You Can Officially Study Tacos In College, So All Is Right In The World

Watching adults desperately scramble to connect to modern youth is one of the most underrated forms of real-life entertainment.

In an unexpected turn of events, staff at the University of Kentucky may have found a way to connect with students without sacrificing any dignity.

According to Eater, the school now offers a class to undergraduates called “Taco Literacy: Public Advocacy and Mexican Food in the US South.”

Yup, University of Kentucky students can now actually text friends,

K grl, I'll hit u up after taco class.

But, the curriculum is more than corn tortillas and spicy, saucy goodness.

In an interview with Munchies, Steven Alvarez, assistant professor for the school's writing, rhetoric and digital studies department, explained how the class began.

He said,

Part of it was my involvement with the Southern Foodways Alliance. After going to one of their symposiums, it really hit me that food is important. The oral histories of food that I heard were amazing. The stories were really impactful but the food became secondary. It was more about the social connections that people were making with food... This class allows our students to explore the issues of immigration, inequality, workers, intercultural communication, and literacy through the prism of food.

Preach. The food-centric lesson plan reportedly enabled Alvarez's students to complete their assignments far more willingly.

He added,

Even the most stubborn of students that say they hate writing love to write when it comes to writing about food.

Assignments include restaurant reviews, taco tours and even Instagram posts.

Alvarez shared,

I make my students post on Instagram and use hashtags as a form of archiving… I make my students read their restaurant reviews out loud, too… 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.

Finally, a college class with some meat (and cheese, and tomatoes and lettuce, and beans and guac) to it.

Citations: Get Schooled in Taco Literacy at the University of Kentucky (Eater), You Can Now Study Tacos at the University of Kentucky (Munchies)