Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? So you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan of ballpark food, Like whenever we get
Speaker 1: invited to go to you know, big League baseball games
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I'm not the biggest fan of baseball,
Speaker 1: but I love going to these games because I'll just
Speaker 1: the corn dogs, not shows anything else. But I decided
Speaker 1: to read up on the greatest ballpark foods out there
Speaker 1: because I gotta know what I'm missing. And it actually
Speaker 1: turns out, I'll admit I did not know this, but
Speaker 1: that two thousand fifteen was a big year for snack
Speaker 1: related invention. Big year. Yeah, what was that? Well, that's
Speaker 1: the year that the Arizona Diamondbacks debuted the churro dog,
Speaker 1: which ESPN describes as a churro inside a doughnut bun
Speaker 1: topped with frozen yogurts Sunday. I mean, come on, I
Speaker 1: eat one of those. Yeah. Yeah. And while that was
Speaker 1: definitely the front runner for most of the year, the
Speaker 1: Milwaukee Brewers Miller Park, they came up with an even
Speaker 1: more popular snack than that. Now I've got to hear
Speaker 1: the what is it? You're ready? This is kind of
Speaker 1: mind blowing. It's nachos on a stick, and apparently it
Speaker 1: was all the rage in two thousand and fifteen. Now
Speaker 1: all the raged in a way that somehow we didn't
Speaker 1: find out. But it was all the rage, I guess.
Speaker 1: And you're supposedly it was a stick of beef loaded
Speaker 1: with refried beans, rolled in Derito's and then deep fried
Speaker 1: and drizzled with sour cream and cheese, all on a stick.
Speaker 1: I have no idea how that works, but it does
Speaker 1: seem pretty genius. So it does sound like kind of novel,
Speaker 1: I guess. But why were people so excited about it? Well,
Speaker 1: the vendors were excited about it because the whole idea
Speaker 1: was that you could, you know, be chowing down on
Speaker 1: the stick in one hand and yet still be able
Speaker 1: to wash it down with a beverage and the other.
Speaker 1: Because you think about it, like, that's my biggest frustration
Speaker 1: with going to these games, as you always have to
Speaker 1: like put the drink down between your feet to then
Speaker 1: eat the nachos, which is a two handed thing. Or
Speaker 1: you could master what I'm master of, just getting the
Speaker 1: chip with your mouth, dipping it and then kind of
Speaker 1: doing a flip and letting it, you know, flip down
Speaker 1: into I'll have to show you later, but anyway, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's novel because you would never get any nacho
Speaker 1: cheese on yourself by doing this, and they saw it
Speaker 1: as this revolution and how you would eat nachos. But
Speaker 1: reading about all this made me think we should do
Speaker 1: a nine Things all about nachos, you know, break down
Speaker 1: some of the ingredients, talk about how America got so
Speaker 1: obsessed with him. So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer
Speaker 1: and on the other side of the soundproof glass just
Speaker 1: rocking another one of his brilliant shirts and this one's
Speaker 1: as Buenos Nachos. That's our good friend and producer Tristan McNeil,
Speaker 1: now mango. This is a fun episode, you know, because
Speaker 1: we're we're we're both big fans of cheese that we
Speaker 1: have been four years and I'm guessing we ate no
Speaker 1: less than four to five tons of it in college
Speaker 1: between the two of us. So anyway, with that in mind,
Speaker 1: it's up to you. Where do you think we should start. Well,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna save the cheese, def for a
Speaker 1: little later on it's too good and start with something
Speaker 1: a little more basic. Did you know that chips and
Speaker 1: salsa is the official state snack of Texas? Not only
Speaker 1: did I not know that, but I guess I didn't
Speaker 1: know that states had official snacks. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I guess it's not all that surprising, So tell me more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it isn't that surprising, but how it became
Speaker 1: the state snack is super fun. So in two this
Speaker 1: group of second graders from the Leo Marcel Elementary School
Speaker 1: in Mission, Texas decided that their state and needed its
Speaker 1: own official snack. So Texas, at the time I already
Speaker 1: had a state dish chili, a state fruit grapefruit, and
Speaker 1: a state pie pecan. So the kids design a lobby
Speaker 1: for this official snack. But the competition was fiercer than
Speaker 1: you might imagine. So the kids came up with all
Speaker 1: these nominees, including pickles, Dorito's Flame, and hot Cheetos and
Speaker 1: and in the end, I guess the victory went to
Speaker 1: the good old chips and salsa. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: can agree with that, And so, so how did they
Speaker 1: actually get this past? I guess four kids actually testified
Speaker 1: before a House committee on on behalf of chips and salsa.
