Nachos were invented in Mexico, by a Mexican, but they’re not exactly Mexican food. They’re
enormously successful, available in restaurants around the world, but their creator wasn’t
even a chef. Confused? Me too. All the time. Let’s go back to the 1940s. Ignacio “Nacho”
Anaya was working at Club Victoria in the border town of Piedras Negras, Mexico. A group
from the neighboring Texas town of Eagle Pass came in looking for something to eat (in his
son’s version of the story, it was a group of army wives from the nearby Army base, but
Nacho himself was less specific). As the restaurant’s maî·tre d, Nacho’s job was normally limited
to attending to guests, but on this particular occasion, the cook was nowhere to be found.
Instead of turning the customers away, Anaya ducked into the kitchen to whip up a quick
dish using the few ingredients he could find. The resulting plate of tortilla chips topped
with grated cheese and sliced jalapeños was a hit. It needed a name, and Nachos Especiales—an
homage to its creator—stuck. Or at least the first half of it did, anyway.
Hi, I’m Justin Dodd. Welcome to Food History. The story of nachos doesn’t start and end
with a resourceful restaurant employee assembling a few basic components. From the chips, to
the toppings, to the molten yellow cheese that’s become synonymous with the dish,
the history of nachos can tell us a lot more than their simple ingredients list might suggest.
Before we get into all that, I want to say a huge thank you for the response to our mashed
potatoes video from last month. We received a ton of awesome ideas for future episodes
of the show. Shout-out especially to kujmous and boboom66 who sent us down a wild rabbit
hole that led to nachos. Because we got so many great ideas for future episodes, we thought
this could be fun, too: If you have one particular question about food or drink history, leave
it below. We’ll pick one question from the comments to research and then answer in our
next episode.
For now, though, let’s jump back thousands of years, before Nacho was a nickname, let
alone an appetizer. *INGREDIENT DEEP DIVE HEADER*
Corn, or maize, was first domesticated by the indigenous people living in what-is-now
central Mexico around 7000 BCE. Maize would become a vital part of the Aztec and Maya
diets. But the first maize crops didn’t produce the sweet, golden kernels that are
sold by the can in supermarkets today. Early corn grew on tiny cobs and was trapped in
tough casings that made it hard to eat. By the way, “Early Corn” & “Tiny Cobs”
are actually the nicknames my girlfriend and I have for each other. I’m kidding! She
doesn’t exist.
To turn maize into something more palatable, Mesoamericans developed a process called nixtamalization,
probably around 1500 BCE. In addition to being an absolutely killer move in Scrabble, nixtamalization
involves drying corn kernels and then soaking them in warm water mixed with an alkali, like
ash or slaked lime. The high-pH solution is caustic, and it partially breaks down the
tough cell walls of the corn, making it easier to chew and digest.
Nixtamalized maize has the added bonus of being more nutritious. Corn is high in niacin,
or vitamin B3, but it’s bound to other chemicals in the raw version of the grain. When the
bound form of niacin passes through the digestive tract, the small intestine can't absorb it,
so it passes through the body without giving us any nutritional benefits. Many people who
relied on unprocessed maize as a primary food source suffered from niacin deficiency, which
caused malnutrition and a disease called pellagra. Pellagra is characterized by symptoms like
sores on the skin, diarrhea, and delusions. Yikes. Nixtamalization releases the niacin
from those other chemicals. Following the development of nixtamalization, cases of niacin
deficiency dropped, and the region’s first major civilizations began popping up.
Fun fact: a 1997 article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine suggested that
pellagra could’ve been responsible for the rise of vampire myths. As corn became a major
part of European diets, many peasants consumed un-nixtamalized corn as if it was any other
grain that could be treated with powerful mills. This led to widespread niacin deficiencies
and rampant cases of pellagra. The article’s authors suggest that the disease‘s symptoms,
such as the sensitivity to light that accompanies dermatitis, could be tied to the rise of vampire
legends. Whether this is true or not, it did inspire me to write a horror fantasy novel
about an undead ear of corn. Instead of a bat, of course, he changes into a uni-CORN.
