Artigenda
International Nacho Day
When: Annually, October 21.
October 21 is International Nacho Day. Don’t confuse this day with the American/US version of this day, National Nacho Day on November 6.
About the nacho
Who is not familiar with the nacho? The dish is from Mexican cuisine. But is it? Officially, this dish belongs to Tex-Mex cuisine. That is the American cuisine of the Tejano natives of the US state of Texas. Indeed, these natives are originally descended from Spanish or Mexican ancestors. To be clear, these are not persons who recently emigrated to the United States or Texas. They are persons whose settlement history dates back to around the nineteenth century.
First mention
Yet the first mention of the nacho is one that originated in Mexico. The nacho’s esspeciales were first served in 1943 by Ignacio Anaya Garcia (15 August 1895 – 26 September 1975), according to this source. Garcia worked in a restaurant near the Texas border, which explains why the adaptation to Tex-Mex cuisine followed so quickly.
Incidentally, the name was logically explicable. It was Garcia’s nickname and a corruption of his first name; indeed, Ignacio looks a lot like nacho. The idea came because some ladies at the restaurant asked for “something different. Garcia, also listed as Anaya, decided to do something with the corn tortillas and cut them into triangles and decided to fry them, then shred them. He then added Colby cheese. This is a type of cheese that comes from the state of Wisconsin and has a distinctive orange colour. Hence, we use Cheddar today, as this cheese also has an orange colour.
St. Anne’s Cookbook
In 1954, the recipe first appeared in St. Anne’s Cookbook and more people were able to make the nachos. With that, nachos became more famous outside Mexico and the state of Texas.
You can read more about the story at this website.
