Speaker 1: It's a crisp, clear, early autumn night, and I'm with
Speaker 1: a group of friends at City Field in Queens, New York.
Speaker 1: We're watching the Mets play the San Diego Padres. I'm
Speaker 1: not that into baseball, but it's a playoff game, so
Speaker 1: I know it's a pretty big deal. The stadium lights
Speaker 1: are all on, illuminating the bright green field. The crowd
Speaker 1: is loud and fired up. There's a light breeze. My
Speaker 1: friends and I chat between innings, sipping on giant plastic
Speaker 1: cups of beer and eating overpriced concessions.
Speaker 2: How many nachos with beef bass?
Speaker 1: That's okay? All over City Field you can easily buy nachos,
Speaker 1: you know, the round do chips that come with a
Speaker 1: little tub of cheese sauce in a cardboard box that
Speaker 1: opens up into a tray on your lap, and find
Speaker 1: vegan nachos at a vegan food stand tucked away in
Speaker 1: a lone little corner of the stadium, all the way
Speaker 1: in the back. City Field is also equipped with these
Speaker 1: big nachos only concession stands. There's eight of them. The
Speaker 1: smell of warm cheese surrounding them is like a siren call.
Speaker 1: And that's where my friends and I went where we
Speaker 1: could get all the toppings we'd ever.
Speaker 2: Want, sour cream, blacamole, beans, cheese on Jolopeno's, and a
Speaker 2: little pigoda gayo.
Speaker 3: That's all.
Speaker 1: Now, nachos are a big business. Waiting in line, I
Speaker 1: spoke to some of the workers manning one of these
Speaker 1: tricked out nacho stands. They sell two options. The difference
Speaker 1: is the kind of plate you can get your nachos on.
Speaker 1: Out of curiosity, how many of these do you sell?
Speaker 4: Usually are a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll go through more than a hundred of these,
Speaker 3: more than one hundred of the plates.
Speaker 1: More than a hundred of them. Wow. And that's like
Speaker 1: a busy right, like tonight. So well, that's like regular
Speaker 1: as in maybe a regular season game that isn't sold out,
Speaker 1: but on a busy night when City Field gets to capacity,
Speaker 1: holding nearly forty two thousand people, maybe more than two
Speaker 1: hundred of eight. On the field, the pros swinging bats
Speaker 1: and stealing bases take center stage, but in the stands, well,
Speaker 1: nachos to do a pretty good job of stealing the spotlight.
Speaker 1: That wasn't always the case, though, the very first nachos
Speaker 1: weren't served in a crowded stadium in New York City.
Speaker 1: They were made in a mostly empty restaurant in Mexico
Speaker 1: along the border, and they weren't designed to be a
Speaker 1: big hit, But nachos would end up bigger than anyone
Speaker 1: could have ever imagined.
Speaker 5: From Futromedia and PRX, It's Latino Usa, I Maria nor
Speaker 5: Rosa and who's in the movie food for some nachos.
Speaker 5: Today we're serving up the history and the legacy of
Speaker 5: this iconic snack food, nachos. You can already taste them,
Speaker 5: hm hot melted cheese on fried corn, dortilla chips, or
Speaker 5: as we call them in Spanish, to torpos. All of
Speaker 5: that topped off with a familiar kick of prickly calapagno.
Speaker 5: We often consider nacho's part of a family of classic
Speaker 5: quote unquote American fast casual foods, but something that many
Speaker 5: of these dishes have in common is their foreign roots, like,
Speaker 5: for example, pizza, which was brought to the East Coast
Speaker 5: by Italian immigrants, or hot dogs, which is basically a
Speaker 5: riff on German frankfurters.
Speaker 2: Nachos are no different.
Speaker 5: The dish itself originated in Piedras Negras, a small town
Speaker 5: in the Mexican state of Gualuila, right next to the
Speaker 5: southern border of Texas.
Speaker 4: Time for detour back down the Rio grand to Piros Negress,
Speaker 4: Mexico to explain the exact moment in history.
Speaker 2: But a nacho was created?
Speaker 6: How and for who?
Speaker 5: But even with some high profile figures like the late
Speaker 5: Anthony Bourdain exploring the roots of nachos, the vast popularity
Speaker 5: of the dish still overshadows its border town origins. People
Speaker 5: tend to overlook that the classic natural flavor profile all
Speaker 5: comes from Mexican food. Each time you bite into a
Speaker 5: tortilla chip with that gouey cheese sauce, it's kind of
Speaker 5: like gesso fundido, right, So you're actually eating an appropriation
Speaker 5: of this cuisine, the result of someone else's pursuit of profit.
Speaker 5: What's more, in our pursuit of a delicious snack, we
Speaker 5: forget that someone had to actually create this dish. Nacho's
Speaker 5: didn't just materialize one day at a concession stand, and
Speaker 5: its birth is still largely unknown to the crowds of
Speaker 5: people who fill their bellies and wallets thanks to natchos.
Speaker 5: Today on Latino USA, we're bringing you a story that
Speaker 5: we originally ran in twenty twenty three. It's all about
Speaker 5: giving credit where credit is due, and I'm going to
Speaker 5: give you just a hint. Nacho isn't just the name
Speaker 5: of a popular snack. It was first the name of
Speaker 5: a man, and his biggest impact isn't actually at the ballpark.
Speaker 5: It's back home with the family he provided for. His
Speaker 5: descendants are living in Texas preserving his legacy. Producer Alejandra
Speaker 5: Salasad actually grew up with some of those family members,
Speaker 5: so she's going to take this story from here.
Speaker 1: It's summertime in San Antonio, Texas. The late July heat
Speaker 1: floats off the asphalt in front of my parents suburban home.
Speaker 3: Thanks to chat.
