Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Salsa Cast. This is josh On
Speaker 1: Chuck on tomato, He's onion. Jerry's the chili here and
Speaker 1: you put us together, Chop us up, put us in
Speaker 1: a blender, squish us under your armpit, let us drip
Speaker 1: down the side of your chest, indo a bowl. Then
Speaker 1: you've got stuff you should know.
Speaker 2: Just two guys trying to recapture the.
Speaker 1: Match that's that's been irretrievably lost forever.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Salsa, right, Yeah, people like to say salsa.
Speaker 1: I'm glad somebody said that to get it out of
Speaker 1: the way. I feel like we would have gotten in
Speaker 1: trouble had we not actually said it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now we can just move on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's move on because salsa, of course, what we're
Speaker 1: talking about is the stuff that comes in and jar
Speaker 1: at the grocery store that's loaded with high freakdase corn
Speaker 1: syrup that you put on to tortillas and shovel in
Speaker 1: your mouth, and just as Mexicans have done for thousands
Speaker 1: of years.
Speaker 2: Yes, not always, if there's plenty out there that aren't
Speaker 2: loaded with highproot dust cornsrup, but you know a lot
Speaker 2: of the big jarred stuff that you find in a
Speaker 2: little silver caddy right beside the chips. Yes, a lot
Speaker 2: of that stuff is so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of the stuff in the jark has
Speaker 1: gotten good in recent years. And you can actually thank
Speaker 1: the the I don't want to say cheap stuff, the
Speaker 1: more generic super American versions, yes, for laying the groundwork
Speaker 1: for those better versions to come.
Speaker 2: Sure, but what we're doing is just talking about that
Speaker 2: that thing that you dip your chip in, that that
Speaker 2: we love, that had a that's still very popular, but
Speaker 2: that got very, very famous in the late eighties and
Speaker 2: nineties as sort of America's new favorite condiment, out selling
Speaker 2: Ketchup very famously in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: And then it overtook cats Up in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: That's right, and we're gonna talk all about salsa. This
Speaker 2: is a Dave Ruse joint, and Dave helped us out
Speaker 2: with this, and he found somebody I don't even know
Speaker 2: who this was. He just describes him as a Mexican
Speaker 2: college student who said, watch watching someone shovel salsa with
Speaker 2: a tortilla chip is strange to Mexicans, Like how an
Speaker 2: American would feel watching someone drink salad dressing out of
Speaker 2: a bottle. I do take issue a little bit. I
Speaker 2: get the point, but I think that would be an
Speaker 2: appropriate thing to say if we were just eating it
Speaker 2: out of the jar, like shoveling it like directly like
Speaker 2: a drink into our mouth. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I do. But the point this guy's making, and I
Speaker 1: was being a troll earlier when I was saying that
Speaker 1: it was authentic just like Mexicans, do you eating salsa
Speaker 1: with chips is thoroughly American? Yeah, And if you go
Speaker 1: to Mexico, they don't serve chips in salsa, because maybe
Speaker 1: a better analogy you would be like if you went
Speaker 1: to Mexico and they served well chips and ketchup. Okay,
Speaker 1: how about that. That's a very direct analogy.
Speaker 2: Although I will say I have been to some super great,
Speaker 2: authentic places in Mexico City that would give you the
Speaker 2: house specialty salsa with the large handmade tostadas and you
Speaker 2: know they're handmade because they're all they're weird, irregularly shaped,
Speaker 2: and you know they put like five or six of
Speaker 2: those in a big wooden bowl and you can kind
Speaker 2: of break those apart and eat them with your salsa.
Speaker 2: I've seen that plenty of times.
Speaker 1: Yes, had you looked around at that restaurant in Mexico City,
Speaker 1: you would have noticed that you were the only one
Speaker 1: who was served that, and it was because you were
Speaker 1: wearing your American flag tank top.
Speaker 2: Not true, my friend, it's on the menu.
Speaker 1: Mexico City is pretty great.
Speaker 2: Huh, it's the best.
Speaker 1: I think we talked about it recently, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about it when I got home, and
Speaker 2: then since I went on that trip, you went on
Speaker 2: a trip, and you had already been there before anyway,
Speaker 2: But yeah, we got to you know, Reminisce a bit together.
Speaker 1: I remember it was the brutalism episode that we talked
Speaker 1: about my trip too. Yeah, probably that was great anyway. Yes,
Speaker 1: Mexico City's wonderful. If you can make it down there
Speaker 1: or over there up there, you should.
Speaker 2: But should we talk about the origins of salsa?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because again, let's just spell this out. Salsa in
Speaker 1: Mexico is a condiment.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, I think that's pretty clear.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure. Yes, let's go on
Speaker 1: to the origins.
Speaker 2: That is the stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Way though, we overstating something five times.
Speaker 2: Just to get out the hammer, beat people over the
Speaker 2: head with it.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the josh from stuff you shoul
Speaker 1: in no way at least Well.
Speaker 2: People are busy when they're listening, so you never know.
Speaker 2: It might take that third or fourth mention. They'd be like, Wow,
Speaker 2: I was washing dishes and I didn't even hear until
Speaker 2: that last one.
Speaker 1: Thanks Chuck. That's very supportive of you. I was thinking,
Speaker 1: you know something we could do, yeah, is if we
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that somebody got the point we're
Speaker 1: trying to make, to make sure they're paying attention, we
Speaker 1: could just say something like beep right, and then insert
Speaker 1: the fact that we're trying to get across so they'll
Speaker 1: really pay attention.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. So if you want to
Speaker 2: go back to the origins of salsa, you would have
Speaker 2: to go back thousands of years in meso America, because
Speaker 2: in Central and South America they really loved to grow
Speaker 2: chilies and tomatoes, and you put chilies and tomatoes together,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have some kind of a salsa.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, that's essentially the basic ingredients for salca.