*VO: I vant to shuck your corn* This is why I don’t have a girlfriend.
SECTION HEADER: *DO THE DISHES* ??
Now, you may be wondering, what does soaking corn in lime have to do with nachos? Well,
nixtamalized corn comes with one more perk—one that’s of particular interest to us. When
it’s nixtamalized, corn can be made into masa— basically a corn dough. It’s the
basis for tacos, tamales, and pupasas, along with many other amazing dishes. And in the
modern era, that includes Tex-Mex favorites like nachos.
People in Mexico have been flattening balls of masa and cooking them to make tortillas
for thousands of years. And for many of those years, cooks would fry up extra hunks of tortillas
to make chilaquiles. The fried tortilla pieces are covered in salsa and served with delicious
toppings like cotija cheese and meat. It may be one of the closer analogues to nachos you’ll
commonly find in Mexico, and guys—it’s really good.
When whole corn tortillas are fried in fat, they’re called tostadas—which literally
translates to toasted in Spanish. Tostadas are often topped with tasty ingredients, from
seafood to beans, but at their core, they’re basically giant tortilla chips. And the history
of fried tortillas probably goes way back. According to a doctoral thesis written by
Vanessa Fonseca, there is an account from the 16th century of “pedazos fritos de tortilla,”
or fried tortilla strips, though those may have been dry-toasted, rather than fried in
oil.
In any case, the modern, bite-sized version of the fried tortilla didn’t really begin
to emerge as a distinct category until the 1900s. Tortilla-making was becoming commercialized
around the turn of the century, and factory owners were looking for ways to repurpose
the excess tortillas that would otherwise go to waste. These scraps were often fried,
cut into chips, and distributed to restaurants in the area.
So how did the chips go from tortilla factory afterthought to snack aisle staple? Credit
is often given to Rebecca Webb Carranza. In the late 1940s, Carranza was president of
El Zarape Tortilla Factory in Los Angeles. She fried tortilla scraps into chips, and
after serving them at a family party, she saw that people couldn’t get enough of them.
“Tort Chips,” as she called them, were initially sold for 10 cents a bag from the
factory delicatessen. By the 1960s, the chips had replaced regular tortillas as the business’s
main product. Tort chips.
Carranza wasn’t the first person to make tortilla chips and sell them to the public—
in the 1930s a California grocer was advertising “Mexican Tortilla Chips in cellophane package”
and in the 1910s a company owned by Bartolo Martinez was selling tortilla chips in San
Antonio. Martinez is an interesting figure in the history of corn products—his company,
known at various times as Azteca Mills, Tamalina Milling Company, and B. Martinez Sons Company,
had previously patented the so-called “Tamalina process,” which produces a long-lasting
dehydrated form of masa that could be easily packed and distributed to consumers, restaurants,
and even tortilla factories. This innovation had lasting impact, and the company’s claim
to have created the first commercial corn chip is perhaps the most persuasive account
available.
Even though Carranza isn’t the inventor of the tortilla chip, though, she did kick
off the trend of manufacturing them on a massive scale. Frito-Lay took her vision even further.
In 1966, the snack company introduced Doritos, Spanish for “little golden things,” adorable,
to the national market. They originally came in one flavor: toasted corn. That’s right—the
first Doritos were just plain tortilla chips in a bag. It would take another six years
for Doritos to roll out Nacho Cheese, the brand’s most popular flavor of all time.
No matter what toppings are on your nachos, you’ll almost always find cheese in some
form. But exactly what form that cheese takes can vary.
Ignacio Garcia’s original nachos were topped with some type of American cheese, possibly
longhorn. Even today you rarely see traditional Mexican cheeses like cotija or queso oaxaca
served on a platter of nachos. A much more common choice is Monterey Jack. It originated
in the Franciscan monasteries of Monterey, California, in the 1700s. The semi-firm cow’s
milk cheese has since become an integral part of Tex-Mex cuisine. It melts easily, providing
that ooey-gooey texture that’s so important to nachos, and it’s milder than other cheeses,
so it doesn’t clash with the bold flavors found in a lot of Tex-Mex food.