Speaker 1: Oh, that is a dead cicada and with my mom,
Speaker 1: her name is my Lina. We just stepped over a
Speaker 1: shell of a cicada on our way to our car.
Speaker 1: More cicadas hidden in the trees sing their dog day music,
Speaker 1: breaking the sleepy afternoon silence. Hika, my microphone is on.
Speaker 1: I think this is the first time my mom has
Speaker 1: ever seen me at work in the field holding a
Speaker 1: long shotgun mic with a tangle of wires and big
Speaker 1: over ear HEADPHONESMI the mic has to be close to
Speaker 1: your face to get audio. No, we're driving now, on
Speaker 1: our way to my the e Cristina's house. The Cristina
Speaker 1: is actually the reason I'm working on this story. Gristina
Speaker 1: isn't technically a blood relative, but she and her entire
Speaker 1: family might as well be. Gristina and my mother have
Speaker 1: been best friends since they were young teenagers. They're both
Speaker 1: from the same border town of Eagle Pass, Texas or
Speaker 1: Igle Pass if you're a local. My mom and pretty
Speaker 1: much all of her friends grew up with their lives
Speaker 1: split across the Rio Grande. Mommy started going to school
Speaker 1: in Eagle Pass when she was in the third grade,
Speaker 1: but her family home was still on the Mexican side,
Speaker 1: in a town called Pierre's Negras Squaw.
Speaker 3: Cross the border every day to go to school every day,
Speaker 3: twice coming from and then going back.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was just it was no big deal crossing,
Speaker 3: you know. It was just like I and annoyance Cariacolla Cali.
Speaker 3: But other than that, it was like, eh, not, like
Speaker 3: now that makes such a big deal that go, Oh
Speaker 3: my god.
Speaker 1: Christina and my mom met when they were in high
Speaker 1: school and the friendship took off from there. Both women
Speaker 1: grew up falling in and out of touch until they
Speaker 1: both settled down and reconnected in San Antonio. They had
Speaker 1: children who they treated as each other's family. Dia Cristina
Speaker 1: is actually my youngest sibling's godmother. I remember visiting Dia
Speaker 1: Cristina and Dio Felix's house when I was little, hanging
Speaker 1: out with their kids. Our dads watched Spurs basketball games
Speaker 1: and our moms shared cheesemath at the kitchen table. Their
Speaker 1: bond turned out to be a lifelong one.
Speaker 3: And never got tired of her, and she never got
Speaker 3: tired of me. And she's pretty much the closest thing
Speaker 3: I have to a sister.
Speaker 1: I don't remember when my mom first told me about
Speaker 1: Christina's paternal grandfather, Ignacio a Naya. He was more commonly
Speaker 1: known as Natcho to his friends and family, Ignacio Nacho
Speaker 1: a Naya, and his story has stuck in my head
Speaker 1: ever since. How can you forget something like that? See,
Speaker 1: Gristina's grandfather is Natcho be natural a culinary inventor behind
Speaker 1: well nachos. Yeah, plot twist. It took me a second
Speaker 1: to let it sink in too. To be totally clear,
Speaker 1: the whole natural thing isn't central to Mythia's life. When
Speaker 1: I asked her for her blessing to do a story
Speaker 1: on it, well it didn't seem like that big of
Speaker 1: a deal. Just another day at brunch, you know. After
Speaker 1: a half hour drive through the San Antonio suburbs, Mammy
Speaker 1: and I arrive at Christina's house greeted by a dog,
Speaker 1: as usual, Pristina and her family have always been animal lovers.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: Hello, Christina is smiling. I haven't seen her in a
Speaker 1: few months since her daughter's wedding last March, and she
Speaker 1: gives me a big hug. She's wearing a casual navy
Speaker 1: Maxi dress, her hair pinned back away from her face,
Speaker 1: and half updo. She's always dressed nicely whenever I see her.
Speaker 1: A couple of cats linger outside, and an older boxer,
Speaker 1: Roxy is in the living room. A novela plays on
Speaker 1: the TV fun fact. Mammy and Christina were born on
Speaker 1: the same day, exactly one year apart. Both women are
Speaker 1: in their mid fifties now, and their dynamic is the
Speaker 1: result of decades of messing with each other. They both
Speaker 1: talk very fast, and they're both very funny. They're always laughing. Eventually,
Speaker 1: we sit down at Christina's dining table, squeaky clean and
Speaker 1: wrapped in a plastic cover. I set up a little
Speaker 1: mic stand for my idea. Could you just tell us
Speaker 1: just to your name, your age, and originia right now.
Speaker 7: My name is Christina Losantos and I live in San Antonio.
Speaker 7: I am one of the granddaughters of the inventor of
Speaker 7: the Nacho Signacio Naya, my grandfather, daughter of Ignacioonaya Junior.
Speaker 1: Res My Rest in Peace de los Santos is Christina's
Speaker 1: married name. Her maiden name is Anaya. I want my
Speaker 1: thea to feel comfortable in front of the mic. She
Speaker 1: hasn't been interviewed about her grandfather before, and definitely not
Speaker 1: in English. She says, her dad did some interviews years ago,
Speaker 1: but it's not like a lot of people come calling
Speaker 1: to asktianayas about Nacho. In fact, Christina had to reach
Speaker 1: out to some relatives to make sure she remembered the
Speaker 1: entire story correctly. The first thing she mentions is not work.
Speaker 1: By the time Christina was born, her grandfather already ran
Speaker 1: his own restaurant, Natcho's Restaurant in Pierre's Negres. He'd opened
Speaker 1: it after decades of working all jobs in the industry.
Speaker 1: He liked cooking and always gravitated towards the kitchen. But
Speaker 1: first and foremost, he was a businessman.
