From tacos and burritos to churros and tres leches, there are tons of tasty Mexican and Tex-Mex foods out there. None of those dishes have impacted American culture like nachos. It seems like nachos have been around forever, but the first nachos were served less than 100 years ago! Let’s dig into their surprising origin story.
The first nachos weren’t made by a chef
Today’s nachos can be gourmet, but the original version of the dish was made by a restaurant waiter. The story of nachos began in the Victory Club, a restaurant located in a Mexican border town called Piedras Negras. On a late night in 1943, Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya, the restaurant’s maître d’, was closing up the store when a group of hungry U.S. military wives arrived. The restaurant’s chefs had already gone home and ingredients were scarce, so Nacho had to make do with what was available. He sliced and fried some leftover tortillas to make chips, melted cheese over them in the oven, and topped the dish with sliced jalapeños. The military wives loved his creation and called it “nachos” after his nickname!
Nachos go on display
As word of nachos spread, variations of the meal began cropping up in Mexican restaurants on both sides of the border. Nachos were easy to prepare using whatever ingredients were available, which led to a wide variety of topping creativity. Soon, you could find nachos topped with everything from Mexican jalapeños and black beans to seafood and exotic cheese! Nachos were even featured in the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, where people from all over the world tried and loved Nacho’s delicious creation.
The big cheese (problem)
By the 1970s, nachos were served in many American Tex-Mex restaurants. But the dish still wasn’t available at sporting events because of a problem with the cheese. At restaurants, cheese for nachos was melted when a customer ordered and eaten before the cheese could coagulate again. But sports fans didn’t want to stand in long lines waiting for more cheese to melt or hurry to eat them before the cheese became solid again! To solve this problem, Frank Liberto, the owner of a concessions company, developed nacho cheese. This shelf-stable cheese sauce would stay smooth and liquid-y indefinitely. His secret was mixing cheese with sodium citrate, a type of salt that lowered the cheese’s acidity. This kept the protein and fat in the cheese from separating, so the cheese wouldn’t solidify. It seems like his cheesy creation was meant to be, since the chemical formula for sodium citrate is Na3C6H5O7!
Is it Nacho November yet?
Nachos topped with Frank’s special cheese debuted at a Texas Rangers baseball game in 1976. Since then, their fame has been unstoppable! In the U.S., nachos are celebrated with Nacho Day on November 6. Piedras Negras (where Nacho Anaya served the first nachos) holds an annual International Nacho Festival to commemorate the delicious meal. There’s even a Guinness World Record for the world’s largest serving of nachos. In 2022, the record was broken with a 4,870 pound plate of nachos made by representatives of Paramount+!
Whether you like your nachos spicy, mild, loaded, or classic, there’s no denying that this delicious combination of flavors always hits the spot. So next time you satisfy your nacho needs, remember to thank Nacho, the waiter-turned-culinary genius who started it all! If all this talk about nachos is making you hungry, click the blue button below to vote for your favorite Mexican-inspired meal. 👓