ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on consumption of Mexican food in the transnational society of Los Angeles. It looks at consumption of Mexican food in Mexican restaurants and Mexican food markets in the areas of East and downtown Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, for instance, the presence of numerous Mexican fast-food chains such as Taco Bell, El Polio Loco, Baja Fresh, El Gallo Grito, El Tbrrito, La Salsa-to mention but a few-is evidence of the popularity of particular Mexican food. The chapter argues that there is more to be considered about ethnic food consumption than the aspects that semiotic and symbolic anthropological approaches highlight. Anthropological literature has looked in various ways at ethnic food in multicultural, transnational contexts, largely emphasizing discourses of cultural symbolism and self-identification. In this literature, ethnic food is often regarded as a system of communication that discloses the daily practices and the habits that people enact when they purchase, cook, and eat their ethnic food.