Speaker 7: He passed away when I was like eighteen seven or eight,
Speaker 7: and what I remember of him, it was just being
Speaker 7: in business all the time. I remember getting to the
Speaker 7: every day there to the restaurant.
Speaker 1: He was always busy. Natural Naya was a serious looking man,
Speaker 1: with a light gray mustache and thick dark hair that
Speaker 1: he liked to brush back. Christina always remembers him wearing
Speaker 1: a suit jacket with a button up shirt and a tie.
Speaker 1: Rarely did he wear short sleeves or t shirts out
Speaker 1: of the house.
Speaker 7: My grandfather was a really elegant man. I'm going to
Speaker 7: show you a picture.
Speaker 1: In one picture, he said, bar of his own restaurant,
Speaker 1: reclined on a stool, holding up a drink and a
Speaker 1: toast with a group of other sharp dressed men, A
Speaker 1: small smile lingers on the edge of his mouth. I
Speaker 1: had never seen these photos of Natcho until Pustina shows
Speaker 1: them to me at her dining table. Chances are that you,
Speaker 1: dear listener, haven't either, because a lot of the photos
Speaker 1: of Nacho that you can find online aren't of Natcho
Speaker 1: at all. Thenia's joke about it, but still frustrating and
Speaker 1: kind of sloppy, like the people who document and share
Speaker 1: our history didn't really care about getting the details right.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, Natcho was commemorated with a Google
Speaker 1: doodle for his one hundred and twenty fourth birthday. For
Speaker 1: a whole day, an animated drawing of a round faced
Speaker 1: man assembling Nacho's popped up on the side's homepage. But
Speaker 1: the image that came up when you looked up Ignacio Naye,
Speaker 1: that wasn't him. Guisina was surprised that no one ever
Speaker 1: reached out to the family to get a curate photos,
Speaker 1: not Google, and not any of the websites hosting images
Speaker 1: of Ignacio, And like, what the heck is this?
Speaker 7: I asked my son to can you change the picture?
Speaker 7: Can you tell them that this is not your great grandfather?
Speaker 7: And he tried, he tried, He sent them to Google
Speaker 7: and he got it to change the picture. I think
Speaker 7: it lasts a lot, even like fifteen twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: I put it back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that's a lot much.
Speaker 7: Hya.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Wikipedia at least has an accurate photo up as
Speaker 1: of this taping, and it seems like the Internet generally
Speaker 1: gets the broad strokes of Natural's story right. He was
Speaker 1: born in eighteen ninety five in Mexico in a small
Speaker 1: town named Manuel Benavides in the state of Chihuaua. It's
Speaker 1: pretty close to the border on the west side of Texas,
Speaker 1: about fifty miles from Big Bend National Park. After losing
Speaker 1: his parents at a young age, Natcho decided to move
Speaker 1: to the US when he was just a teenager, around
Speaker 1: fourteen or fifteen years old. He hopped around small towns
Speaker 1: in Texas working odd jobs landscaping, bussing, waitering, until he
Speaker 1: settled on the border in Pierre's Negres, opposite the Rio
Speaker 1: Grande from Eco Past Texas. And that's where he made
Speaker 1: history based off of how your family has like preserved
Speaker 1: the story and how you tell the story or remember
Speaker 1: it now, because you kind of walk me through the
Speaker 1: story of how the natchal was invented.
Speaker 7: Whenever someone tells the story, they always changed something on
Speaker 7: the story. That's what I've been noticing. Even they publish things,
Speaker 7: and they always change something in the story, but what
Speaker 7: I know it was that my grandfather was working at
Speaker 7: Club Victoria.
Speaker 1: Glue Victoria, that used to be a swanky restaurant right
Speaker 1: near the river at the border on the Pierre's Negra side.
Speaker 1: Natchal was a waiter there at the time. He also
Speaker 1: used to work at a nearby spot called Blue Moderno,
Speaker 1: and some write ups claim that it was that restaurant
Speaker 1: where this all went down the Anayas though insist it
Speaker 1: was Clue Victoria. The year is nineteen forty three.
Speaker 7: The story was that he was working there and what
Speaker 7: I knew that the restaurant was closing when the group
Speaker 7: of ladies he was like around ten to twelve ladies
Speaker 7: that were wives of military men and or generals at
Speaker 7: the Air Force base over there in Ego Pass and
Speaker 7: they went to visit to have dinner something in Pierrol Negas.
Speaker 2: So they show up to.
Speaker 7: The restaurant and my grandfather welcomed them in, but the
Speaker 7: chef of the place at that time he was gone.
Speaker 1: If that chef had still been in the kitchen, who
Speaker 1: knows what would or would not have happened.
Speaker 7: He was trying to, okay, what can I prefer since
Speaker 7: the kitchen was close already. They just asked, no, just
Speaker 7: not an appetizer.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 7: We don't need anything else.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 7: He went out and start cutting the tortillas, fry them,
Speaker 7: and get the cheese.
Speaker 1: The original Natural recipe has been lightly disputed over the years.
Speaker 1: Some records say Natural used Colby Longhorn cheese to create
Speaker 1: his bass. Christina, though swears it was shredded Wisconsin.
Speaker 7: And he put them in the oven and bring them
Speaker 7: to them and they loved it.
Speaker 1: That almost feels like an understatement. Naturals were a hit.
Speaker 1: The textures of the cheese and the jalapenos were just right,
Speaker 1: with an added crunch in each bite. Each to topo
Speaker 1: was compact, a self contained delivery system for flavor, and
Speaker 1: it was so convenient to share in a group.