Speaker 1: You could make those. You can make a salsa with
Speaker 1: just those two things.
Speaker 2: Really could, and people do.
Speaker 1: Some people do, Yeah, although over the years people have
Speaker 1: added to it more and more. But yeah, as far
Speaker 1: back as about nine ten thousand years ago, people were
Speaker 1: making something similar to salsa like we would recognize it
Speaker 1: as salsa today, and it just kept getting more and
Speaker 1: more and more advanced and more expansive. Right at a
Speaker 1: few thousand years of tinkering, something's going to get a
Speaker 1: little more advanced, and sauce is no different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. The first person that we found that
Speaker 2: has kind of written about this was a Franciscan priest
Speaker 2: named Bernardino D. Sagan. I have no idea how to
Speaker 2: pronounce it. Sahagan, Sahagan s a h g u n.
Speaker 2: There was a record He wrote a lot about the
Speaker 2: Aztec culture, and specifically in his Florentine codex, wrote about
Speaker 2: a sauce in a food market, or different kinds of
Speaker 2: sauces in a food market. To Nochi Slane, it's probably
Speaker 2: not right either, but I'll just read through some of
Speaker 2: this as a quote. Hot sauces, sauces with juices, shredded food,
Speaker 2: with chili, with squash, seeds, with tomatoes, with smoked chili
Speaker 2: with hot chili, with yellow chili with mild red chili sauce,
Speaker 2: yellow chili sauce, hot chili sauce, bird excrement sauce, sauce
Speaker 2: of smoked chili, heated sauces, bean sauce, toasted beans, cooked beans,
Speaker 2: mushroom sauce. You get the idea O going. You have
Speaker 2: to find Oh, okay, why not sauce of small squash,
Speaker 2: sauce of large tomatoes, sauce of ordinary tomatoes, sauce of
Speaker 2: various kinds of sour herbs, avocado sauce, end quote.
Speaker 1: Shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo.
Speaker 2: That's exact sandwich what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: That's about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's talking about sausa there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very clearly. And again this stuff had been
Speaker 1: around for thousands of years, and they were just selling
Speaker 1: it like it was nothing. Because it was nothing because
Speaker 1: in Mexico, salsa is a condiment.
Speaker 2: That's right, traditionally prepared in the Aztecs. And still you'll
Speaker 2: see these today, and in fact, I have one in
Speaker 2: my kitchen. I think you do too, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also have a masa maker that you got
Speaker 1: me as well.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right. A moca heete is a lava rock
Speaker 2: mortar and pestle. They're very very heavy. If you get
Speaker 2: like a real deal one. I can recommend this as
Speaker 2: a gift like a housewarming gift to someone, apartment warming gift,
Speaker 2: Like you can spend like fifty to seventy bucks on
Speaker 2: like a really really nice, heavy duty, real deal mocha hete.
Speaker 2: And it's a great gift for someone because when you
Speaker 2: pull this thing out at a dinner party and you're
Speaker 2: grinding the either salsa together table side or if you're
Speaker 2: making some guacamole table side, it's a really kind of fancy,
Speaker 2: fun thing to do. Not fancy but fun.
Speaker 1: It really warms whatever structure you're trying to warm.
Speaker 2: Agreed.
Speaker 1: So the chili so tomato, we need to make sure
Speaker 1: everybody knows that tomato is indigenous to Mesoamerica, right, I
Speaker 1: think you kind of intimato that earlier.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: Same with Chili's and when the Colombian exchange began. Specifically,
Speaker 1: when Christopher Columbus tried Chili's for the first time, he
Speaker 1: compared them to black pepper because that was probably the
Speaker 1: spiciest thing you'd ever tasted in his life, and in Spanish,
Speaker 1: you call that pimento, And so that's why in English
Speaker 1: we call chili's peppers. But really chili is a noatla word.
Speaker 1: I think cheese chili. Yeah, and then they switched the
Speaker 1: eye to an e and here we go. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've never heard the word pepper said by
Speaker 2: people from Mexico. Maybe they do, but I've always just
Speaker 2: heard them called chilies. Sure, because you know, Christopher Columbus
Speaker 2: got it wrong, got it other thing wrong.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Who'd have thought.
Speaker 2: The word sasa was already a word in Spanish. It
Speaker 2: was a generic word for sauce. And I think it
Speaker 2: was a Spanish priest in a dictionary published in fifteen
Speaker 2: seventy one that actually put that in the dictionary in
Speaker 2: Aztec style tomade a chili condiment listed as sasa in
Speaker 2: that sixteenth century dictionary.
Speaker 1: Case closed. I think that's taking a break time if
Speaker 1: you ask.
Speaker 2: Me, oh, sure, let's do it.
Speaker 1: You want to it?
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So it's not like salsa was an immediate hit over
Speaker 1: in Europe. First of all, Christopher Columbus had misdirected everybody,
Speaker 1: and they thought it was basically like black pepper. The
Speaker 1: chilis I should say were. But the bigger problem was
Speaker 1: that people in Europe, and I swear we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before, people in Europe initially thought tomatoes were a
Speaker 1: deadly part of the night shade family. Yeah, you did
Speaker 1: not want to eat a tomato. It was toxic, at
Speaker 1: the very least potentially deadly combined with something that was
Speaker 1: kind of like black pepper. Why would you ever want
Speaker 1: to eat something like that? But slowly, but surely, about
Speaker 1: almost seventeen hundreds, a guy named Antonio Latini became the
Speaker 1: first person to write down a recipe for what you
Speaker 1: would recognize as salsa, even though he called it Spanish
Speaker 1: style tomato sauce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess he was Italian, and so they were
Speaker 2: just liking it too, like regular tomato sauce.