Speaker 1: And while all the kids spoke with you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of passion that chips and salsa demand, a little
Speaker 1: girl named Audrey made the most convincing argument. And this
Speaker 1: is what you said. Quote First, salsa contains two ingredients
Speaker 1: that are state symbols already. The jalapeno is the state
Speaker 1: pepper and sweet onions are the state vegetable. Put them
Speaker 1: together with a few more ingredients, and presto, perfect salsa.
Speaker 1: That just makes sense. It does. It's so cute. And
Speaker 1: apparently she wasn't the only one who thoughts of because
Speaker 1: Rick Perry actually signed the resolution into law not long after. Wow,
Speaker 1: that is pretty amazing. I really like that one. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: since we're doing nachos facts, I feel like we should
Speaker 1: start with the chips themselves, because there's actually a great
Speaker 1: origin story there. And this goes back to the late
Speaker 1: nineteen forties to El Zarape Tortilla factory, and this is
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, and it became one of the first
Speaker 1: to automate its production of these tortillas. So the company
Speaker 1: had installed this state of the art tortilla making machine,
Speaker 1: and pretty soon it was cranking these things out like
Speaker 1: twelve times faster than they could by hand. So the
Speaker 1: only problem with this is that, you know, many of
Speaker 1: the tortillas came out and mis shapen or kind of
Speaker 1: twisted up, and of course those ones couldn't be sold.
Speaker 1: So one night, the co owner of the business, Rebecca
Speaker 1: Webb Kransa, she takes these reject tortillas. She just brings
Speaker 1: them home and has a family party, and so she
Speaker 1: decides to cut the tortillas into triangles, fry them up,
Speaker 1: and then serve them to her guests. Is what she
Speaker 1: called tort chips. And because her relatives love the chips
Speaker 1: so much, Kranza started selling them for ten cents a
Speaker 1: bag at this local Mexican Delhi and also right outside
Speaker 1: of the factory there. So you fast forward a decade
Speaker 1: to the nineties sixties and Carranza's torch chips were available
Speaker 1: up and down the West Coast. And not only that,
Speaker 1: the chips were so popular they became El Sarape's main business.
Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing. I didn't realize that, like the chips
Speaker 1: had their own story. I feel like it's like one
Speaker 1: of those things you just assume exists forever, right, like, like, um,
Speaker 1: so here's the fact that I might have heard before,
Speaker 1: but it's still surprising to me. Do you realize that
Speaker 1: chipotle and jilipino peppers are the same plant? Which, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just super weird to me because they have like
Speaker 1: such distinct tastes and colors. But it's partially due to
Speaker 1: just when and how they're harvested. So, you know, alipinos,
Speaker 1: like a bunch of other peppers, start out green, but
Speaker 1: then they turn red as they ripe in. And there's
Speaker 1: a reason we don't often see red halipinos and grocery stores.
Speaker 1: It's because in farming, you know, the longer you let
Speaker 1: something grow, the more time there is for things to
Speaker 1: go wrong along the way. So from this like financial standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's just less risky to pick the peppers when they're green.
Speaker 1: But the chipotles are just red jilopenas that have been smoked, dried.