Speaker 7: Mimi Finan, that's the lady that was with that group,
Speaker 7: and I believe she used to live She was the
Speaker 7: one that brought them over there, but I did she
Speaker 7: used to live around in Piero Neros or Eagle Pass
Speaker 7: or something. So she was the one that asked him,
Speaker 7: what is the name of these dishes up? Since we
Speaker 7: like it, he said, Ah, I don't know, I just
Speaker 7: I just did it. Right now, and I just created
Speaker 7: right now, and I don't have a name for it.
Speaker 7: So she was like, well, so what's your name. He
Speaker 7: was like, my name is Signacio Nacho, and she was
Speaker 7: the one that say we're gonna call him Nacho specials.
Speaker 1: Ignacio Naya remained in the restaurant business for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life, and he kept making nachos Clue. Victoria
Speaker 1: eventually added the dish to its menu, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, almost twenty years after creating his namesake platter,
Speaker 1: Ignacio opened up his own restaurant. It was on Avenida Caranza,
Speaker 1: the main street of Pierre Negres, just a couple of
Speaker 1: miles from the Border bridge. The Anaya family home was
Speaker 1: right next to the restaurant, connected by a door in
Speaker 1: the kitchen. When she was a little kid, Christina would
Speaker 1: go spend time at Nacho's restaurant after school. He used
Speaker 1: to have a chef.
Speaker 7: His name was Margharrito, Don Margharrito, and all my and
Speaker 7: that he was like super nice, super sweet man.
Speaker 1: Nacho had mentored Margharito since the latter was a kid.
Speaker 1: After he found the boys selling knickknacks on the street
Speaker 1: to make cash, Margharito became family NATO's right hand man.
Speaker 1: Thanks to him, Christina made her own contribution to the
Speaker 1: restaurant menu.
Speaker 7: I didn't like cheese back then, so the nachos had
Speaker 7: cheese in the round of kalapenno. And I will always
Speaker 7: say no chice on the nachos and no jalapeno's now spicy.
Speaker 7: Can you make me just the ta papos with beans?
Speaker 7: And he was like, you are you always want to
Speaker 7: change my recipes, but he will spoil me and make
Speaker 7: me my bean nachos.
Speaker 1: By the time Christina was experimenting in NATO's kitchen, Mexican
Speaker 1: restaurants all across South Texas were already offering their own
Speaker 1: takes on the dish, directly competing with her grandfather. His
Speaker 1: restaurant proudly declared itself home of the Nachos Special, but
Speaker 1: this had become bigger than that. Early on, Christina made
Speaker 1: the decision to just roll with.
Speaker 7: It, realize on that it became popular. He was, you know, yeah,
Speaker 7: whenever started getting older, probably when I was in.
Speaker 1: Middle school, high school.
Speaker 7: But he never was like something like, oh my god,
Speaker 7: this is my grandfather's invention. And I wasn't saying anything
Speaker 7: because people will say, yeah right, you know, don't believe it,
Speaker 7: so what for? So instead of telling everybody feeling like
Speaker 7: oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no I was, I better don't
Speaker 7: say anything, just enjoy it whatever.
Speaker 1: Natcho was offered the chance to take Natcho's Special to
Speaker 1: the big time by patenting the name or even starting
Speaker 1: a chain of restaurants around it. Several sources, including the NIS,
Speaker 1: corroborate that he had a small window to patent his
Speaker 1: invention and potentially profit from it in the late nineteen
Speaker 1: forties and fifties, but Nato opted not to go through
Speaker 1: the trouble. In an interview with the San Antonio Express
Speaker 1: News in nineteen sixty nine, when Nacho was already in
Speaker 1: his seventies, he said that he had no idea just
Speaker 1: how big this snack would become. For the longest time,
Speaker 1: he thought it just wasn't a bet worth making a
Speaker 1: tourdlla with cheese on it. You mean, like the kind
Speaker 1: of foodie as a kid.
Speaker 8: Really introducing Comble's new Nacho cheese souped in it turns
Speaker 8: anything not soo zippy into Nacho zippy.
Speaker 1: It's Christina's father Ignacio and Aya Junior did try to
Speaker 1: revisit the question of patents in the nineteen eighties and nineties,
Speaker 1: but it was too late. By then, Nacho's were already
Speaker 1: in the public domain.
Speaker 2: Are you missing that Taco Bells knew nachos cheese?
Speaker 9: Tried Nacho cheese doritos? Did they taste as good as
Speaker 9: they crunch?
Speaker 1: You couldn't patent it even if you tried. Nacho and
Speaker 1: his family never did directly profit off of the Nacho's
Speaker 1: widespread success. Nacho's restaurant isn't even there anymore. Nacho died
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five, but his invention would live on,
Speaker 1: and just a year after his passing, one savvy San
Speaker 1: Antonio based entrepreneur would take Nachos to the big leagues.
Speaker 2: Coming up on Latino Usa.
Speaker 5: Nachos take the world by storm, but their skyrocketing popularity obscures.
Speaker 2: The Nachos real origin story.
Speaker 5: Stay with us, Yes, hey, We're back. In nineteen forty three,
Speaker 5: Ignacio Nacho Anaya invented his namesake dish in the Mexican
Speaker 5: border town of Piedras Negras, Guauila. When we left off,
Speaker 5: Nachos had already become a popular appetizer dish all over
Speaker 5: South Texas. But nachos would become even bigger than their
Speaker 5: inventor ever anticipated, thanks to an enterprising concession's food business
Speaker 5: headquartered less than two hundred miles away in San Antonio.
Speaker 5: So here's producer Alejandra Salasad with the rest of the story.
Speaker 1: It's the turn of the twentieth century. An Italian boy
Speaker 1: from a small Sicilian province moves to the United States.
Speaker 1: He's fourteen years old and alone, arriving in New Orleans
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety, decides to build a life in this
Speaker 1: land of opportunity. He opens a grocery store. He gets
Speaker 1: married and starts a family. They moved to Texas in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds, eventually permanently relocating to San Antonio.