Speaker 1: Maybe, I think so, because the basis of it is
Speaker 1: pretty much tomatoes, but it has everything else, like you
Speaker 1: would want chili, peppers, onions, thyme, which is I guess
Speaker 1: the traditional ingredient found outside of Mexico for salsa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but combining the hot chilies with the tomato, I
Speaker 2: think you also threw in their salt, oil and vinegar.
Speaker 2: And at the very end of this recipe, little gross
Speaker 2: that says it is a very tasty sauce, both for
Speaker 2: boiled dishes or anything else. Boiled dishes, boiled bacon.
Speaker 1: Oh God, do you remember that Better Off Dead?
Speaker 2: Uh? No, I don't remember that.
Speaker 1: His mom boiled boiled the mom and a Jonky's X
Speaker 1: mom boiled everything. And at one point she's serving bacon
Speaker 1: and it's boiled in like this kind of weird light
Speaker 1: green whitish colors. It's really good. Pot.
Speaker 2: I remember her making a that was a weird part
Speaker 2: of that movie that everything she made was strange.
Speaker 1: French fries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good stuff. So the other way that the
Speaker 2: Coleman Exchange worked, obviously, was things in Europe were introduced
Speaker 2: to the New World and all of a sudden, things
Speaker 2: like onion would come along or although they did have
Speaker 2: wild onion is indigenous to North America, but garlic cilantro,
Speaker 2: believe it or not, not indigenous to North America, coomen nuts,
Speaker 2: all these kind of unique vegetable oils and animal fats
Speaker 2: that comes Mexico's way, and they're like, oh, we know
Speaker 2: just how to use this, so thank you for introducing
Speaker 2: us to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was weird. If you look around the Internet,
Speaker 1: you'll see that some people claim that animal fats and
Speaker 1: vegetable oils are not indigenous to Mesoamerica. And of course
Speaker 1: they are, because there's animals walking around that have fat,
Speaker 1: and there's vegetables there that have fat. Yeah, but apparently
Speaker 1: they did not make great use of this stuff, Like
Speaker 1: they didn't use fats very often. They usually charred stuff
Speaker 1: or grilled it or boiled it. They and then they
Speaker 1: would add like salsa fat free salsa as like the
Speaker 1: condiment to it. But yeah, I found that kind of
Speaker 1: mind blowing because if you saw them, think about it,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of Mexican food, like actual authentic Mexican
Speaker 1: food that does isn't fatty at all. It's just kind
Speaker 1: of charred with a sauce. Yeah, that has no fat too.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I just never thought about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you said a key thing there too, which
Speaker 2: we should mention, which is fat free. That's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons sausa became so big in the eighties and
Speaker 2: nineties because that was during the golden age of everything
Speaker 2: must be fat free. So salsa was like, you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't some some some fatty condiment. There were no
Speaker 2: fatty condiments really or were there now that I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1: It, chunky style, fatty continent?
Speaker 2: Oh god, So now we're to talk about a couple
Speaker 2: of other sauces and that sounds like something from like
Speaker 2: a future movie or something.
Speaker 1: Remember like the beer that just it's white, It's just
Speaker 1: all white. Can it just says beer in like a
Speaker 1: thick black font.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they had that in La on my first
Speaker 2: visit years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got me a can of it?
Speaker 2: Did I really?
Speaker 1: Did I send you a can of it? Yeah? So
Speaker 1: that's exactly what that label would look like.
Speaker 2: You're exactly right. Generic. We're gonna talk about a couple
Speaker 2: of things now that are close to salsa but not
Speaker 2: and that is moley and hot sauce. We're not gonna
Speaker 2: spend too much time on this because I think most
Speaker 2: people kind of know the difference, but the line can
Speaker 2: kind of be blurred. I would say the main difference
Speaker 2: in Molay is that Molay is it's it's basically always puades.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna be it's never gonna be chunky. Kind
Speaker 2: of the same with hot sauce. But Molay also usually
Speaker 2: has like I mean, if you got a good mole
Speaker 2: going you're talking fifteen twenty up to thirty or more ingredients.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what makes molay a mole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have a really sophisticated layered tastes with
Speaker 1: molay that can be like, it can be tangy. It
Speaker 1: can also be kind of like weirdly raisin a or
Speaker 1: mushroomy or something like that. It's it's different. But as
Speaker 1: far as a person walking around Mexico's concern, that'd be
Speaker 1: like comparing ketchup to gravy. They're just different. Yes, they
Speaker 1: both go on your food, but in different ways, in
Speaker 1: different contexts and different amounts, And gravy is probably not
Speaker 1: even a good example, but it's the best I can
Speaker 1: come up with. But salsa means sauce, but molay is
Speaker 1: sauce because, as everyone who's listened to this episode up
Speaker 1: to this point knows, salsa is a condiment, not a sauce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you would add it to the top of
Speaker 2: a taco or a toastata, whereas the mole it would
Speaker 2: be like you know, chicken moley. It typically has like
Speaker 2: the chicken completely drenched in the sauce when it hits
Speaker 2: the table.
Speaker 1: Right like the very famous joke in Mexico you want
Speaker 1: some chicken with that mole ad, But then they say
Speaker 1: that in Spanish.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is hot sauce. Of course, also
Speaker 2: different hot sauce meant to be, although there were some
Speaker 2: super hot sauces. Hot sauce is generally only hot and
Speaker 2: meant to be, you know, dabbed on a few drops
Speaker 2: at a time, and also not chunky, and also usually
Speaker 2: has vinegar, which you're not going to find in a
Speaker 2: lot of salsa.
Speaker 1: No, not at all. And apparently hot sauce itself is
Speaker 1: It traces itself back to Massachusetts the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. That was where it came from, but
Speaker 1: it got pretty popular south of the border as well,
Speaker 1: because it does involve chilies in some form or fashion.