Speaker 1: M hmm. All right, Well, here's a quick one about
Speaker 1: pico de guio. You know this super simple mix that
Speaker 1: just has fresh ice, tomatoes, onion, jalapenos, and usually cilantro,
Speaker 1: and it just tastes so good on tortilla chip. But anyway,
Speaker 1: according to Epicurious, pico de guio actually means roosters beak
Speaker 1: in Spanish. Why why why roosters deak? Well, it actually
Speaker 1: turns out that the traditional way of eating pico de
Speaker 1: guio was just to use your fingers, and in particular
Speaker 1: your thumb and index fingers. You do have to keep
Speaker 1: in mind that tortilla chips and the act of dipping
Speaker 1: them in salsa, that was really more of an American thing,
Speaker 1: and so this style of eating when you have those
Speaker 1: two fingers, it reminded people so much of the way
Speaker 1: roosters pecket food with their beaks that they just decided
Speaker 1: the name should reflect that. That's really cute. Well, one
Speaker 1: of the interest things I learned this week was that
Speaker 1: if you like sour cream on your nachos, you really
Speaker 1: ought to thank the Mongols and and maybe the Russians too.
Speaker 1: So this is according to Ionine, the Mongols always had
Speaker 1: plenty of milk on hand thanks to the horses they
Speaker 1: traveled with, but the only problem was that a large
Speaker 1: part of the population was lactose intolerant, so instead of
Speaker 1: drinking the fresh mare's milk, they I guess let it
Speaker 1: ferment for a long time until all the bacteria had
Speaker 1: eaten away the lactose and replaced it with alcohol, and
Speaker 1: then they drank this I guess slightly alcoholic milk drink
Speaker 1: called kumas. Anyway, when they brought this drink to Russia,
Speaker 1: the people really went crazy for it. Only they kind
Speaker 1: of tweaked the process a little, like they used milk
Speaker 1: from cows rather than horses, and they also allowed the
Speaker 1: milk to thicken much longer, which kept it from turning alcoholic.
Speaker 1: And what they ended up with was this smooth, somewhat
Speaker 1: sour tasting cream, which is basically the same stuff we
Speaker 1: heap on our nachos today. Wow. I didn't believe that
Speaker 1: you were actually going to be able to connect that
Speaker 1: to the Mongols, but I think you successfully did all right. Well,
Speaker 1: before we get too deep into the toppings, I feel
Speaker 1: like we should really talk about the man behind the
Speaker 1: dish that we know as Nacho, somebody that we all
Speaker 1: owe so much to really, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: his name was Ignacio Anaya, or as his friends called him,
Speaker 1: just Nacho. According to the story, Nachos were born in
Speaker 1: a Mexican border town back in nineteen forty three, and
Speaker 1: Ignacio wasn't actually a chef, but more of a maitre
Speaker 1: d at a restaurant that was called the Victor Club. Now,
Speaker 1: one night during World War Two, Annia was closing up
Speaker 1: the restaurant when a dozen women just showed up, and
Speaker 1: they were desperate for a late night meal. These were
Speaker 1: the wives of US soldiers who had been stationed just
Speaker 1: across the border in Eagle Past, Texas. Of course, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to turn them away, but he also
Speaker 1: knew the kitchen was low on food and that the
Speaker 1: chef had already left for the night. So Anya goes
Speaker 1: back to the kitchen and tries to see what he
Speaker 1: can pull together, and of course what he comes up
Speaker 1: with is the very first plate of nachos, which, of
Speaker 1: course us was tortilla chips topped with shredded cheese halapenos,
Speaker 1: and then he baked them all in the oven. Now,
Speaker 1: the dish was a huge hit with the army wives,
Speaker 1: and when they asked their server what it's called, he
Speaker 1: said Nacho's Especiales, which of course was later just shortened
Speaker 1: to nachos, And the dish eventually became so popular that
Speaker 1: and I quit to open his own nacho centric restaurant.
Speaker 1: I really, I have no idea if this thing still exists. Problem,
Speaker 1: why didn't this take off? Like? I feel like nacho
Speaker 1: restaurant should have gone everywhere, but I would have I
Speaker 1: would have totally gone to one or would still Well,
Speaker 1: we've got two more facts to get to before we
Speaker 1: close this out, but let's take a quick break. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to part time Genius. We were talking nachos. So
Speaker 1: here's the question I had. Are refried beans really fried twice?