Speaker 1: The grocery business comes with them, now renamed after the family,
Speaker 1: Liberto Market and Grocery One. Liberto son Enrico inherits the business,
Speaker 1: and in the decades that follow the store shifts its
Speaker 1: focus to selling concessions roasted peanuts and popcorn, candy and bulk,
Speaker 1: and Rico trains his son Frank to take over next.
Speaker 6: My grand parents had my dad and they're like only child.
Speaker 6: That's it.
Speaker 8: So my dad got to take the business over by himself.
Speaker 8: He didn't have any brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: This is Tony Liberto. He's the fourth generation to run
Speaker 1: the family business. The company, though, isn't called Libertos anymore.
Speaker 1: In this story about namesakes and nicknames, Frank eventually renamed
Speaker 1: the company after his father, Rico Rico Rico's Products Company.
Speaker 1: As the company's current president and CEO, Tony oversees a
Speaker 1: business that has expanded to all fifty states in the
Speaker 1: US and fifty seven countries worldwide. You've probably seen their
Speaker 1: products at movie theaters and stadiums. They're even selling their
Speaker 1: snacks in grocery stores now.
Speaker 8: When it started from my great grandfather, and then you
Speaker 8: know a few years ago, we have business in Dubai,
Speaker 8: we have a business in Korea. And when I fly
Speaker 8: over there and I see those products on the shelf
Speaker 8: in those countries, and then I sit back and think
Speaker 8: about my grandfather at fourteen came over here.
Speaker 6: Just gives you chills.
Speaker 1: Rico's growth really took off under Tony's dad, Frank Liberto.
Speaker 1: The way Tony tells it, Frank was a concession's visionary.
Speaker 1: He expanded the business across Texas to movie theaters and
Speaker 1: select stadiums in Dallas. In Houston big gets, but his
Speaker 1: biggest move came to fruition in his hometown.
Speaker 8: He to a restaurant here in San Antonio called Metta.
Speaker 8: This is in the early I guess seventy three, seventy four,
Speaker 8: and he ordered nachos and he's like, man, this is
Speaker 8: a good thing. If I could figure out a way
Speaker 8: to sell nachos in a concession stand, we could probably
Speaker 8: make some money.
Speaker 1: Nacho's original formula and the elegant simplicity of it to topos,
Speaker 1: melted cheese and jalapago convinced Frank to make his own
Speaker 1: version of the dish, one that could be sold on
Speaker 1: a mass scale. He made deals with the riet chip
Speaker 1: producers and jalapeno growers in Mexico. He found a company
Speaker 1: that made cheese sauce, and in nineteen seventy six, Frank
Speaker 1: called up Arlington Stadium, where the Texas Rangers used to play.
Speaker 1: He convinced them to let him debut his new concoction
Speaker 1: at a baseball game. Frank and his family made little
Speaker 1: carts to sell the nachos tables with red and white
Speaker 1: stripes running down the sides.
Speaker 8: We built nine carts, and I was in high school
Speaker 8: and I was making these carts with him, and we
Speaker 8: put him up there and it went off like wildfire.
Speaker 8: People were standing in line, ten people deep in the
Speaker 8: concessions this little cart, and you'd hear the crack of
Speaker 8: the bat, you hear the stadium roar, and nobody would
Speaker 8: leave the line.
Speaker 6: They wanted to get some nachos.
Speaker 1: Nachos spread fast. Within a year, Rico's set up shop
Speaker 1: in Texas Stadium, then home to the Dallas Cowboys football team.
Speaker 1: On September fourth, nineteen seventy eight, Hot Shot Monday night
Speaker 1: football commentator Howard Cosell gave nachos his approval on a
Speaker 1: live broadcast, which boosted interest and sales.
Speaker 8: Then the movies came calling, and Dad said, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 8: this is a stadium item.
Speaker 6: You have velvet seats, you have carpeting.
Speaker 8: You're going to be calling me and telling me I
Speaker 8: got to clean your theaters because you've got stains all
Speaker 8: over your seats.
Speaker 1: But Frank's concerns were drowned out by the wide demand
Speaker 1: for nachos across the country. People could not get enough.
Speaker 1: By nineteen eighty, just four years after making their stadium,
Speaker 1: dabut You, nachos had already become a popular theater concession,
Speaker 1: along with heavy hitters like popcorn, hot dogs, and soda.
Speaker 8: So then we put it in you not a artists
Speaker 8: theaters who now is regal theaters and then other theaters
Speaker 8: General Cinema AMC. At one point we had about nine
Speaker 8: eighty five percent of the theater chains across the United
Speaker 8: States using our product.
Speaker 1: What Ricos did with nachos isn't just a matter of
Speaker 1: market dominance. The concession nacho is a cultural force. There's
Speaker 1: a sizable chance that you, the person listening to this,
Speaker 1: know what nachos are because of Ricos.
Speaker 2: Hi, folks, I'm Rico.
Speaker 9: Oh he's peppy.
Speaker 2: See. You can find us at the concession stand, in.
Speaker 1: All the fig round dortilla chips, the unsettlingly artificial yellow
Speaker 1: cheese sauce, the concept of nacho cheese existing separate from cheese.
Speaker 1: That's all things to Ricos. Remember, folks, we are the
Speaker 1: new star at the snackbar KOs nachos. Would I tell people, O, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm doing sure with the nachos they have like a
Speaker 1: vivid idea of the nacho in their mind, which is
Speaker 1: the repos right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, because if you think about it, they're experiencing
Speaker 8: our product. And Dad always said, you know, as a
Speaker 8: concessionaire is someone who sells product, food and beverage to
Speaker 8: people who didn't come to his place to buy food
Speaker 8: and beverage. They went there to watch a ballgame or
Speaker 8: movie or you know, basketball game, but the food and
Speaker 8: beverage experience was part of it.
