Nacho ordinary appetizer…
/Hello Cheese Enthusiasts!
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
Well, Super Bowl LV is almost upon us. A head-to-head competition between two of the season’s best teams (although I would have preferred it had been between Green Bay and Buffalo – two classic cheese related teams). This year’s showdown is set for Sunday, February 7th and will be played in Tampa Bay, Florida.
While most may be picking sides, or anticipating which company will claim the most memorable commercial, I am thinking of what I am going to eat on Super Bowl Sunday, as it has become an annual day of snacking…
Hmmm….Nachos sound good! But where did this classic snack come from? (insert any one of 100 Nacho cheese jokes here). You might be as surprised as I was…
Ignacio (Nacho) Anaya García was living in a small town named Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico (just over the border from Eagle’s Pass, Texas). He was working at a local restaurant named Club Victoria.
Rather than just repeat local folklore, I am going to turn the story over to Clarence J. La Roche. Clarence was a reporter for the San Antonio, Texas Express and News newspaper, who sat down with “Nacho” to hear the story first hand. This story appeared in the San Antonio Express and News on May 23, 1954, Page 3H, Columns 1-4:
“One afternoon in 1940, four Eagle Pass ladies walked into the Victory Club (Americanized Name) dining room looking for something new in cocktail hours snacks. They were seated at their table by smiling, friendly Ignacio (Nacho) Anaya García. Their request went something like this:
“Nacho, we’re tired of the usual type snacks with our drinks. Do you think you could whip us up something new? Something different?”
ALWAYS READY to help—and to try his hand at anything—Nacho smiled and told the ladies he would see what could be done.
“Honestly,” he admitted to us recently over a bottle of cold Bohemia, “I didn’t have the least idea what I was going to try. But, I went into the kitchen, looked around and started groping for an idea. I saw a bowl of freshly fried pieces of tortilla; then I figured some grated cheese on them might be all right.
Ignacio (Nacho) Anaya García Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
“Well, I got the cheese and began sprinkling the tortilla pieces with it. About this time, I got the idea to put some jalapeno strips atop the cheese. I got the jalapeno; and as I finished putting the strips on the cheese, I decided it would be a good idea to put the whole thing into the oven to melt the cheese.”
Nacho was a bit timorous when he set his concoction on the table before the ladies from Eagle Pass. He muttered something about hoping they liked it and swiftly sought an exit. Before he could hide, however, the ladies were clamoring for him.
Image courtesy of Picuki.com
“Make us some more of those wonderful snacks,” they demanded.
When Nacho brought out the second batch, one of the ladies asked:
“What do you call these snacks?”
“Well,” stammered Ignacio, “I guess we can just call them ‘Nacho’s Especiales.’” He figured he never would hear of the concoction again. He was wrong. Next day, when he came to work, waiters at the Victory Club asked: “How in the heck do you make ‘Nacho Especiales’?” We had calls for them last night but didn’t know what they were!”
“Nacho” went on to open his own restaurant, but never really received the credit he deserved for his culinary creation.
After his death in 1975, the recognition finally happened. A bronze statue of “Nacho” was placed in front if the restaurant where it all happened. Then in 2019, on the 124th anniversary of his birth, Google did one of their famous “Google Doodles” of Ignacio tying him to his now famous snack.
So what else to serve with Nachos??.....Well how about some Mozzarella Sticks?? These sounded fun and easy since I would be making them in my new air fryer that I got for Christmas from my daughter.
While I am prepping the ingredients for this snack, let’s talk a little bit about the history of fried cheese snacks….Since cheese has been around for five to six thousand years, I expected that the recipe would be older than the Nachos, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to find them in a French recipe book from 1393!!
This recipe is an excerpt from “Le Ménagier de Paris”, a guidebook written in the Middle Ages was written as a guide for running a household, as well as offering recipes (Wow!...This is really starting to sound like last week’s post…You can read it here). Le Ménagier de Pariswas first edited and published in print form as "traité de morale et d'économie domestique" by Baron Jérôme Pichon in 1846, and was only translated into English as late as 2009.
Here is the recipe for “Pipefarces” (which a 2007 definition refers to it as a “Tarte du Fromage”, while another referred to them as “Cheese Pipes”: “Take egg yolks and flour and salt, and a little wine, and beat together strongly, and cheese chopped in thin slices, and then roll the slices of cheese in the batter, and then fry in an iron skillet with oil in it. This can also be made using beef marrow.”
Sounds like the same recipe for homemade Mozzarella Sticks for my air fryer!
So which team will I be rooting for on Super Bowl Sunday?.....Why, Green Bay of course!!....I am a “Cheese Head” through and through!
Until next week,
Trevor
