Tuesday, January 03, 2023

The origin of nachos...who knew?


We haven't had nachos for quite a while. This photo is making me hungry for them.

From: "Interesting Facts"

The origins of nachos can be traced back to the border town of Piedra Negas, Texas, where the dish was invented in the early 1940s in a frantic effort to please customers. Ignacio Anaya, who went by the nickname Nacho, was the maître d’hôtel of the Victory Club when a group of women arrived at the eatery outside of business hours, after the cooks had gone home. Not wanting the customers to leave, Anaya ran to the kitchen and gathered up a few ingredients that he had lying around — fried tortilla chips, colby cheese, and jalapeños — which he combined and baked until the cheese melted. The diners loved the concoction and requested seconds, so the restaurant added it to the menu. Capitalizing on the local success of his new snack food, Anaya even went on to open his own restaurant. 

It would be an entirely different person who popularized nachos on a national level, however. Frank Liberto took Anaya’s concept and changed the delivery process so that the cheese “sauce” didn’t need to be refrigerated. Liberto’s version of nachos was introduced at a Texas Rangers game in 1976, and today nachos are a staple at sporting arenas across the country."