Speaker 6: So it's kind of a nostalgia thing.
Speaker 1: How did nachos end up at so many formative movie
Speaker 1: or sports events of our youth? The most obvious answer
Speaker 1: is that they're tasty. No one is going to say
Speaker 1: no to cheese flavor and salty corn chips. But nachos
Speaker 1: were an extraordinary business opportunity for Ricos. Frank didn't invent
Speaker 1: the foundational flavor combination or even the concept of nachos.
Speaker 1: What he invented was essentially a hyper efficient delivery system
Speaker 1: mind for an environment where people are naturally very short
Speaker 1: on time.
Speaker 8: Dad knew that concession sells is about transaction time. Grab
Speaker 8: the chips, hand to the next person, ladle the cheese
Speaker 8: over it, bill the peppers, on and collect the cash
Speaker 8: so you could serve somebody in about fifteen seconds.
Speaker 1: Nachos became a dream for vendors bottom lines, a way
Speaker 1: to make the most bang for your buck. Start with
Speaker 1: the cheese sauce. At the time, real cheese would go
Speaker 1: bad too quickly behind a concession stand, and it was
Speaker 1: too tricky to measure and melt fast. The trick was
Speaker 1: to emulsify US cheese, concentrate and mix that with water
Speaker 1: and juice left over from cannedarrabagos. That was part of
Speaker 1: the brilliance of frank small park nachos. Every bit of
Speaker 1: the ingredients went to use. Rico's still uses a similar
Speaker 1: formula for their package Nacho Cheese today. Today nachos are
Speaker 1: Rico's top selling item. On average, the company sells nearly
Speaker 1: one hundred million pounds of cheese sauce per year. Early on,
Speaker 1: in reporting this story, I noticed some similarities between Nacho's
Speaker 1: Nachos and Rico's nachos. They share immigrant roots, and they've
Speaker 1: both become smash hits in the US. Yet ever since
Speaker 1: the beginning, they've served distinct purposes. One was a strike
Speaker 1: of lightning, the other a shrewd business call. So it
Speaker 1: makes sense that everyone I spoke to for this story,
Speaker 1: including and especially Ricos, emphasized that what Ricos sells are
Speaker 1: not the original nachos. This is not what Natchoa and
Speaker 1: Naya invented.
Speaker 8: Dad never claimed that he started nachos. He always claimed
Speaker 8: he originated the concession nacho, which he did the ballpark nacho.
Speaker 1: And Toni says that Ricos has always deferred to Ignacio
Speaker 1: and Naya as the creator of this dish. Still, they've
Speaker 1: gotten some blowback about it before, and they probably will
Speaker 1: after this story airs too.
Speaker 6: People have kind of.
Speaker 8: Called us out on our website, So, you guys didn't
Speaker 8: originate the nacho. It was originated by the Ania family,
Speaker 8: and we politely say, we know, you know, we're not
Speaker 8: claiming that we originated this actual dish.
Speaker 1: While nachos are now mass produced concession items, they also
Speaker 1: continue to be served as Nacho created them, freshly made
Speaker 1: straight from the kitchen. Many Mexican restaurants in the US
Speaker 1: offer nachos as a staple appetizer that you sit down
Speaker 1: to enjoy. For example, remember Mitierre, that San Antonio restaurant
Speaker 1: or Frank Roberto first tried nachos the restaurant still sells
Speaker 1: them today too, piping hot with cheese melted over a
Speaker 1: layer of brief fried beans. Yet the fact remains that
Speaker 1: Ricos and the Libertos built an empire off of nachos,
Speaker 1: and the man who conceptualized the Nacho and his family didn't.
Speaker 1: Nacho's restaurant struggled to stay afloat after his death, eventually
Speaker 1: shuddering for good in the nineties. Unlike Rico's, there's no
Speaker 1: beautiful office in prime downtown San Antonio. For the anis
Speaker 1: no millions of dollars in natural sales. Ricos couldn't patent
Speaker 1: their product either, but they do hold valuable registered trademarks
Speaker 1: on their cheese, sauce and other items. So how does
Speaker 1: that square.
Speaker 8: If they could have patented, they would have all been
Speaker 8: very very happy with that for sure, And people can
Speaker 8: take that concept. You know, other restaurants here can take
Speaker 8: that concept and do the same thing. So it's the
Speaker 8: fact that they couldn't patent it, I think is where
Speaker 8: way they could benefit as a serve it to as
Speaker 8: many notch of restaurants as they could. But we as
Speaker 8: a company are serving too, you know, large national chains
Speaker 8: and there's a lot more volume. I guess you're obviously
Speaker 8: going to see more sales in that environment. But since
Speaker 8: you know Ignacio couldn't patent it, I mean, I don't
Speaker 8: know how else they could have benefited.
Speaker 6: You know, it's a food product.
Speaker 1: Have there been any efforts to kind of retouch them
Speaker 1: or to work with.
Speaker 6: Them or no?
Speaker 8: But you just thought, just give me goosebumps, babe. We should,
Speaker 8: you know, try to get back together and you know,
Speaker 8: have recognition together for what our families and our forefathers
Speaker 8: have done for us.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that would be neat.
Speaker 1: From what both Tony and the Anayas can remember. The
Speaker 1: last time their families interacted was back in the seventies,
Speaker 1: right when Frank Liberto was poised to debut the concession Nacho.
Speaker 1: He went down to Eagle Pass to speak with Ignascio
Speaker 1: and Aya Junior, Gisina's father. Both men have passed away
Speaker 1: since nobody I could speak to knows what was said
Speaker 1: or agreed to in that meeting.