Speaker 1: Usually it's chili, vinegar and salt are the three ingredients. Yes,
Speaker 1: and there's some good stuff out there, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not really salsa, although as we'll see, is it chips
Speaker 1: and salsa.
Speaker 2: Time we're gonna have some.
Speaker 1: I would love some. After researching all this, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, hat tip to Dave big thanks for helping
Speaker 1: us out with this one.
Speaker 2: Big hat tip. Now I say we hold off on
Speaker 2: the chips and salsa. That was surprising because we have
Speaker 2: to go we have to I mean, chips and sauce
Speaker 2: is an American thing, like he said, So we got
Speaker 2: to go back to kind of when this hit the
Speaker 2: States in a big way. And anyone who knows the
Speaker 2: history of North America knows that a lot of the
Speaker 2: United States used to be Mexican territory. Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah,
Speaker 2: and Nevada, California. A lot of Colorado was Mexico. But
Speaker 2: once that was no longer Mexico, there were still a
Speaker 2: lot of people living there, Mexican communities, Mexican culture, Mexican foods,
Speaker 2: and so it should come as no surprise that Texas
Speaker 2: and California and New Mexico and Arizona and places like
Speaker 2: that have always had and still continue to have a
Speaker 2: thriving Mexican food scene there. And this was true back
Speaker 2: in the nineteen twenties and thirties when salsa kind of
Speaker 2: came on the scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the collision between often Anglo or other
Speaker 1: kind of European settlers in this area colliding with former
Speaker 1: Spanish settlers and indigenous people in the area. They kind
Speaker 1: of came together to form like kind of a hybrid
Speaker 1: between Mexican and what would be American cuisine. So things
Speaker 1: like tex mex or Calimes or Southwest mex was born,
Speaker 1: which is was originally at least authentic Mexican dishes, but
Speaker 1: kind of toned down a little bit, made a little blander,
Speaker 1: made a little more Yorkshire putting it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, not as hot, made for the American palette. I
Speaker 2: think Dave dug up this recipe from nineteen thirty four
Speaker 2: in the La Times for chili salsa. The name of
Speaker 2: the article was Delicacies from Mexico. And even though it
Speaker 2: said in the article the salsa has used in many
Speaker 2: Spanish dishes, I think it was just a time when
Speaker 2: they were like Mexico Spain was the difference, right when
Speaker 2: in back much there's a pretty big difference, including an
Speaker 2: ocean in between them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also the recipe included parsley and flour. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just don't see that in many salsa dishes, So
Speaker 1: it was kind of text MESI for sure. I think
Speaker 1: even before text mex really was a thing. But going
Speaker 1: back to salsa and the idea that salsa, I think
Speaker 1: I said, the good stuff in jars today was built
Speaker 1: on the shoulders of the less good stuff of yesteryear.
Speaker 1: You can kind of trace that. No shade also, by
Speaker 1: the way, I hope I'm not coming off that way.
Speaker 1: I'm not throwing shade at anybody like David Pace, who
Speaker 1: innovated and really kind of introduced America to salsa, but
Speaker 1: at the same time made it more palatable to his market.
Speaker 1: He took salsa and took it from a condiment which
Speaker 1: it is in Mexico and made it into kind of
Speaker 1: like a snack or an appetizer. So a dip, I
Speaker 1: guess is a better way to put it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: David Paste was a Louisiana guy, born and raised. His
Speaker 2: family was in the molasses business, bottling molasses, so he
Speaker 2: had a background and bottling and jarring a food product.
Speaker 2: Went to World War Two, settled down in San Antonio,
Speaker 2: Texas eventually where the Mexican food scene is, and was
Speaker 2: in his robust You've been there, right, You've talked about
Speaker 2: the food there with me, I believe privately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, definitely, it's good stuff.
Speaker 2: Never been there, I gotta do it. But he loved
Speaker 2: that chili salsa that he would get locally at different
Speaker 2: Mexican restaurants, and he, like you said, he settled down
Speaker 2: the taste a little bit made of his own, his
Speaker 2: own variety called paste pecante. Pecante is an adjective meaning
Speaker 2: spicy or pungent. If you notice, if you look at
Speaker 2: the jar, it didn't say sauce on there, Nope, it
Speaker 2: says pecante sauce. And the tomato was the star that
Speaker 2: Chile took a little bit of the back seat, and
Speaker 2: he had a goal to be what he said was
Speaker 2: the hinds of salsa. And although he did well, it
Speaker 2: would be his son in law, Kit Goldsbury, who would
Speaker 2: really kind of kick that brand to the next level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean think that's pretty ambitious. I want to
Speaker 1: be the hinds of salsa. And it actually turned out
Speaker 1: that way, but just yeah, not under his watch. He
Speaker 1: retired and Kit took over, think about the late seventies,
Speaker 1: sometime in the seventies, and at that same time there
Speaker 1: was a health craze going through America that translated, like
Speaker 1: I think you said earlier by the eighties into everything
Speaker 1: has to be fat free yea, And salsa again is
Speaker 1: basically by definition fat free. So it was ready made
Speaker 1: to step up and kind of take the spotlight. And
Speaker 1: the Pace was very lucky that Kit Goldsberry was in
Speaker 1: charge because he, I guess knew a great opportunity. We
Speaker 1: saw it and just pushed Pace into the mainstream through
Speaker 1: a really clever, earwormy kind of advertising campaign that people
Speaker 1: still say today. You make me say it sometimes when
Speaker 1: you say New York City, I mean you stopped and
Speaker 1: been like you're not gonna say it. And that's from
Speaker 1: like the like nineteen eighty nine was when that first
Speaker 1: ad came out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, And in nineteen ninety three we got
Speaker 2: the famous line, get a rope. You go look this
Speaker 2: thing up on YouTube. This ad ran for ten years
Speaker 2: from ninety three to two thousand and three. When they
Speaker 2: are one of the Camp Cowboy camp guys is chastising
Speaker 2: Cookie the cook because he's using salsa from New York
Speaker 2: City and they all go New York City and an
Speaker 2: actor named Ralph Bonzo bear Stedman uttered those famous three
Speaker 2: words get a rope even though Dave, did you notice
Speaker 2: he put get the rope in here? I did get
Speaker 2: the rope. I got so mad at Dave.
