This is a place to talk about science fiction and fantasy and tacos. Mostly tacos.
When is a taco not a taco?
I'm working on a fantasy novel, and I want my characters to eat tacos. No, I want them to love tacos. Why? Because I do. I think tacos are a perfect food: easy to eat, easy to customize, easy to make. There is a taco trailer parked two blocks from our house. I didn't learn this until after we'd moved in, but, gang, if I'd known about it when we were house hunting, I would have said, "Stop looking. We've found the perfect house."
But how do I do it?
With my Occupied Space books, inserting tacos was easy, because Occupied Space is our world with some extrapolations and weirdness. It's an evolution of society, one that's full of people from all over our world, including plenty who have roots in Mexico. As people went into space, they carried their language, their culture, and their food with them. Someone brought a tortilla press and maize and their recipe for cochinita pibil, and that's all she wrote. Of course Padma Mehta loves tacos, because tacos make sense for a place like Santee Anchorage, a melange of everyone from Earth who's been thrown together.
But what about fantasy?
The core of my struggle is this: can I have tacos in a world with a Mexico? In a world where Mexico never existed? I'm sure I can just wave my hands and say, "Look, here's an analogue to the cultures that arose in Mexico, and they have corn, and they made toritillas, and there was some trade so, poof, tacos!" But does it work?
I posted this thought on Twitter, where the concensus seemed to be either calling them some nonsense word (ocats was the most frequent suggestion) or calling them something that was plausible and recognizable, like folds. I'd lean more toward the latter than the former, but...it still doesn't seem right.
Should I call a taco a taco?




How about "paper sandwiches"? The tortillas could be called paper bread, cuz they're thin and all.
Folds sounds like wrinkles in skin and such.
HANDIES
That can't possibly be anything but a fantasy taco I mean there's just NO WAY that can be interpreted to be something else amirite
I think this comment is enough to make me call them tacos forever.