Speaker 1: It feels like this age old question, like why would
Speaker 1: beans need to be fried more than once? Well, it
Speaker 1: turns out the answer is that they don't. In fact,
Speaker 1: sometimes they aren't even fried once, They're just mashed and
Speaker 1: boiled instead, which brings up the follow up why all
Speaker 1: the confusion? And of course, you know, Gabe had the
Speaker 1: answer for us as always. It turns out the English
Speaker 1: name refried beans is really just a mistranslation of the
Speaker 1: Spanish name for the dish for holes, refritos, So free
Speaker 1: holes is, of course the Spanish word for beans, and
Speaker 1: friedo is a Spanish adjective meaning fried or cooked, so
Speaker 1: the translation error really comes down to the prefix re
Speaker 1: and in English we put that prefix on things like
Speaker 1: retry or reschedule, things that are being done more than once.
Speaker 1: But in Spanish, I guess the prefix has a completely
Speaker 1: different meaning. It adds emphasis to an adjective. So rofritos
Speaker 1: doesn't actually mean refried at all. It means well fried
Speaker 1: or well cooked. Oh, I did not know. That's a
Speaker 1: good one, Gabe. I'm glad he helped you out on
Speaker 1: that one. Alright, Well, I don't think we should in
Speaker 1: this show without talking a little bit about how steady
Speaker 1: of nachos with that gooey cheese came to be. And
Speaker 1: you know, while nachos started growing more popular after their
Speaker 1: invention in the nineteen forties, you kind of needed an
Speaker 1: oven to melt the cheese, and so that meant the
Speaker 1: dish was really restricted to restaurants and cooking at home,
Speaker 1: and you didn't see them at fast food joints at
Speaker 1: that point, or movie theaters or ballparks. But that all
Speaker 1: changed thanks to a man named Frank Liberto now Frank
Speaker 1: word Concessions at Arlington Stadium back in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: and this is back when it was home to the
Speaker 1: Texas Rangers, and his customers would often say how they
Speaker 1: wish they could have nachos at the game, And of
Speaker 1: course Frank knew that he couldn't install ovens or broilers,
Speaker 1: just you know, on this hunch that the dish would sell.
Speaker 1: So instead he started working on this gooey liquid form
Speaker 1: of the cheese that could be quickly ladled over the chips.
Speaker 1: And it took a little time to get the secret
Speaker 1: recipe just right, but in nineteen seventy six, Concession nachos
Speaker 1: finally hit the stands. And I feel fortunate because that's
Speaker 1: just a few years before we were born, so we
Speaker 1: can say that were all of our lives we've never
Speaker 1: had to go without the availability of nachos is a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing. It really I can't even imagine what life
Speaker 1: was like you And when you think back pre electricity,
Speaker 1: pre nachos in the ballpark, it's just it's tough. Anyway.
Speaker 1: At first, the operators wanted nothing to do with Frank's inventions,
Speaker 1: so he had to build his own nacho carts to
Speaker 1: push through the stadium. But once they caught sight of
Speaker 1: these massive lines that routinely formed behind the nacho carts,
Speaker 1: the cheesy chips became a stadium staple. You know. They
Speaker 1: even started out selling popcorn, which had been the former
Speaker 1: top seller. Which it's weird because I mean, I like
Speaker 1: popcorn at movie theaters, but for some reason, psychologically like
Speaker 1: I want nothing to do with popcorn in the ballpark.
Speaker 1: You just want a cup of cheese. I just want
Speaker 1: some cheese on some ships. But anyway, within the next
Speaker 1: few years, Frank's liquid cheese was being dished out with
Speaker 1: nachos at ballparks all over the country. What a hero.
Speaker 1: I really like that. So maybe you should take the
Speaker 1: trophy home for celebrating nacho cheese. You know, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the thought there. I feel like the fact that you
Speaker 1: connected such a strange dish to the Mongols was really impressive.
Speaker 1: So I feel like, just to honor how much cheese
Speaker 1: that we ate in college, why don't we call this
Speaker 1: one a draw and go order ourselves some celebratory nachos.
Speaker 1: I like that, and we'll take Tristan with us. Well,
Speaker 1: that's it for today's show. If you've got a great
Speaker 1: nacho story or fact, be sure to share it with
Speaker 1: us on our socials. You know, we're curious about it.
Speaker 1: And from gave Tristan Will and me. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. H