Speaker 1: Did you send him an email.
Speaker 2: No, but he's listening, So I just wanted to tell
Speaker 2: him this way geez. But yeah, Ralph Bonzobar Steedman was
Speaker 2: just want to shout him out because it's an iconic
Speaker 2: commercial mine that's kind of up there with where's the beef?
Speaker 2: And he's a guy, here's a beef? Oh she passed
Speaker 2: away to no.
Speaker 1: Instead of where's the beef? Well, abe, where's the beef?
Speaker 2: Where's a beef?
Speaker 1: Quote?
Speaker 2: I love it, Sorry, Dave, but Ralph was from the
Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest, seemed like a really good guy, did lots
Speaker 2: of local acting and voice acting, and he passed away
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen and left a very sweet family behind.
Speaker 2: So big shout out to Bonzo Bear.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So this this ad campaign New York City,
Speaker 1: it just it came at a perfect time. The product
Speaker 1: was perfect. Not only were people trying to get more
Speaker 1: fat free and salsa was a great, great alternative to
Speaker 1: everything else like ketchup and stuff. People were also like
Speaker 1: trying new tastes, exotic ethnic tastes like Mexican salsa. Chunky
Speaker 1: style was just really you were really sophisticated if you
Speaker 1: ate salta not ketchup. At a time in like the
Speaker 1: late eighties, so it really it just everything just came
Speaker 1: together and so all of a sudden, America just falls
Speaker 1: in love with salsa and still today. Like even in hindsight,
Speaker 1: I know this sounds kind of unnecessarily hysterical, but I
Speaker 1: can't believe that salsa ever outsold ketchup. It's mind boggling
Speaker 1: to me, like that it was that popular, and it
Speaker 1: stayed pretty popular, and like I was saying, it just
Speaker 1: kept getting better and better and better to wear. The
Speaker 1: stuff that you buy in jars at the grocery store
Speaker 1: today is often pretty good, really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And chances are your local grocery store even have
Speaker 2: like a like a housemade version that they sell in
Speaker 2: in like the little plastic containers. It has a you know,
Speaker 2: a cell by date on it, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Sure you usually see of those. My favorites are the
Speaker 2: well we'll save that, but again, chips and sauces is
Speaker 2: a pretty American thing. They do have the toastata in Mexico,
Speaker 2: but a toastata is used to sort of like an
Speaker 2: open face taco to put stuff on top of and
Speaker 2: then you'll put your sauce on top of that. But
Speaker 2: we do have a few competing origin stories for the
Speaker 2: origin of tortilla chips, which is pretty fun, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah. As told in the Stuff You Should Know Book,
Speaker 1: The Incomplete Compendium, we talk about the invention of Fredo's,
Speaker 1: specifically by a guy named Elmer Doolan. Wonder where or
Speaker 1: remember when we talked about freedo feet get Friedo smell
Speaker 1: on their feet? That chapter features an illustration of Momo
Speaker 1: wearing a long haircut.
Speaker 2: That's right. If you don't ever book, you should get
Speaker 2: it just to see Momo in there. It's a good
Speaker 2: illustration too.
Speaker 1: It is. It's great. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: we're not even going to tell you that story. You
Speaker 1: have to go read it in the book.
Speaker 2: That's Oh you want to do that? Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: you want to hear about Elmer Dulan. Go drop. You'll
Speaker 2: probably get that thing for like six bucks. Now, go
Speaker 2: to your library even yeah, get it for free. Go
Speaker 2: crack a book. All right. Let's move on to story
Speaker 2: number two, then, Josh Chick. That Rebecca Webb Caranza. She's
Speaker 2: married to Anny Mario and they own the El Zarapa
Speaker 2: Tortilla factory in La in the nineteen forties and they
Speaker 2: made corn tortillas kind of straight up. But when they
Speaker 2: had a misshape and tortillas that they couldn't you know,
Speaker 2: that didn't look like the rest, they couldn't sell those,
Speaker 2: or thought they couldn't, And they would cut them into
Speaker 2: triangles and fry them up and sell them as torch chips.
Speaker 2: And apparently it was a pretty big seller in the
Speaker 2: nineteen forties and fifties regionally and then then eventually I
Speaker 2: think nationwide even.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, imagine like you had tortilla chips that
Speaker 1: you could buy in the forties. Of course you'd be
Speaker 1: crazy for that. Like there wasn't a lot of competition
Speaker 1: at the time, you know what I mean, snack wise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think this number three, though, is probably
Speaker 2: the leading Canada though. Don't you think it's gotta be?
Speaker 1: Because number one he predates everybody by a few decades exactly.
Speaker 1: And number two he was known as the Corn King
Speaker 1: of San Antonio. His name was jose Bartolome Martinez. He
Speaker 1: looked like a well Hispanic Teddy.
Speaker 2: Roosevelt, Okay, he kind of does.
Speaker 1: And he was called the Corn King for nothing. He
Speaker 1: set up the first industrial scale mill for grinding corn
Speaker 1: in the United States, and he apparently had four different
Speaker 1: mills around San Antonio at one point and was pumping
Speaker 1: out sixty thousand pounds of tortilla chips a day all
Speaker 1: the way back in the nineteen teens.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: He probably was the guy who created the tortilla chip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. And you know, it's a possible
Speaker 2: to find out, like, hey, what was the first restaurant
Speaker 2: that started just throwing that stuff on the table kind
Speaker 2: of for free, although it's not for freed usually anymore.
