9 Deliciously Cheesy Facts about Nachos

because I gotta know what I'm missing. And it actually turns out, I'll admit I did not know this, but that two thousand fifteen was a big year for snack related invention. Big year. Yeah, what was that? Well, that's the year that the Arizona Diamondbacks debuted the churro dog, which ESPN describes as a churro inside a doughnut bun topped with frozen yogurts Sunday. I mean, come on, I

eat one of those. Yeah. Yeah. And while that was definitely the front runner for most of the year, the Milwaukee Brewers Miller Park, they came up with an even more popular snack than that. Now I've got to hear the what is it? You're ready? This is kind of mind blowing. It's nachos on a stick, and apparently it was all the rage in two thousand and fifteen. Now all the raged in a way that somehow we didn't find out. But it was all the rage, I guess.

And you're supposedly it was a stick of beef loaded with refried beans, rolled in Derito's and then deep fried and drizzled with sour cream and cheese, all on a stick. I have no idea how that works, but it does seem pretty genius. So it does sound like kind of novel,

I guess. But why were people so excited about it? Well, the vendors were excited about it because the whole idea was that you could, you know, be chowing down on the stick in one hand and yet still be able to wash it down with a beverage and the other. Because you think about it, like, that's my biggest frustration with going to these games, as you always have to like put the drink down between your feet to then

eat the nachos, which is a two handed thing. Or you could master what I'm master of, just getting the chip with your mouth, dipping it and then kind of doing a flip and letting it, you know, flip down into I'll have to show you later, but anyway, it's it's it's novel because you would never get any nacho cheese on yourself by doing this, and they saw it

as this revolution and how you would eat nachos. But reading about all this made me think we should do a nine Things all about nachos, you know, break down some of the ingredients, talk about how America got so obsessed with him. So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass just rocking another one of his brilliant shirts and this one's

as Buenos Nachos. That's our good friend and producer Tristan McNeil, now mango. This is a fun episode, you know, because we're we're we're both big fans of cheese that we have been four years and I'm guessing we ate no less than four to five tons of it in college between the two of us. So anyway, with that in mind, it's up to you. Where do you think we should start. Well, I think I'm gonna save the cheese, def for a little later on it's too good and start with something

a little more basic. Did you know that chips and salsa is the official state snack of Texas? Not only did I not know that, but I guess I didn't know that states had official snacks. But at the same time, I guess it's not all that surprising, So tell me more. Yeah, I guess it isn't that surprising, but how it became the state snack is super fun. So in two this group of second graders from the Leo Marcel Elementary School in Mission, Texas decided that their state and needed its

own official snack. So Texas, at the time I already had a state dish chili, a state fruit grapefruit, and a state pie pecan. So the kids design a lobby for this official snack. But the competition was fiercer than you might imagine. So the kids came up with all these nominees, including pickles, Dorito's Flame, and hot Cheetos and and in the end, I guess the victory went to the good old chips and salsa. Yeah, I think I can agree with that, And so, so how did they

actually get this past? I guess four kids actually testified before a House committee on on behalf of chips and salsa. And while all the kids spoke with you know, the sort of passion that chips and salsa demand, a little girl named Audrey made the most convincing argument. And this is what you said. Quote First, salsa contains two ingredients that are state symbols already. The jalapeno is the state

pepper and sweet onions are the state vegetable. Put them together with a few more ingredients, and presto, perfect salsa. That just makes sense. It does. It's so cute. And apparently she wasn't the only one who thoughts of because Rick Perry actually signed the resolution into law not long after. Wow, that is pretty amazing. I really like that one. All right, Well, since we're doing nachos facts, I feel like we should start with the chips themselves, because there's actually a great

origin story there. And this goes back to the late nineteen forties to El Zarape Tortilla factory, and this is in Los Angeles, and it became one of the first to automate its production of these tortillas. So the company had installed this state of the art tortilla making machine, and pretty soon it was cranking these things out like

twelve times faster than they could by hand. So the only problem with this is that, you know, many of the tortillas came out and mis shapen or kind of twisted up, and of course those ones couldn't be sold. So one night, the co owner of the business, Rebecca Webb Kransa, she takes these reject tortillas. She just brings them home and has a family party, and so she decides to cut the tortillas into triangles, fry them up, and then serve them to her guests. Is what she

called tort chips. And because her relatives love the chips so much, Kranza started selling them for ten cents a bag at this local Mexican Delhi and also right outside of the factory there. So you fast forward a decade to the nineties sixties and Carranza's torch chips were available up and down the West Coast. And not only that, the chips were so popular they became El Sarape's main business. That's pretty amazing. I didn't realize that, like the chips

had their own story. I feel like it's like one of those things you just assume exists forever, right, like, like, um, so here's the fact that I might have heard before, but it's still surprising to me. Do you realize that chipotle and jilipino peppers are the same plant? Which, yeah, it's just super weird to me because they have like such distinct tastes and colors. But it's partially due to

just when and how they're harvested. So, you know, alipinos, like a bunch of other peppers, start out green, but then they turn red as they ripe in. And there's a reason we don't often see red halipinos and grocery stores. It's because in farming, you know, the longer you let something grow, the more time there is for things to go wrong along the way. So from this like financial standpoint, it's just less risky to pick the peppers when they're green.

But the chipotles are just red jilopenas that have been smoked, dried. M hmm. All right, Well, here's a quick one about pico de guio. You know this super simple mix that just has fresh ice, tomatoes, onion, jalapenos, and usually cilantro, and it just tastes so good on tortilla chip. But anyway, according to Epicurious, pico de guio actually means roosters beak

in Spanish. Why why why roosters deak? Well, it actually turns out that the traditional way of eating pico de guio was just to use your fingers, and in particular your thumb and index fingers. You do have to keep in mind that tortilla chips and the act of dipping them in salsa, that was really more of an American thing, and so this style of eating when you have those two fingers, it reminded people so much of the way roosters pecket food with their beaks that they just decided

the name should reflect that. That's really cute. Well, one of the interest things I learned this week was that if you like sour cream on your nachos, you really ought to thank the Mongols and and maybe the Russians too.

