How Do You Say "Taco" in Italiano?

Tonight a major revelation puts our hopes and dreams for an Italian sojourn in jeopardy! As I stood at the stove, frying aromatic corn tortillas--after having cut the avocado, tomato, lettuce, and cilantro, prepared the meat and poured the already grated (who uses a grater anymore?) cheeses into a bowl, it occured to me that a year without tacos, chili relleno burritos, enchillades, refried beans and all of the south of the border foods we Californians call our own may not be manageable.

With apologies to my Texas countrymen (and women), the culinary anomaly refered to as Tex-Mex fails to qualify as real, true Mexican food--in fact, you can't even get the real thing in Mexico. The truth is that the only place you can find true, real, authentic, caloric and cholesterol laden Mexican food is in the land that has everything--including a penchant for electing movie stars as governors--California.

Now--we feast on Italian food all the time--both at home and out. Life without pasta in all its forms would be unthinkable. No olive oil? Help! But---Italian is universal food--China, Africa, Mexico, Peru even Texas (home of GWB) have great Italian restaurants with true Italian chefs. Unlike Mexican food, one can live anywhere and satisfy the craving for osso bucco.

But somehow the thought of dining on tacos in a Tuscan trattoria just doesn't compute. This rather unappetizing picture presentation is a taco pizza! Rather scary, isn't it? If pizzas and tacos can be so corrupted here in the land that belonged to Mexican's many years ago, what horrors await in another country? Oh my. what to do? So--I will sleep on this dilemma, hoping that things look brighter in the morning and facing a year without a taco/relleno plate isn't so daunting.

Our friends coming from the states to visit us in Italy, may find the request to bring along tortillas, El Pato Salsa Picante Hot Sauce and frijoles a strange way to weight the luggage. But then, what are good friends for except to pamper us?