Speaker 2: Usually you get like a you can get like the
Speaker 2: chips with a trio of salsas and like a cheese
Speaker 2: dip for you know, seven or eight bucks. But there
Speaker 2: are probably still some places that, you know, maybe some
Speaker 2: of the chains throw it on the table for free,
Speaker 2: like like Olive Garden does with that bread and salad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of people think that it's kind of
Speaker 1: sacrilegious to start charging for it, even if you're upgrading
Speaker 1: the salsa. It's just it's a tradition that should be honored.
Speaker 1: And restaurants are like that actually costs us a lot
Speaker 1: of money. Yeah, people say I care not.
Speaker 2: I mean, even if you pay something, they're gonna keep
Speaker 2: giving you basket refills of chips.
Speaker 1: I guess it just feels off paying for chips and salsa.
Speaker 1: I'm fine with paying for queso, paying for guacamole, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And if they are like we have like a higher
Speaker 1: end salsa that we're not going to give you for free,
Speaker 1: paying for that, that's fine. But there should be some
Speaker 1: basic level salsa with chips at a Mexican restaurant in
Speaker 1: the United States that's complimentary, even work it into your
Speaker 1: price structure, but don't charge for it. There's something just
Speaker 1: off about it, I think.
Speaker 2: So like a fancy saucea like made with gold schlager
Speaker 2: that would cost.
Speaker 1: Right, they set it on fire table.
Speaker 2: Side, all right, to each their own.
Speaker 1: Nice Okay, but one more thing before we move on.
Speaker 1: You said it was impossible to trace where the first
Speaker 1: restaurant that started serving chips and salsa came from, and
Speaker 1: that seems to be true, but there was an historian
Speaker 1: on Reddit there ask Historians Subreddit. Somebody asked, like, what
Speaker 1: the first restaurant was that started serving chips and salsa,
Speaker 1: and this historian dug up something kind of close. It's
Speaker 1: potentially a chain called Machao or El Nido, the parent
Speaker 1: They apparently were owned by the same person in Phoenix
Speaker 1: that by the early to mid seventies was already serving
Speaker 1: chips and then transferred over from hot sauce people used
Speaker 1: to put hot sauce on their chips to salsa, serving
Speaker 1: salsa with chips, so it's possible that was the first
Speaker 1: restaurant to do it. But was even more interesting is
Speaker 1: that apparently before then people put hot sauce on their chips,
Speaker 1: much like that analogy I was talking about earlier, of
Speaker 1: putting ketchup on your chips. It's not that far off.
Speaker 2: I love that you said that was much more interesting
Speaker 2: than the the reddit historian.
Speaker 1: Well no, the Reddit historian found all that, so kudos
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. All right, So let's should we
Speaker 2: just go over a few sauces here, or should we
Speaker 2: take a break and do that.
Speaker 1: I think we should take a break and come back
Speaker 1: and tell people how to make their own.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll be right back and we're going to
Speaker 2: tell you how to get that mocha hette out and
Speaker 2: get busy right after this. All right, The first sausa
Speaker 2: we should talk about is just the classic. It's my
Speaker 2: favorite kind of sasa. Overall the Picota gayo. I love
Speaker 2: a salsa that's almost nothing but chunks, which is basically
Speaker 2: what picota guyo is.
Speaker 1: Extremely fresh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not a lot of saucy tomato in there, even
Speaker 2: just you know, diced up tomato, onion, chilis, cilantro, lime juice,
Speaker 2: a little bit of salt, ban bang boom. I throw
Speaker 2: a little black pepper on top. That's just me.
Speaker 1: Oh, Christopher Columbus would be proud, you sure would.
Speaker 2: He was, like, see, but I really love just a
Speaker 2: good standard. I love a lot of kinds of sauces,
Speaker 2: but I love a standard pikota geyo for especially, uh well,
Speaker 2: for both for eating with chips and with just putting
Speaker 2: on tacos and stuff.
Speaker 1: You know something I learned from researching this episode. I
Speaker 1: just had never occurred to me to ask, but pico
Speaker 1: de gayo actually means bek of the rooster or rooster's beak.
Speaker 1: Did you know that? Uh?
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I always just thought it was meant gyo. It never
Speaker 1: occurred to me because gyo, you know, that's like a
Speaker 1: kind of beer and Guatemala and yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: All right, that's what I'm thinking of. Because it's got
Speaker 2: a rooster on the bottle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they called it Beka the rooster apparently because
Speaker 1: people used to eat pico de gayo with their their
Speaker 1: index finger, middle finger, and thumb. They would just scoop
Speaker 1: it into their mouths like and that resembles kind of
Speaker 1: a chicken or a rooster beak diving into that bowld
Speaker 1: piko de gyo, infecting it with all manner of communicable
Speaker 1: diseases for the next person to take too, which is
Speaker 1: actually kind of a problem with the fresh salceas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, anytime it's a fresh, fresh
Speaker 2: produce like that, there could be the danger of some
Speaker 2: sort of salmonilla or something. But lime juice will kill
Speaker 2: that away, you hope. Can we talk about Chipotle?
Speaker 1: Well, real quick, have you had this salsa schnea peck?
Speaker 2: I have not.
Speaker 1: I haven't either, but it sounds good. It's basically picoda
Speaker 1: gaya with some stuff swapped out with. The thing I
Speaker 1: find most interesting is rather than lime juice, sour orange juice.
Speaker 1: I'll bet that's good stuff, man, I bet it is. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go on to Chipotle.
Speaker 2: Yes, Chipotles are smoky, they're a little tang here. A
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff is usually roasted tomatoes, garlic, onion,
Speaker 2: those chipotles. You roast those things up, get a little
Speaker 2: little fire char on them, and then grind them or
Speaker 2: blend them into a paste, and you got a pretty
Speaker 2: good chipotle working.
