September 27, 2006
ANYTHING'S AN IMPROVEMENT ON COD:
Swedish Mexican Food, Straight From the U.S. (Gregory Rodriguez, September 24, 2006, LA Times)
I wasn't fully prepared for the Swedish taco craze. For one thing, there don't seem to be too many Mexicans here.Posted by Orrin Judd at September 27, 2006 10:25 AMYou see, here — as in other parts of Europe — Mexican food was not brought over by Mexicans at all. Rather, it was introduced by American TV shows and movies. That explains why there's a "Gringo Special" on the menu at the Taco Bar, a Swedish fast-food chain, and why nearly all the Mexican products in the grocery stores — "Taco Sauce," "Taco Spice Mix" and "Guacamole Dip" — are labeled in English. [...]
[A]ccording to a recent market research study, Sweden is now the highest per capita consumer of Mexican food in Europe. That's why in 2001, the Nordfalks spice company changed its name to Santa Maria, after its most successful brand.
"I would wager that every family in Sweden has tacos at least once a month, and maybe a third eats them every week," Anne Skoogh, a local food blogger, told me. "It's a Friday night come-home-from-work-relax-thing," she said. "It's really popular."
Having spent a year of high school as an exchange student in Long Beach, Skoogh says Taco Bell is one of the things she misses most about life in the States. She says Swedes are under no illusion that the items they so enjoy bear any resemblance to the food most Mexicans eat. "People here don't think of tacos as Mexican as much as they think they are American," she said, "probably because their only concept of Mexico comes from American movies. I think the products are in English because the makers want you to feel that this is cool, new and American."
It's their Friday night pizza.
Now, is Taco Bell paying attention????
Will this alienate the mexican community here? All that lost revenue.
Posted by: Sandy P at September 27, 2006 11:25 AMI never understood those calls about 3-4 years ago for more Hispanics on TV. They had the food thing nailed down and that's a lot more important than slots on Friends.
Posted by: Pepys at September 27, 2006 11:59 AMSo Swedes now want things that are "cool, new and American". Who knew? Next I suppose they will abandon the Swedish Model (personally, I can't get enough of Swedish models!) for the Third Way.
Tacos today. Tomorrow the world.
I'm struck by a vision of a beer commercial with a bunch of guys eating lutefisk burritos with the Swedish Bikini Team.
Posted by: Mike Morley at September 27, 2006 1:27 PMThe US is becoming the test market for the world. Ethnic cuisines are modified to appeal to Johanssens in Wisconsin and Chang-Diazes in California and Billy Bobs in Mississippi. Then they're ready for the world market.
Posted by: Bob Hawkins at September 27, 2006 1:41 PMHeh. My mother-in-law (100% Swede, and only 2nd-generation on her Dad's side) was famous in here little town in northern Minnesota in the late '50s because she knew how to make the ever-exotic..........
pizza.
She also claims that, as a child, the family would occasionally come home from being dinner guests somewhere and her parents would spit out, "Oh! They put GARLIC in the food!" No clean-living Scandinavian would ever do such a thing.
Posted by: Kirk Parker at September 27, 2006 2:16 PMSweedish meatball breakfast burritos wouldn't be that bad if you threw it some potatoes and jalapeno slices, though I think it would provide all your minimum weekly cholesterol requirements in one sitting.
Posted by: John at September 27, 2006 2:51 PMWell, here in the Seattle area there's the "Taco del Mar" chain which advertises their seafood burritos and tacos and other such scary concotions. I wonder if they have any stores in Ballard...
My favorite is the 49 cent taco. I have to ask myself: do I really want to eat something that only cost pennies to scrape together?
Posted by: lebeaux at September 27, 2006 4:01 PMleb,
I'd be guessing, you usually answer, yes indeed I do.
Sure they like Mexican food. If you've ever had lutefisk, a crap sandwich would taste good.
Posted by: AllenS at September 27, 2006 7:50 PMBeing in the oil & gas biznai I've been sent to some mighty far away places. There is a product made in the USA that seems to always be there when I arrive, even on the Southern tip of Hainan Island more than a decade ago. The one and only McIlhenny's Tobasco sauce in the little bottle.
Posted by: Tom Wall at September 27, 2006 7:56 PM