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/THE TACO HONOR CODE/
We recently spoke to Norman Perez, Director of Sake and Wine at Le Tachinomi Desu, our favorite bar in CDMX. After we finished the ‘official interview’ we kept the tape rolling as we introduced #Mexplaining to Norman and got some great ideas. Norman opened up about what he thinks is so beautiful about Mexican taco culture.
Taco culture is a specific gastronomic jewel in México. There are literally thousands of puestos or stands, ran by taqueros throughout México. Meaning you can eat tacos, morning, noon, and late night. The menu is straight forward: meat, tortilla and toppings. A little bit of acid, heat, and fat.
When at a taco stand, you'll notice no one actually takes your order. It’s a casual system, you ask for a taco de asada, uno de lengua, y uno campechano and they are handed to you. Once you’ve finished eating 3, 4 or 5 tacos, no one hands you a bill. You ask “¿cúanto fue?” (how much was it?") and the taquero simply responds “¿cúantos fueron?” (how many did you have?') You will never ever find one single person who says 2 tacos when they ate 3. Every single customer answers honestly. This is the taco honor code.
Tacos are very economical, so there’s no reason to cheat the system, but more importantly there is a univeral respect for what the taqueros do: they are an institution, they bring people together and it does’t matter who you are, we all gotta stand in line, eat with our hands, and pay the same price.
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