Speaker 1: Then there's severe Day, which is made from tomatillos, which
Speaker 1: have a green cast to them. They're like little tiny
Speaker 1: green tomatoes, but tastes much better. I'm not sure what's
Speaker 1: going on with to Maatio's, but they're pretty awesome. And
Speaker 1: that one's just pretty straight up. Like you, you kind
Speaker 1: of want the toe matillo to stand out taste wise,
Speaker 1: but it can also be kind of hot, scarlicky ONIONI
Speaker 1: there's some cilantro and all that, But the point is
Speaker 1: that to maatillos are really it's a really toe matillo
Speaker 1: forward salce.
Speaker 2: It's green.
Speaker 1: Sure, that's why they call it Salsaveri day. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I have to say, I just have to shout this out.
Speaker 1: If you want a good jarred salsavere day, you could
Speaker 1: do a lot worse than Trader Jos.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I've ever had a jarred salsavere day.
Speaker 1: Actually, it's really good and it's it's actually hard to
Speaker 1: find a good one. I think Matao's makes a good
Speaker 1: salsaveride in the jar that you can get nationally, and
Speaker 1: Trader Joe's is your best bet for sure.
Speaker 2: Do they ever do they get rid of the whole
Speaker 2: Trader Jose thing?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't looked closely, but I have
Speaker 1: seen that fairly recently. But maybe it was an out
Speaker 1: of date product that I bought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't go to Trader Jones. I did when
Speaker 2: I lived in La because it was convenient, but I
Speaker 2: haven't been in years. Salsa macha is something that I
Speaker 2: was introduced to on my Mexico city trip that i'd
Speaker 2: never had before. My good friend PJ, who is an
Speaker 2: outstanding cook and especially outstanding Mexican chef. His parents owned
Speaker 2: a Mexican restaurant, legendary Mexican restaurant New Jersey for decades
Speaker 2: that recently closed, but Mexican Food Factory shout them out nice.
Speaker 2: I guarantee you there's some listeners that have been there.
Speaker 2: But PJ was like, you got to have the salsa
Speaker 2: macha you just you won't believe it, and just just
Speaker 2: try it.
Speaker 1: It sounds awesome.
Speaker 2: It's great. It's not like a traditional sauce that you'd see.
Speaker 2: It's like an oil so you've got your your dried chilis,
Speaker 2: of course, but you also have like ground peanuts, garlic, sesame,
Speaker 2: seeds of oil and vinegar, so no tomato in this guy.
Speaker 2: It's really really great. I'm surprised you didn't run across
Speaker 2: it in Mexico City, but next time you have the opportunity,
Speaker 2: I urge you to try it.
Speaker 1: I will. It sounds really awesome, for sure. And that
Speaker 1: one comes from Vera Cruz, which also gave us pescato
Speaker 1: Vera Cruz, which is the best way to have a fish.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought it was hawking for some reason, but
Speaker 2: I guess I got bad information.
Speaker 1: That's all right, as long as you enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love all I mean, that's the wonderful
Speaker 2: thing about going to.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: I mean now in the United States, Mexican restaurants have
Speaker 2: gotten so varied. Now you can find, especially in the
Speaker 2: last decade, so many more options. Besides like tex Mechs
Speaker 2: in Mexicali, which I still love that sort of americanized version,
Speaker 2: but you can find some great authentic places and well
Speaker 2: hawking places and places that are more seafood forward, and
Speaker 2: it's just they're really representing all the flavors of Mexico
Speaker 2: here in the States now. And it's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: No, it's not at all. It's a great thing. As
Speaker 1: matter fact. You don't ever have to leave the US.
Speaker 1: Everybody just comes to us.
Speaker 2: Do you want to go where some of these other
Speaker 2: non Mexican versions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one that suck out to me was a hey, creolo,
Speaker 1: crelo creolo. That's right. It's like creole sauce. And in
Speaker 1: Peru they make it with like sour cream or mayo,
Speaker 1: some garlic and then Ahi peppers which are orange, and
Speaker 1: it sounds really good. But there's also a confusing Ecuadorian
Speaker 1: version that is not like that at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one has. Yeah, it's got the same exact name,
Speaker 2: so it is very confusing. It's got the same chili's,
Speaker 2: the ihi i guess aji chilies, but they don't have
Speaker 2: dairy products. It's not creamy. They use vinegar instead.
Speaker 1: Yes, which is pretty much the antithesis of a creamy
Speaker 1: dairy product.
Speaker 2: Vinegar is yeah, and Dave said it's pretty ubiq. It's
Speaker 2: just like ketchup on the table.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's a condiment.
Speaker 2: He also threw in Chimmy Chury in here from Uruguay
Speaker 2: slash Argentina. I don't know. I don't know if Chimmy
Speaker 2: chury belongs anywhere near this list. It just seems like
Speaker 2: such its own thing.
Speaker 1: Well, there's not a single pepper or onion in it.
Speaker 1: I don't think or pepper, tomato, yeah, is there there's
Speaker 1: I don't think there's peppers in Chimmy chury. Is there?
Speaker 1: I think it's all like parsley and garlic, cilantro, garlic,
Speaker 1: a lot of oil. I don't think there's peppers. It's good,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's salsa.
Speaker 2: I agree. Should we just got this part out?
Speaker 1: No, we need to leave it in as a lesson
Speaker 1: to everybody never to call chimmy churry salsa or else.
Speaker 1: I have to answer to us.
Speaker 2: Well, Dave put it in there, so you know what
Speaker 2: I have to say Todave is get the rope.
Speaker 1: Where's the beef?
Speaker 2: David?
Speaker 1: There was one other thing I wanted to mention to Oh.
