

There are assorted soft tacos, served on tortillas made for you as you stand at the counter. With lightning speed, a woman drops a ball of kneaded cornmeal onto a press, turns it flat as the earth used to be, then cooks it on a grill for a matter of seconds.

Onto this are placed strips of charbroiled steak (taco de bistec), chunks of top round (taco de costilla), pork steak (taco de chuleta), marinated pork (taco de adobada), grilled pasilla chilies (taco de rajas) and more.

On special days of the week, there’s hominy and pork soup (pozole) in the style of Jalisco (with lots of red chilies) and an assortment of tamales filled with vegetables, fish, chicken or pork, served with a fruit and milk drink called atole (“The perfect drink to have with tamales”).

For dessert, there’s a rice pudding, which is as creamy and cinnamony as any I’ve ever tasted. As a beverage, there’s horchata, which is a rice, cinnamon and vanilla drink that tastes exactly like the rice pudding. At La Super-Rica Taqueria, la vida es sueno.

There’s just one La Super-Rica Taqueria. But in the San Fernando Valley, you can, at least, find some very fine tacos this Cinco de Mayo — served with Margaritas (in some cases), which you won’t find up at La Super-Rica.

And for those who lament that I haven’t included any taco trucks — yes, the tacos at the trucks are amazing, fantastic, perhaps the best of them all. But the trucks are a moving target — you may hope they’ll be at one location, and find them at another … or not find them at all.

I encourage you to consume several times your body weight in taco truck tacos. But the following brick-and-mortar locations, perhaps not near as down-home and funky, at least can be found in the same location with built-in, guaranteed regularity. When the need is upon you, it’s a good thing to be able to get what you need, when you need it. And as I said, with a cold Margie in hand — or at least an icy Dos Equis.

• Though Las Fuentes (18415 Vanowen St., Reseda; 818-708-3344, lasfuentes.com) has been around since 1982 — making it a relatively recent addition to the scene — it has the feel and heft of a restaurant that was there when the Valley was first being settled, long before the Ventura Freeway was the parking lot it is today. And the menu reflects that sort of fine, old-fashioned, classic take on Mexican cooking.

This is south-of-the-border comfort food, familiar and well done, with a menu that begins with a section headed “Los Tacos,” with seven options that can be turned, with the judicious addition of six toppings, into hundreds.

It begins with a soft corn tortilla “prepared the traditional way” with a choice of machaca (shredded beef), marinated pork (al pastor), beef carne con queso, chicken breast, fried pork carnitas and Ortega chili con queso (the menu says “Spicy!”).

On top of that, for a little more, there’s Monterey Jack, guacamole, sour cream, grilled jalapenos, poblano chili strips and another Ortega chili. Add everything, and you’ll double the cost of your taco — and double the size too. But if you’re celebrating Cinco de Mayo, you’re likely not counting the calories.

• At nearby Melody’s Fresh Mexican Kitchen (6747 Reseda Blvd., Reseda; 818-609-9062, lasfuentes.com), a very casual spinoff of Las Fuentes, you’ll find a certain degree of overlap. But you’ll also find a choice of getting your tacos soft shell (“in the traditional way on a soft corn tortilla”) or hard shell — which for better or worse will always be linked to local marketing whiz Glen Bell, who’s the “Bell” in Taco Bell, and who made his bones by introducing the hard shell to Anglos pretty much everywhere — except in Mexico, where his franchises have never had much luck.

Perhaps as a result of Taco Bell, I’ve avoided hard shells. But I’ve got to admit, the hard shell served at Melody’s, packed with beef, chicken or potato (yup! potato!), jack cheese, sour cream and red sauce, is pretty good business.

Though not as good as the Taco de Ortega, a soft shell of beef, bacon bits, chilies, black beans and Cotija cheese on a flour tortilla. Probably because extra surface area is called for, to accommodate all the fixin’s.

• At Mercado Taqueria (11929 Ventura Blvd., Studio City; 818-358-3423), there’s a massive mural of masked Mexican wrestlers (luchadores) on one of the walls in the bar.

I’ve long been a fan of the strange world of the luchadores, who fight under names like Blue Demon, El Santo, Abismo Negro and Black Shadow. I’ve seen them at work at wrestling matches in Mexico City. I remember asking a fellow seated next to me why they wore masks. He explained that the luchadores donned their masks as small boys and never took them off. He believed in them; for him, this wasn’t a gimmick. It was a doorway into an alternative reality.

Significantly more real is the food at Mercado Taqueria. And the drink, for this is a tribute to the joys of tequila and mezcal, and the many drinks made with tequila and mezcal. Beer too. But mostly, the Margarita and its many siblings.

And, of course, there are the tacos — this is a taqueria, after all. They’re complex, witty and quite a bit of a meal, in themselves, packed with chipotle chicken, crisp shrimp, ground beef, beer-battered fish, marinated pork, wild mushrooms and chipotle chili potatoes — along with avocado and cheese and aioli and slaw and all the good things made in house that you may well be too busy inhaling to properly notice, in between sips of your Margies and your brew. Tasty! And fun too!

• XOC Tequila Grill (The Village at Westfield Topanga, 6316 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Woodland Hills; 818-992-7930, xoctequilagrill.com) sits in the heart of the restaurant-rich Village at Westfield Topanga, a lively destination for a Margie or three while safely ensconced in the busy suburban mall.

There are about 50 tequilas on the list, with the selection broken into blanco, reposado, anejo and reservas; if you’re living large, there’s a shot of Patron Grand Burdeos for $75. The tequila flights are an admirable bargain, a trio going for $19, along with a shot of housemade sangrita and a plate of lime wedges.

Myself, I go for the Micheladas — flavored beer drinks, with your choice of brew (mostly Mexican) mixed with lime juice, with Worcestershire and Tabasco, or with sangrita and lime. It’s refreshing, it goes down easy, and it’s a deal.

Oh, and for those in need of something mixed, there’s a wide variety of Margaritas and other tequila drinks, including both an Old Fashioned made with mezcal, and a Moscow Mule made with tequila. The place is true to its name.

And when it comes to tacos — yup, there are lots of them, served on plates of three, with rice, refried beans, avocado sauce and salsa — beef asada, pork carnitas, grilled chicken, pork al pastor, portobello mushroom and zucchini, skirt steak, and Baja-style shrimp and mahi-mahi.

If you can’t hang, there’s a four- taco Taco Box. But this is Cinco de Mayo — you’ve got to hang. It’s what it’s all about.

• Some distance back, I remarked on the down-home wonders of La Super-Rica Taqueria. But although it’s a very pleasant drive up the coast for an order of the best queso fundido with chorizo known to civilized man, it is a long journey for what’s known in the trade as antojitos, the snack food of south of the border.

It’s a far shorter jaunt to Panorama City, where the crowd may not be near as trendy but the food is worth the trip, served at prices that are nearly nonexistent, in a room with a cheery bullring motif.

The two branches of El Rincon Taurino (14551 Nordhoff St., Panorama City, 818-918-5606; 8708 Van Nuys Blvd., Panorama City, 818-892-7444) offer chow that’s not very complicated, which may be one of the secrets of why everything tastes so good — food tends to taste best when it tastes like what it is.

There’s a fine assortment of soft tacos, smallish tortillas on top of which various things are piled — carne asada (translated on the wall menu as “broiled beef”), marinated pork, carnitas (“pork beef”), cabeza (“head beef”), tongue, brains and so forth.

The spices used here are notable for being understated. One bite at El Rincon Taurino is never enough; the tendency here is to lick your paper plate clean. And that’s no bull.

Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Send him email at mreats@aol.com.