Bad cultural appropriation: Taco Bell offers “chocolate covered pubic lice”

November 10, 2017 • 2:30 pm

Yes, this quesadilla filled with candy is real, and it’s on sale at select Taco Bell stores. As Fortune reports:

Taco Bell is bringing its latest food mashup to the U.S.: a quesadilla filled with Kit Kats.

That’s right. Following the chain’s success with the Doritos Locos taco, Taco Bell has rolled out the “Kit Kat Chocoladilla,” a chocolatey creation that packs a flour tortilla with bits of Nestlé’s (NSRGY) wafer bars and melted chocolate instead of cheese or veggies, Brand Eating first reported. The Chocoladilla is being tested at select locations in Wisconsin through mid-November, according to Mashable.

This appears to be a test sale in Wisconsin, so readers should let me know if it’s on sale and still called a “Chocoladilla”. That’s because “ladilla” is Spanish for “crab louse” (but can also be used to refer to someone who’s annoying). Viz:

Don’t any Spanish speakers work at Taco Bell headquarters?

h/t: Su

71 thoughts on “Bad cultural appropriation: Taco Bell offers “chocolate covered pubic lice””

    1. Man: Do crabs walk forwards or sideways?
      Doctor: Sideways.
      Man: In that case I think I’ve got lobsters.

  2. Ay caramba! That is priceless. And given the scatalogical etymology of “caramba”; I’m sure that Taco Bell could find a way to incorporate a form of that word into a menu item, Cheesy Carambarito, for example

  3. To suggest this is cultural appropriation is offensive to Mexicans. Only a team of Americans in a laboratory could come up with food this terrible.

    1. It is striking that no one in their corporate marketing team has any knowledge of colloquial Spanish. Sez something about who they tbink their audience is.

      A couple of decades ago, GM execs couldn’t understand why the Chevy ‘Nova’ sold poorly in Mexico and Central America. But in that case the name fit.

      1. According to Snopes this is a myth: “Chevrolet Nova’s name didn’t significantly affect its sales: it sold well in both its primary Spanish-language markets, Mexico and Venezuela. (Its Venezuelan sales figures actually surpassed GM’s expectations.)”

        1. Kiwi: It seems you’ve never owned one of Chevy’s cheap cars from the ’60s, ’70, ’80s. In my youth I drove a couple, and I assure you that the ‘No va’ story should be treated like Liberty Valance: “Print the legend”

      1. You’re right. I’m sure this monstrosity is far more edible than many “foods” from other cultures. Perhaps I should have said “food this stupid.”

        1. How come no-one ever culturally appropriates Scottish cooking?
          I taught myself a little German (to read Mann and poems Schubert set), and when I meet Germans they seem shocked and absurdly grateful that anyone could actually *want* to speak German. I think the Scots would weep with thankfulness if anyone, casting an eye over their cuisine, said “I want to try that.”

          1. I have a Russian friend in Edinburgh who likes Haggis. He pronounces it “Huggies” though.

            What’s the difference between a Haggis and a sausage?
            You know what’s in a Haggis and you don’t know what’s in a sausage.

          3. In Dublin some years ago, my aunt left a plate of brawn (jellied cow cheek and brains and stuff) for my girlfiend and myself. It was something that my generation is not really accustomed to. After looking at it for a bit and trying to identify the anatomical constituents of the delicacy, we both thought we would give it the go by.
            My Aunt, when she came back, said “You didn’t eat the Brawn, Never mind, you can have it tomorrow instead”.
            The next day, we went through the same procedure. Fortunately the dog showed more enthusiasm for it than we did.

          4. “You know what’s in a Haggis and you don’t know what’s in a sausage.”

            In the circumstances that undoubtedly favours the sausage, in both ways. 🙂

            cr

          5. Not sure which is best: knowing or not knowing.
            Me Dad doesn’t like sausage, because he doesn’t know what’s in it, but does wonder and doubt while he’s eating eat.
            Sometimes eating something is not so much a pleasure, but more of a fanatical act of patriotic self-sacrifice.

