Anastas Mikoyan eats a taco

Which is meat wrapped up in a tortilla

The December 7, 1959 issue of Life magazine ran a curious short article on pages 51–52 about a visit to Mexico City by the USSR's First Deputy Premier, Anastas Mikoyan. Entitled "Mik's Mexican Mix: Vodka man from Russia tries tequila", it's dominated by a three-picture spread capturing before, during, and after photos of Mikoyan taking a shot of tequila.

The last photo, however, is of interest for other reasons. Its caption includes this amazing sentence:

Looking somewhat dazed, he downs a taco, which is meat wrapped up in a tortilla.

It's interesting to notice that in 1959, the taco was not sufficiently well known in the U.S. for Life to refer to one without both italicizing the word as a foreign borrowing, and providing a brief definition.

Lest you be left only with the strange mental image of a "somewhat dazed" Soviet emmisary eating a taco, behold a full-page photograph of Miyokan, looking rather out of sorts, eating a taco:

Even for the ruling elite of the USSR, the taco is approached in a brief encounter, surfacing as trauma.