Speaker 9: The story of the Nacho is really a story of
Speaker 9: the loss of an apostrophe. It's Nachos Special and that's
Speaker 9: the original name, and it continued to be called Nacho
Speaker 9: Special there, but over time the agency of NATCHO was erased.
Speaker 1: Adan Midrano is a chef and food writer. A born
Speaker 1: in Reisdejano from San Antonio's West Side, Adan is dedicated
Speaker 1: to preserving and elevating the cuisines of Texas Mexican communities,
Speaker 1: the food of South Texas and Northern Mexican regions, which
Speaker 1: have a shared culinary history that reaches back centuries before
Speaker 1: the US Mexico border was ever established. Just to be clear,
Speaker 1: Texas Mexican food isn't an extended term for tex mechs,
Speaker 1: which is a wholly separate thing, an adaptation of Mexican
Speaker 1: food by white settlers in Texas in the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Though tex mechs does represent what happens to a lot
Speaker 1: of Mexican cuisine in the US.
Speaker 9: They simply took it upon themselves to call tex mechs
Speaker 9: the real thing, even though it's an appropriation of our food.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what happened with nachos two. In
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, Adan published his cookbook Don't Count the Tortillas,
Speaker 1: The Art of Texas Mexican Cooking. It is his latest
Speaker 1: effort to reclaim the region's culinary history from misinformed authors,
Speaker 1: many of whom are often white or possess little understanding
Speaker 1: of the region.
Speaker 9: In my book, I make reference to the Huffington Post
Speaker 9: story that says that the nacho was born because there
Speaker 9: was no chef and a waiter just threw things together.
Speaker 9: This is how food writers have erased the voice of
Speaker 9: our culinarians and the agency. By agency, I mean the
Speaker 9: creative power that we have to create beautiful food.
Speaker 1: Over time, nachos have become part of a pantheon of
Speaker 1: quote unquote American foods. In many ways, its origin story
Speaker 1: has been eclipsed, flattened down, and swallowed whole by American
Speaker 1: myth making. To create his dish, Natcho had to draw
Speaker 1: from the culinary history of the US Mexico borderlands. He
Speaker 1: worked on the fly, Yes, but it wasn't at random,
Speaker 1: pairing corn, tortillas and cheese with some chile for heat.
Speaker 1: That was a deliberate choice, inspired by the gesadillas and
Speaker 1: salsas of his youth. It's an instinct that comes from
Speaker 1: inherited culinary knowledge and a lifetime of eating the specific
Speaker 1: foods and flavors of your people. In the case of Texas,
Speaker 1: Mexican cuisine, which isn't typically taught in formal classroom settings.
Speaker 1: A lot of this food is archived by home cooks,
Speaker 1: often women, and passed down between generations at the dinner table.
Speaker 1: These are the kinds of details that avan worries will
Speaker 1: get lost if local histories are not properly documented.
Speaker 9: Food narrates our history and also narrates our identity. When
Speaker 9: my mom hands me and I'm four or five years old,
Speaker 9: the tortilla beautifully done in the traditional way, that's the
Speaker 9: memory of our history and of our ancestry. That's how
Speaker 9: food it works. For example, in Ninchilada, everything about in
Speaker 9: Ninchilada speaks to our ancestry, our ancestry as indigenous people,
Speaker 9: the corn being indigenous, the salt being indigenous, and the
Speaker 9: chilis this is the original esthetic. So every time that
Speaker 9: I eat and make this in Chilada, I'm reaching back
Speaker 9: into history to our indigenous character.
Speaker 1: A dish like the modern day in Chilava also nods
Speaker 1: to the introduction of European colonists in Mexico, cheese being
Speaker 1: a quote unquote old World food brought over in the
Speaker 1: years following the violent conquest of Latin America, but in
Speaker 1: taking a foreign ingredient like cheese, producing it with regional
Speaker 1: materials and resources, and combining it with indigenous staples to
Speaker 1: make now classic recipes. Mexican cooks created a new culinary
Speaker 1: language unique to them in creating natural special That's a
Speaker 1: legacy that Ignacio and Naya contributed to as well. It's
Speaker 1: a big reason why Avan is especially fascinated by naturale.
Speaker 1: The dish provides an avenue to excavate the histories of
Speaker 1: the region, from the lasting impact of colonialism up to
Speaker 1: today's fraught immigration politics. After all, as the borderland creation,
Speaker 1: nachos are a glaring reminder that political divides our artifice.
Speaker 1: In this way, An argues, food is a more honest
Speaker 1: guide than any map could ever be.
Speaker 9: It's the power of food and our gathering in family
Speaker 9: and in community that have maintained our cohesiveness and the
Speaker 9: coherence of who we are, and that our ancestry goes
Speaker 9: back ten thousand years on this land, this Texas land.
Speaker 9: When you say nachos cannot be explained by because they
Speaker 9: came over from Mexico, nor can they be explained that
Speaker 9: they were born in the United States. They can only
Speaker 9: be explained by understanding that region as a landscape. Food
Speaker 9: does not have nationality. Food has roots, and so worldview
Speaker 9: that people have that Mexicans came over and they're all
Speaker 9: immigrants is simply put into crisis when you go into
Speaker 9: the origins and the beauty of the Nacho's special dish.
Speaker 1: I'm back with my mother at the Cristina's house. This
Speaker 1: time Christina invited her sister Marcella over. Marcella's daughter and
Speaker 1: grandchildren are here. Calisi and the dogs are back as well.
Speaker 1: We sit down again and early on I mentioned that
Speaker 1: I've spoken with folks from Ricos. Both women looked surprised
Speaker 1: that I went to them for a story about nachos,
Speaker 1: and Marcella loves.