So this is according to Ionine, the Mongols always had plenty of milk on hand thanks to the horses they traveled with, but the only problem was that a large part of the population was lactose intolerant, so instead of drinking the fresh mare's milk, they I guess let it ferment for a long time until all the bacteria had eaten away the lactose and replaced it with alcohol, and then they drank this I guess slightly alcoholic milk drink called kumas. Anyway, when they brought this drink to Russia,

the people really went crazy for it. Only they kind of tweaked the process a little, like they used milk from cows rather than horses, and they also allowed the milk to thicken much longer, which kept it from turning alcoholic. And what they ended up with was this smooth, somewhat sour tasting cream, which is basically the same stuff we heap on our nachos today. Wow. I didn't believe that you were actually going to be able to connect that

to the Mongols, but I think you successfully did all right. Well, before we get too deep into the toppings, I feel like we should really talk about the man behind the dish that we know as Nacho, somebody that we all owe so much to really, if you think about it, his name was Ignacio Anaya, or as his friends called him, just Nacho. According to the story, Nachos were born in a Mexican border town back in nineteen forty three, and Ignacio wasn't actually a chef, but more of a maitre

d at a restaurant that was called the Victor Club. Now, one night during World War Two, Annia was closing up the restaurant when a dozen women just showed up, and they were desperate for a late night meal. These were the wives of US soldiers who had been stationed just across the border in Eagle Past, Texas. Of course, and I didn't want to turn them away, but he also knew the kitchen was low on food and that the

chef had already left for the night. So Anya goes back to the kitchen and tries to see what he can pull together, and of course what he comes up with is the very first plate of nachos, which, of course us was tortilla chips topped with shredded cheese halapenos,

and then he baked them all in the oven. Now, the dish was a huge hit with the army wives, and when they asked their server what it's called, he said Nacho's Especiales, which of course was later just shortened to nachos, And the dish eventually became so popular that and I quit to open his own nacho centric restaurant. I really, I have no idea if this thing still exists. Problem,

why didn't this take off? Like? I feel like nacho restaurant should have gone everywhere, but I would have I would have totally gone to one or would still Well, we've got two more facts to get to before we close this out, but let's take a quick break. Welcome back to part time Genius. We were talking nachos. So here's the question I had. Are refried beans really fried twice? It feels like this age old question, like why would beans need to be fried more than once? Well, it

turns out the answer is that they don't. In fact, sometimes they aren't even fried once, They're just mashed and boiled instead, which brings up the follow up why all the confusion? And of course, you know, Gabe had the

answer for us as always. It turns out the English name refried beans is really just a mistranslation of the Spanish name for the dish for holes, refritos, So free holes is, of course the Spanish word for beans, and friedo is a Spanish adjective meaning fried or cooked, so the translation error really comes down to the prefix re and in English we put that prefix on things like retry or reschedule, things that are being done more than once. But in Spanish, I guess the prefix has a completely

different meaning. It adds emphasis to an adjective. So rofritos doesn't actually mean refried at all. It means well fried or well cooked. Oh, I did not know. That's a good one, Gabe. I'm glad he helped you out on that one. Alright, Well, I don't think we should in this show without talking a little bit about how steady

of nachos with that gooey cheese came to be. And you know, while nachos started growing more popular after their invention in the nineteen forties, you kind of needed an oven to melt the cheese, and so that meant the dish was really restricted to restaurants and cooking at home, and you didn't see them at fast food joints at

that point, or movie theaters or ballparks. But that all changed thanks to a man named Frank Liberto now Frank word Concessions at Arlington Stadium back in the nineteen seventies, and this is back when it was home to the Texas Rangers, and his customers would often say how they wish they could have nachos at the game, And of course Frank knew that he couldn't install ovens or broilers, just you know, on this hunch that the dish would sell.

So instead he started working on this gooey liquid form of the cheese that could be quickly ladled over the chips. And it took a little time to get the secret recipe just right, but in nineteen seventy six, Concession nachos finally hit the stands. And I feel fortunate because that's just a few years before we were born, so we can say that were all of our lives we've never had to go without the availability of nachos is a

wonderful thing. It really I can't even imagine what life was like you And when you think back pre electricity, pre nachos in the ballpark, it's just it's tough. Anyway. At first, the operators wanted nothing to do with Frank's inventions, so he had to build his own nacho carts to push through the stadium. But once they caught sight of these massive lines that routinely formed behind the nacho carts,

the cheesy chips became a stadium staple. You know. They even started out selling popcorn, which had been the former top seller. Which it's weird because I mean, I like popcorn at movie theaters, but for some reason, psychologically like I want nothing to do with popcorn in the ballpark. You just want a cup of cheese. I just want some cheese on some ships. But anyway, within the next few years, Frank's liquid cheese was being dished out with nachos at ballparks all over the country. What a hero.

I really like that. So maybe you should take the trophy home for celebrating nacho cheese. You know, I appreciate the thought there. I feel like the fact that you connected such a strange dish to the Mongols was really impressive. So I feel like, just to honor how much cheese that we ate in college, why don't we call this one a draw and go order ourselves some celebratory nachos. I like that, and we'll take Tristan with us. Well,

that's it for today's show. If you've got a great nacho story or fact, be sure to share it with us on our socials. You know, we're curious about it. And from gave Tristan Will and me. Thank you so much for listening. H