          7. Fine man yourself. I’ve got a touch of flu at the moment and I’m seeking a bit of “divarsion”.

          9. In my very limited experience, the offerings of the platform sellers on the Trans Siberian stations were typically meat or potatoes encased in a bun. Not highly seasoned, to my relief (I don’t do ethnic much). (Also fresh fruit and bananas – in the middle of Siberia).

            Since we’re talking cultural appropriation, I noticed that Moscow was well stocked with МАКДОНАЛДС, КФС**, СТАРБАКС КОФЕ, and my favourite БУРГЕР КИНГ with all their usual menus. (What’s Russian for Fish ‘n’ Chips? Why Фиш & Чипс of course! If you transliterate the Cyrillic into latin that’s exactly what it spells.)

            (** Technically speaking, that transliterates into latin as “KFS”. There is no Cyrillic equivalent of our letter C, I guess they did their best).

            cr

          10. Are you a particular fan of Schubert?

            If so, me, too. I simply cannot imagine writing something like the Unfinished, or the G-flat Impromptu, or An Die Musik, before the age of 31.

          11. I am indeed. The lieder especially. (My favourite though is pictured in your avatar. ) It’s remarkable just how much amazing stuff Schubert produced in the last 5 years of his life.

          12. Catching a (then incurable and possibly shortly to become incurable again) STD does tend to concentrate the mind.

    3. Well Kit Kat is a victim of actual appropriation. Nestlé appropriated it when they took over Rowntree Macintosh and I understand that the American version is actually made under licence by Hershey.

      1. Apparently, Google have done a deal with Nestle for the use of the licensed name KitKat for the 4.4 version of Android. In exchange Nestle gets to promote the product by association with Google.
        This might account for the launch of this “Kit Kat Chocoladilla”.
        Maybe its a reference to bugs rather than lice!

      1. Although, it could be executed so much better. Ditch the Kit-Kats. Make a slightly sweet flour tortilla. Use ganache. Top with whipped cream, or drizzle with caramel. Etc.

  6. Amusing translations and/or non-cognate meanings of the names of foodstuffs are one of the most enjoyable small treasures of traveling. The world would be a poorer place without them. I’m always amused by Bimbo bread, a major Mexican baker with sales also in Central America and, now, the United States.

      1. In Costa Rica, corn flakes are called “corn flakes’, pronounced as though it was proper Spanish: ‘corn flah kays’ (in a rough English phonetic spelling). I’ve also heard ‘pan cah kays’ for pancakes, though this may be a deliberate spoken Spanglicism for amusement, not ‘real’ Costa Rican Spanish.

  7. That reminds me of the Mitsubishi Pajero. It had to be renamed Montero for Spanish speaking countries.

    (yes, that’d be “Wanker”)

    1. My ten year old cousin on holiday in Spain found a packet of crisps (chips across the pond) with the brand name “Bum”. She was of course delighted. I think they were aiming for something like “Yum”.

      1. I have heard Garibaldi biscuits referred to as “Fly cemetery biscuits”.
        Do they have those in the States? The biscuits I mean, not the cemeteries.

          2. mum always called them “squashed fly biscuits” with the sultana bits embedded in the flat biscuit. Here Arnotts politely call them “Full O’Fruit”

          3. Isn’t that what they are? Don’t they feed the flies exclusively on sugar to make them sweet?

            Seriously though, I was about ten before I found out that squashed fly biscuits had another name.

    2. that’d be “Wanker”

      Oh, I treasure that. (We have a lot of self-important Mitsi Pajeros here, it warms the cockles of my heart to think they’re all driving round with “wanker” written on the back in Spanish).

      😎

      (Google Translate won’t translate it, but it does define it as “[persona] Que se masturba con frecuencia” and I don’t need a translation of that. 🙂

      cr

      1. When writing on my blog about POTUS (DOTUS) I often hyphen his name thusly; Trump-et, as in bum Trump-et. More often I just write Butt Trump-et.