Speaker 7: No those are fake, it's another kind of.
Speaker 1: Those are snacks. This is an appetizer. Marcella came out
Speaker 1: to talk about Nacho's nachos. She actually brought a large
Speaker 1: children's picture book with her called Well Nachos Nachos. It
Speaker 1: was published in twenty twenty by an author named Sandra Nicol.
Speaker 1: She was the first person to reach out to the
Speaker 1: Anayas in years, even traveling to Texas to meet some
Speaker 1: of the family. He lives in Switzerland, oh Switzerland.
Speaker 4: Yeahno, yes, I was texting with her in Nasala comported.
Speaker 1: Marcella is fifty nine, a couple of years Christina Senior.
Speaker 1: As Ignacio Andaya Junior's second oldest child. Marcella has a
Speaker 1: few more memories of her grandfather than Christina does.
Speaker 4: That's the only game my grandfather played with us, Lotteria
Speaker 4: this because we used to play Guyina and Coyote, and
Speaker 4: I can remember how that game goes.
Speaker 2: But he just liked to.
Speaker 4: Sitting beside him watching us play. One time, he paints
Speaker 4: he's here, and he comes out red. He's here, He's here,
Speaker 4: And instead of getting mad, he went out and looked
Speaker 4: for friends and he started making faces and just showing
Speaker 4: his hair, his red hair. See, he was so funny.
Speaker 1: Nachos des Sentences have made peace with the way things
Speaker 1: went down, with the natos global success and with their
Speaker 1: grandfather's decision to not capitalize on his.
Speaker 7: Invention, because if the inventor of the nachos, they didn't
Speaker 7: do anything about it, like why will you?
Speaker 1: Even if sometimes it still stinks. At one point, De
Speaker 1: Christina and mars Last start discussing it with my mom.
Speaker 10: Better Better.
Speaker 1: For the most part, though, they don't dwell on it,
Speaker 1: and they don't want to dwell on it wasting time
Speaker 1: and energy on this. And even if there had been
Speaker 1: any sort of natural related windfall, they think it would
Speaker 1: be kind of a logistical nightmare. Today, Natcho had nine kids,
Speaker 1: plenty more grandkids, and now great and great great grandchildren
Speaker 1: are in the picture too. Christina and Marcella do not
Speaker 1: like thinking about the chaos that would have ensued within
Speaker 1: the family if their grandfather had decided to patent his dish,
Speaker 1: or if he decided to create some sort of national
Speaker 1: fast food chain like a Mexican Colonel Sanders KFC, but
Speaker 1: for nachos. Instead, his family got to build their own
Speaker 1: lives outside of the shadow of Nata, so special, instead
Speaker 1: of getting wrapped up in their patriarch's legacy, they were
Speaker 1: free to create their own. A lot of that freedom, too,
Speaker 1: was a direct result of the work Nato himself put
Speaker 1: in to support his family, to provide them the kind
Speaker 1: of stability that precludes opportunity. So what can the an
Speaker 1: Ayas do now, really except make sure NATO's story isn't lost,
Speaker 1: Except make sure that people know the truth. And it
Speaker 1: really is a tremendous storymentar sisupiras, if only you knew?
Speaker 6: And that was.
Speaker 1: Every year since nineteen ninety five, typically in October there's
Speaker 1: been a festival in Pierre's Negres in honor of nachos.
Speaker 1: And yet Ignacio and Aya wasn't out to make history.
Speaker 1: He enjoyed his job well enough, but all said and done,
Speaker 1: it was a means to an end. He always liked.
Speaker 7: To cook since little and probably that's why he always
Speaker 7: had in his mind like opening in one day his
Speaker 7: own place. But I mean to support his family maybe too.
Speaker 7: I mean nine kids, it's a lot.
Speaker 1: Some of those kids went on to have their own families.
Speaker 1: They came to the United States and created stable lives
Speaker 1: on this side of the border. Today, the Anayas, both
Speaker 1: in the US and in Mexico, remain close. Christina still
Speaker 1: goes down to the border twice a month to visit
Speaker 1: relatives there. The family is growing and happy. And what
Speaker 1: greater legacy can one have than this? How does the
Speaker 1: story make you feel so proud of my grandpa?
Speaker 2: So proud of him?
Speaker 7: I feel proud, Yeah for him. I really thank everybody
Speaker 7: for recognizing him. Yeah, it's just a nice feeling, A
Speaker 7: nice feeling.
Speaker 5: This episode was produced by Alejandra Salasad and edited by
Speaker 5: Andrea Lopez Cruzado.
Speaker 2: It was mixed by j J. Carubin.
Speaker 5: Fact checking for this episode by Elizabeth Loezo Torres special
Speaker 5: thanks to Malena Salasad and Ricardo Miguel Salasa. The Latino
Speaker 5: USA team includes Julia Caruso, Jessica Elis, Victoria Strada, Dominique
Speaker 5: In Estrosa Rinaldo Leans Junior, Stephanie LAbau, Louis Luna Rodiman, Martuez,
Speaker 5: Martin Martinez, Nor Saudi and Nancy Drujillo. Beni Lei Amidez
Speaker 5: is our co executive producer, along with myself and I'm
Speaker 5: your host Mardiano Rosa. Join us on our next episode
Speaker 5: and remember to see us and look for us on
Speaker 5: all of your social media.
Speaker 2: I'll see you there. Yes, that approximate.
Speaker 10: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Ford Foundation,
Speaker 10: working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide,
Speaker 10: the John D.
Speaker 1: And Catherine T.
Speaker 10: MacArthur Foundation, and the Heising Simons Foundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity
Speaker 10: and possibilities more at hsfoundation dot org.
Speaker 1: How often have you guys been interviewed about NATCHO like