But when you hear “nacho cheese,” you probably don’t think about Monterey Jack.
What more likely comes to mind is the semi-liquid stuff that comes in that particular shade
of yellow rarely found in nature. This version of nacho cheese didn’t emerge until 30 years
after Ignacio Garcia’s original creation. By that time, nachos had become a popular
offering in bars and restaurants in much of the United States. Carmen Rocha, who waited
tables at El Cholo Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles from 1959 to the 1990s, is commonly
credited with popularizing nachos out West. She was introduced to them in Texas, and while
working in LA, she served them as an off-menu item to customers. The dish was so popular
that it quickly earned a permanent spot on the El Cholo menu and spread to other eateries
throughout the region.
Frank Liberto saw the potential of nachos beyond bar food. He was the owner of the concessions
company Ricos Products in the 1970s, and he thought nachos would be successful at sporting
events. He planned to bring them to the stadium where the Texas Rangers played in Arlington,
but there was one problem: Baseball fans weren’t going to wait several minutes for cheese to
melt on their chips. Although side note: why not? Baseball is really boring. It’s like
90% standing around and chewing gum, you can afford to miss a few minutes, Gary.
Anyway, Liberto knew he needed to come up with a version of nachos that could be assembled
quickly, so he developed nacho cheese: a shelf-stable product that maintained its gooey consistency
and was ready to be ladled onto tortilla chips the moment customers placed their order. How
did he do this? MAGIC.. …Not magic, it was science. *FOOD SCIENCE HEADER*
Many brands of nacho cheese owe their perpetual meltiness to something called sodium citrate.
This compound is a type of salt that lowers the acidity in cheese. That allows the proteins
in the cheese to become more soluble, which means the emulsified liquid and fat is less
likely to separate when melted. So when you add sodium citrate to cheese, it melts more
easily and stays melted without getting oily or clumpy. And if you needed proof we were
meant to eat this unholy cheese creation, just check out the chemical formula for sodium
citrate (Na₃C₆H₅O₇). That’s so awesome I was afraid to send this script to our fact
checker! I don’t wanna live in a world where nacho cheese isn’t made of NACHO.
The ready-made nachos were well received when they debuted at a Texas Rangers game in 1976,
but they really took off in 1978. By then, nachos had made it to Texas Stadium in Irving,
and when announcer Howard Cosell was served a plate of them in the broadcast booth, they
became the surprise star of a Cowboys game. He repeatedly made references to them throughout
the night, even using the word “nacho” to describe plays he liked. By the time the
fourth quarter ended, nachos had solidified their place in American culture. Man I love
that story I think it’s very endearing. That story is NACHO. Did I do it right? Am
I sportsman now?
Nacho purists may prefer their chips with cheese and some sliced jalapenos, as they
were first served in 1943, but the dish has evolved far past Garcia’s original recipe.
Today, it’s not uncommon to find nachos topped with beans, guacamole, ground beef,
salsa, and sour cream. You can riff on the template endlessly, for good and for ill.
Online you can find instructions to make poutine nachos, Thanksgiving leftover nachos, and
even dessert nachos. At the Park Hyatt in New York you can order “Russian Nachos”
for $110, holy moly. They come with lobster remoulade, ossetra caviar, and the unshakeable
knowledge that you are a very silly person.
Nachos are, in a way, a culinary microcosm of America. They’re the product of traditional
ingredients and cross-cultural exchange; they combine scientific achievement and commerce
to create something that now extends throughout the world. ...They’re maybe a little gross,
but they’re also pretty awesome. And they may just be one of history’s most successful
examples of fusion cuisine.
If you didn’t see our previous episode of Food History, check it out here. Our next
episode drops February 26th, subscribe here so you don’t miss it. Until then, remember,
the bread plate goes on the left, drink on your right.