If you’re a lover of all-things-taco then I’ve got some damn fine news for you today: the University of Kentucky is now offering an undergraduate course about tacos. The course, titled ‘Taco Literacy: Public Advocacy and Mexican Food in the US South’ will primarily consist of eating tacos and writing about tacos, and it sounds like my goddamn dream class.
VICE’s Munchies was first to report on the new class offered up by the University of Kentucky this semester, what students will be learning, and how fucking awesome the class about tacos sounds:
(VICE) What’s included on your syllabus?
(Professor) You can find everything you would like to know at our website. We’re examining transnational community food literacies and how these connect the stories of people and food across borders. We explore the history of networks of Mexican and Mexican-American food in Kentucky by writing about recipes and rhetorics that deal with things such as authenticity, local variations and preparations, and how food literacies situate different spaces, identity, and forms of knowledge.
(VICE) What does the homework look like in your class?
(Professor) I make them collect stories. I have students doing restaurant reviews and taco tours in the area that is now known as “Mexington,” a.k.a. the barrio of Lexington. I make my students post on Instagram and use hashtags as a form of archiving. I also make them watch MUNCHIES episodes. I make my students read their restaurant reviews out loud, too. I also made my students read Pete Well’s recent restaurant review of Señor Frog’s for The New York Times.
With all of these assignments, my students are practicing different storytelling techniques and forms of collecting data. At the very end of the course, my students will be generators of knowledge, have a portfolio full of multimedia food journalism, and they will be over the fajita stage of Mexican food.
The website for this course is available to everyone: tacoliteracy.com
Honestly, if I could convince someone to pay me to sit around and eat tacos all day and write about those tacos I’d be in heaven. I wouldn’t say I’m the most obsessed taco fanatic that you know. In fact I probably only eat tacos twice a month (mainly because the tacos around here are shit), but when it comes to the appreciation of a good taco you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who actually likes tacos more than me…Baja style shrimp or fresh fish with that special green Mexican mayo…al pastor with the pineapple…I’m not terribly picky, I just recognize what the best tacos are and I only eat those because life’s too short to be eating shitty tacos.
For the full interview on Munchies you can click on through!