  9. When I lived in San Jose, there was a mini-Olympics going on and in many different languages a sign read: “Welcome to San Jose, enjoy your stay.” Apparently, the Filipino translation was: “Welcome to San Jose, enjoy your circumcision.”

    1. That skit has two of my favorite Python lines:

      “My hovercraft is full of eels.”

      “My nipples explode with delight!”

        1. “You want to complain! Look at these shoes. I’ve only had them three weeks and the heels are worn right through…If you complain nothing happens, you might as well not bother.”

  11. Nike once marketed a woman’s running shoe named Incubus, apparently not realizing that’s a mythical demon that lies (in the Biblical sense) with women while they sleep.

    1. Nike means victory. In modern Italian incubo is the normal word for nightmare. Not a great name for a shoe even with this meaning.
      I suppose that the running shoes for men were called succubus.

      1. There more to it.

        In French, “Nikè” (Greek for victory, pronounced nee-kay), is homophone with “Niqué”, which means “Fucked”.

        1. Gets worse:

          In Italian “tromba” is a trumpet
          but “trombista” unfortunately means, not a player of the trumpet, but “fucker”.
          A trumpet player is in fact “trombettista”.

          Having several friends who play the trumpet, I have on occasion made statements that didn’t quite mean what I thought they meant (I think that is called learning the hard way).
          Of course it is also possible to play the trumpet and also be a “trombista” (especially amongst my friends).

          The nearest we can get to “trombista” in English I suppose is “trumpist”.
          I leave the gentle reader to his own ruminations on that one.

        2. In some contexts, I guess that could be synonymous. 😉

          cr
          … boldly going where none (with any sense) have gone before…

  12. This reminds me of Chevrolet, when they couldn’t understand why their new cars weren’t selling.

    NOVA.

    “NO VA” means “WON’T GO” in Spanish.

    1. And yet, Pemex the Mexican national gasoline company, used to have 2 grades of gasoline — Extra and Nova. There were jokes, but I don’t remember that the public refused Nova. Sometimes, especially in rural areas, that was all you could get.

      1. Mexican people are very pragmatic and if they have to buy ”nova” they’ll do it. But, I suppose they’re laughing on the inside!

  13. I would bet a considerable sum that no native Spanish-speakers have high-up jobs at TB.

    What do you call it when an organist at a wedding has to rush to the bathroom after eating bad Mexican food? Taco Bell’s cannon.

  14. I like to see the faces of Spanish speaking waiters when Italian tourists ask them for ‘burro’. How they try to explain that “we don’t eat that animal here!”
    😀

    1. Italy is one of the few countries where donkeys are actually eaten:
      http://salute.leonardo.it/carne-dasino-sapevate-che-si-mangia-quasi-solo-in-italia/

      They even have special butcher’s shops “macelleria equina”. There was one near my workshop.
      The Italian Alpini still train mules for use in difficult mountain areas. Very tough (not in the eating sense). A friend of mine bought one when it was pensioned off. Good natured animal and very strong.
      Horse sausage is fairly common: very lean and good for anaemia etc.

      1. I’ve been nagging various UK food suppliers to get over “horse meat gate” and just put the real Dobbin on the shelves and see how it sells. Says the gravel inspector with both kangaroo and ostrich steaks in his freezer, as of doing the shopping a couple of days ago.

  16. KitKat isn’t Mexican at all of course. We need a new term for this kind of reverse cultural appropriation. Cultural Foisting?

  18. Ah, I thought it was the Mexican (or rather, pseudo-Mexican) appropriation of the dauntless English snack wafer we were going after. That’s ok then.

  19. Not directly related to this thread but –

    remember the Hutzler Banana Slicer from a few days back?

    Well, so help me, ‘based on my visit’ Amazon has just spammed me with an offer for the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer. What’s more it’s at a bargain price – $5.34 has been slashed to $5.33.

    One of the other item they offer is maybe more interesting – “Crafting with Cat Hair: Cute Handicrafts to Make with Your Cat” [sic]

    cr

  20. “You want to complain! Look at these shoes. I’ve only had them three weeks and the heels are worn right through…If you complain nothing happens, you might as well not bother.”

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