THE HISTORY OF THE NACHO

BY KAREN HARAM

SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS 

 

A fried tostado. Yellow cheese. A slice of jalapeno.  

 So simple. So delicious. So monumental.

 

Back in 1943, Ignacio "Nacho" assembled the first he had no idea that 60 years

later, this appetizer would have made his nickname a household word.

  

At that time, the senior Anaya was working at a restaurant owned by Rudolfo De

Los Santos, the Victory Club in Piedras Negras, Mexico, just across the border

from Eagle Pass, says his son Ignacio Anaya Jr. of Eagle Pass.

  

As Anaya Jr. recalls the story, Mamie Finan and a group of 10 to 12 officers'

wives, whose husbands were stationed at Fort Duncan Air Base, traveled across

the border to eat at the Victory Club. When the senior Anaya couldn't find. the

cook, he went into action.

 

"My father was maitre d' and he said 'Let me go quick and fix something for

you.' He went into the kitchen, picked up tostados,' grated some cheese on

them - Wisconsin cheese, the round one - and put them under the Salamander (a

broiling unit that quickly browns the top of foods). He pulled them out after a

couple minutes, all melted, and put on a slice of jalapeno." - 

 

The name of the snack, Anaya Jr. says, came from Finan, who called the plate of

cheese- and chile-topped chips Nacho's Especiales. The name was later shortened

to simply "nachos."

  

Anaya Sr. went on to work at the Moderno, which is still in business today, as

well as his own Nacho's Restaurant in Piedras Negras.

  

In 1960, Anaya Jr. looked into helping his father, who died in 1975, claim

ownership of  the nacho. "I talked to a lawyer in San Antonio. He said there's

not much you can do after 17 years. It's in the public domain," Anaya Jr. says.

As a tribute to his father, Anaya Jr. serves as a judge for an annual nacho

competition held in Piedras Niegras me second weekend each October. There,

nachos are topped with everything from huitlacoche to caviar. But his favorite

remains the original nachos like his father made, though he gives high marks to

beef and chicken nachos topped with guacamole.

 

"That's a whole meal," he says.

 

Anaya Sr.'s granddaughter, Cristina de Los Santos of San Antonio, says her

grandfather died when she was in elementary school. But she remembers the leg-

end of Nacho, and his nachos, as family lore. 

 

"When I was little, my family would always tell me the story," she says. Better

yet, when she would go to her grandfather's restaurant in Piedras Negras, he

would make nachos for her.

"I didn't like cheese. He always made me bean nachos," she says.

  

De Los Santos says her father, Anaya Jr., like her grandfather, "makes nachos

real good. He makes them the original way."

  

Though she doesn't have a recipe, she describes the process as follows:

Tortilla chips, cut in triangles, are fried in what she calls shortening, not

oil. The fried chips are salted, then topped with yellow cheese. The chips are

run under the broiler, then topped with a slice of jalapeno.

 

Although she's a fan of many types of nachos and occasionally orders them when

dining out, the ones she gets today taste far different from those her

grandfather made.

  

"The chips are different," she says. "They're not homemade chips like he used

to do. Or maybe it's the hands of the chef."