Has there ever been a more important time in this country for tacos? Not only are they more dynamic and widespread than ever (jackfruit birria in East L.A.! Duck fat tortillas in Kansas!), they’re a cultural lightning rod for some of today’s most pressing issues. So we called upon some of America’s notable taco fanatics and asked: What, exactly, do tacos mean to you? For some, it’s a matter of simple pleasure. For others, an identity. A form of political expression. This is a collection of those stories, along with our picks for must-try tacos across the country and some really excellent recipes courtesy of our resident taco maestro, Rick Martinez. So let’s, uh, taco ’bout tacos, shall we?

Leave it to the Sinaloans, one of Phoenix’s largest immigrant groups, to make an excellent chicken taco: charcoal-grilled, doused in cheese, sprinkled with pork, and wrapped in two corn tortillas.

In Austin, tradition and novelty go hand in hand. These blue corn tortillas are nixtamalized Aztec-style, paired with not-so-traditional duck confit carnitas, and topped with spicy green salsa cruda.

After Katrina, Mexican immigrants came to help rebuild the city, creating in their wake Mexican-Creole crossovers like this taco full of gulf shrimp cooked to pineapple-y pastor perfection.

Just over the border from Baja, San Diego often feels like an extension of Mexico. So do these corn tortillas topped with hot battered tilapia, cabbage, and a dollop of creamy, creamy crema.

Yes, haters, NYC does have great tacos. But you might have to go to Jackson Heights, a.k.a. Puebla York, to find them. This one’s packed with rice, chile relleno, nopales, and a hard-boiled egg.

Herb-kissed Michoacán-style carnitas are king in Chicago, but none compare to this crispy-on-the-outside, juicy-on-the-inside pork-fried pork, made by the same family for more than 40 years.

Crispy boiled and fried beef intestines + local Kentucky corn + a rickety Mexican tortilla machine = a very tasty example of what happens when south and sur collide.

Tacos in the U.S. are made possible by the migration of people and that special alchemy that happens when cultures coexist. That’s what Mando Rayo found while traveling the country for his TV show, United Tacos of America: the new and the tried-and-true; faithful interpretations from across the border and unique local creations. Here are 10 he can’t stop thinking about.

You Know Him As Machete, But Have You Tried His Tacos?

Growing up in the South, I struggled to locate my Mexican-ness. Then, Mexico came to me.

I Went Looking for My Mexican Identity and Found It at Plaza Fiesta

In the kitchen, I teach my kids how to be Mexican and proud.

“In northern Mexico, this taco is called a vampiro because the crunchy fried tortilla looks like a vampire bat wing. Down south, it’s volcán—maybe since they see more volcanoes than bats! Either way, juicy pork al pastor and oozy quesillo are a brilliant combo.” —RICK MARTINEZ

Big Taco Moments in the USA From canned tortillas to crispy carnitas, professor Steven Alvarez (who teaches a Taco Literacy class at St. John’s University in Queens), traces how the American taco found its way

1905 Though tacos gained popularity as a Mexican street snack in the late 1800s (and wrapping food in tortillas traces back to the Aztecs), this is the year of their first known mention in a U.S. newspaper. Brought across the border by migrant workers, tacos were typically sold out of pushcarts in border cities like San Antonio and L.A.

1937 At Mitla Cafe in San Bernardino, CA, the Rodriguez family’s fried tacos dorados—literally “golden tacos”—hit the scene. Three decades later a dude named Glen Bell would take notice, infiltrate the kitchen, and use them as the model for the standardized hard-shell tacos at his own restaurant, a little place called Taco Bell. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

1955 Tacos get the official American food treatment of the day when a company named Ashley Foods of El Paso (a precursor to Old El Paso) markets the first taco dinner kit nationally. It introduces the concept of tacos as “Mexican sandwiches.” Oof. The kit includes Ashley brand canned tortillas (…no comment), beans, taco sauce, and…a tortilla fryer.

1960 Second-generation Lebanese immigrants in Mexico City adapt the shawarma rotisserie technique into the trompo—a vertical slow-cooked pork spit, marinated with pineapple and sliced onto a tortilla—which became what we know today as tacos al pastor. It would take another generation, however, before they became a standard in taquerias across the U.S.

1974 Mexico City traffic cop turned Los Angeles dishwasher turned entrepreneur Raul Martinez converts an ice cream truck into the world’s first taco truck. He parks it outside a bar in Cypress Park, selling meaty soft-shell tacos topped with his signature homemade salsa. It’s so successful that he opens a brick-and-mortar within six months, which today has expanded into the multimillion-dollar restaurant chain King Taco.

1983 Rubio’s—a chain specializing in deep-fried breaded fish tacos referred to as Baja style—opens in San Diego. Though popular among surfer bros in Southern California in the 1960s, fish tacos were eaten in Mexican seaside communities across the Pacific and Gulf Coasts long before any of the Beach Boys were even born.

1989 Fast-food chain Taco John’s trademarks Taco Tuesday® nationally (except in New Jersey, where Gregory’s Hotel, of all places, holds the trademark and dares to also serve tacos on Thursdays). Both companies have held tight to their trademarks, much to the chagrin of LeBron James, who tried and failed to get his own in 2019.

1994 The Mexican peso crisis—a sudden devaluation of the peso against the dollar—leads to mass migration across the border and beyond to places like Kentucky and New York. Regional tacos such as al pastor, placeros, and birria come too, expanding America’s taco horizons for good.