COLLEGE OFFERS TACOS 101

The University of Kentucky is offering an undergraduate course called “Taco Literacy: Public Advocacy and Mexican Food in the US South.” Led by Steven Alvarez, the class aims to teach students about Mexican food in Kentucky and the broader South. Alvarez says his class allows students to explore the issues of immigration, inequality, workers, intercultural communication, and literacy through the prism of food. He says the course studies transnational community food literacies (* Huh?) and how these connect the stories of people and food across borders. It explores the history of networks of Mexican and Mexican-American food in Kentucky and deals with things such as authenticity, local variations and preparations, and how food literacies situate different spaces, identity, and forms of knowledge. (* Oh, brother!) At the very end of the course, students will be generators of knowledge, have a portfolio full of multimedia food journalism, and, says the professor, “they will be over the fajita stage of Mexican food.” The class had to turn away students. On the first day students had to write about their favorite Mexican dish. Then, he asked his students to analyze the ingredients of the dish and see how they can make it at home.
* Gee, I should have worn my waders for this story.
* Wow, way to set that education bar way up there.
* Don’t tell Trump about this.
* I suppose it could help you get a job at Taco Bell.
* For extra credit, you can study how Chipotle gave all those people E. coli.
* I believe I went on some of those field trips on late nights in college.
* The class had to turn away students? Oh, I bet it did.
* Were some of these students from the basketball team by any chance?
* Not that I’d suggest universities throw in some easy courses, but I read of a college course in pool. Not swimming: Billiards.