Speaker 1: It was a shout out the greatest free table side
Speaker 1: salsa in any restaurant in the United States is to
Speaker 1: be found at a chain in Atlanta called Lafondah. They're
Speaker 1: doing something to their salsa that is unparallel. It's the
Speaker 1: most sophisticated free salsa you've ever seen, and it's not
Speaker 1: small batch. They have little bats of it sitting around
Speaker 1: in the restaurant waiting to be served. But it is
Speaker 1: so good it's worth traveling to Atlanta just to try
Speaker 1: that salsa, which gives it a Michelin Star two in
Speaker 1: my opinion.
Speaker 2: Well, you'll be glad to know that. Then, my friend,
Speaker 2: there is a Lafonda that opened up right down the
Speaker 2: street for me. All right, let's do dinner last year.
Speaker 2: And if you go to the East Lake Lafonda, everyone,
Speaker 2: I can encourage you to go across the street on
Speaker 2: Second Avenue. If you go walk by the other restaurants here,
Speaker 2: mixed up burgers, you will see the East Lake Garden.
Speaker 2: And that is a community garden that Emily and I run.
Speaker 2: Emily runs that thing. If you go there and it
Speaker 2: looks beautiful and there are all kinds of herbs planted
Speaker 2: and flowers and stuff planted in beds. That is Emily's
Speaker 2: hard work, because she's basically a full time gardener.
Speaker 1: Now that's awesome, man, What a great way to spend time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Eastlake Garden is just open for the
Speaker 2: public to use and enjoy after you've had some Lafonda.
Speaker 2: And she just recently put up a new Instagram page
Speaker 2: for the garden, so if you want to didn't have
Speaker 2: a lot on there yet, but it's you know, if
Speaker 2: you want to follow the story, you can go to
Speaker 2: east Underscore Lake Underscore Garden and check it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he just gets stuffed on Lafonda and walk around
Speaker 1: the community gardens in East Lake. That sounds that's right,
Speaker 1: pleasant evening man. Yeah, all right, so yeah, we'll do
Speaker 1: that and I can finally give you your birthday present
Speaker 1: from like six months ago.
Speaker 2: Great. Oh, and you'll not it's the Eastlake Garden because
Speaker 2: there's a sign this says east Lake Garden and painted
Speaker 2: by local legend artists our land.
Speaker 1: Is that the one with the praying hands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the cat the praying hands and lost cat
Speaker 2: and uh pray for Atlanta when during COVID. So Ronnie's
Speaker 2: a very long time Atlanta resident and very popular local artist.
Speaker 2: And we've commission Ronnie to do lots of things, including
Speaker 2: the sign for the East like garden in his unique
Speaker 2: amazing style.
Speaker 1: And this is this has been hot Lanta talk.
Speaker 2: Josh shot, Yeah, that's it for salsa. Go out and
Speaker 2: eat salsa every day.
Speaker 1: Yes, go eat salsa, Go learn how to make molais,
Speaker 1: and just enjoy life. How about that? Yes, Chuck said, yes,
Speaker 1: that means it's listener mail time. I tricked him into it.
Speaker 2: This is a good one. This is from Tamra, and
Speaker 2: Tamara included a post script pronunciation, I'm looking at real quick. Okay,
Speaker 2: got it? Hey, guys. Listening to the Widowhood episode reminded
Speaker 2: me of one of my favor stories about my great grandmother, Judida.
Speaker 2: When my grandmother was little nineteen thirty Pennsylvania, her father
Speaker 2: supported the family as a coal miner, and her mother, Judida,
Speaker 2: stayed at home raising six children. She was an immigrant
Speaker 2: from Italy didn't speak a word of English. My great
Speaker 2: grandfather was in a mining accident and sent to a
Speaker 2: hospital hours away with an injury he could not recover
Speaker 2: from keeping him bedridden. You mentioned that children of widows
Speaker 2: were considered orphans. Well, brother, I'm here to tell you
Speaker 2: so were children of those whose fathers were in the hospital.
Speaker 2: Even Wow, there was at an actual court hearing for
Speaker 2: the children, where presumably they would be sent into the
Speaker 2: foster system. My great grandmother got a lawyer. No idea
Speaker 2: how that happened, but the judge was entering the courtroom,
Speaker 2: my great grandmother was holding a conversation in Italian with
Speaker 2: her lawyer that went something like this, are they going
Speaker 2: to take my children? Yes, it's very likely, and it
Speaker 2: will cost the money to feed, house and clothe my children. Right, Yes,
Speaker 2: that's right. Then why don't they give me the money
Speaker 2: and I'll take care of my own children. Just so
Speaker 2: happened that judge was fluent and Italian, understood the please
Speaker 2: and logic of my great grandmother, and that's exactly the
Speaker 2: arrangement they came to.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: My grandmother recalls that her oldest brother was in charge
Speaker 2: of accounting for all the money they received from the state,
Speaker 2: documenting exactly how it was spent. They were lucky that
Speaker 2: was a little bit left over at the end of
Speaker 2: the month. They got some penny candy. And whenever I
Speaker 2: think life of is rough, I recalled Judida, and knowing
Speaker 2: that her blood is in me and seeing the strong
Speaker 2: line of women I come from, gives me the confidence
Speaker 2: I need to tackle whatever comes my way.
Speaker 1: Very nice, what a great email.
Speaker 2: Great email that's from Tama, and she was thrilled to
Speaker 2: know that she would be on and everyone will be
Speaker 2: happy to know that her grandmother is still alive at
Speaker 2: ninety seven years old and is going to hear this email.
Speaker 1: So hello Grandma, Hello Grandma, and thanks a lot, Tamara.
Speaker 1: If you want to be like Tamara and send us
Speaker 1: an awesome email, we're always up for that, all you
Speaker 1: have to do is send it off to Stuff podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeartRadio dot Calm. Stuff you Should Know is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.