While you're all off enjoying the family events and probably having the day off, we here at Nachonomics would like to extend an extra special holiday gift to you in the form of what will undoubtedly be a new timeless Christmas classic you can tell your children, and them their children, and so on. So with the Merriest of Christmases, and Happiest of Crimbos, we present you our timeless nacho classic "T'was The Nacho Before Christmas".
2017 Nacho Gift Guide - Gifts for Nacho Lovers
Oh no, it's the 15th, and you haven't gotten the nacho lover in your life any sweet ass nacho gifts this year because you thought you were so cool and were going to buy everything way ahead of time, but then life got in the way and you forgot all about it and now there are just barely 9 shopping days left until the big day and you don't know what to do and you're worried your nacho lover will hate you forever because you didn't get them anything and they'll become instead your nacho hater because you are some kind of horrible monster who knew that Christmas was a thing that happens the same time every year and yet you still forgot the one thing that defines them, i.e. nachos, and you might as well just give up on life forever! Don't give up on life, check out our yearly guide of awesome nacho stuff you can still get to avoid alienation and horrible monstertude.
Read MoreReview: The Coop
Pulled Pork, Onions, Peppers, Cheddar, Sweet Corn, Jalapenos, Tomato, BBQ Sauce, Sour Cream
There are many rare and elusive things in this world. Four leaf clovers. Coelacanths. Unicorns. Sasquatches. Almost as rare is an order of nachos made with waffle fries. Fortunately after years of checking field cameras, making plaster casts of footprints, and collecting and carefully logging hair samples, one of these elusive creatures has been located at The Coop in Millbury, Massachusetts.
Firstly, this is the picture that greets you when you enter the restaurant. It’s undoubtedly the Picasso’s Guernica of our time.
Read MoreReview: Rail Trail Flatbread Co.
STREET CORN NACHOS - Pulled Pork, Corn Garnachas Chips, Fire Roasted Corn, Pimento Aioli, Roasted Cubanelle, Red Onion, Jalapeños, Queso, Roasted Tomatillo Salsa, Cilantro
Imagine you go to a quaint country fair and are wandering through it when a strange man approaches you in front of an unmarked tent. “Hey buddy,” he whispers, “want to see a man eating chicken? Only thirteen dollars.” You of course want to see whatever gigantic beast of a chicken this character has located in his tent, and maybe even see it eat a man as well if you’re forking over $13. You pay up, he opens the tent flaps to let you inside, and you wander down to a single chair in a room so dark you can barely see the gigantic metal cage in front of you. You sit, hearing the snuffling and chewing of presumably the monstrous beast inside, and begin to sweat with anticipation. “BEHOLD!” The carney yells, and flips on the light… to reveal some regular ol’ dude in the cage, sitting at a table, a cooked chicken in front of him, eating it. You turn to the carnival chap, shouting at how bamboozled you were, and his reply is, “Well, this is our interpretation of a man eating chicken.” Pretty much the exact same thing happened to me Rail Trail Flatbread Co. when I ordered Street Corn Nachos.
Read MoreFrank Liberto: Goodnight Sweet Nacho Prince
While we nacho fans all spent the previous Monday celebrating National Nacho Day, there was sadly one who did not. Frank Liberto: inventor of the concession nacho, inventor of the shelf-stable cheese, founder of Ricos Products Company, Captain in the Army, 1994’s South Texas Entrepreneur of the Year, passed away on November 5th, one day shy of the day he was partially responsible for, surrounded by family at his San Antonio home. He was 84 years old.
It is beyond a doubt that Ignacio Anaya is the king and father of nachos, and Carmen Rocha the mother and queen, but Frank Liberto was more the bad boy prince or cool uncle that rides a motorcycle and wears sunglasses indoors. Ignacio didn’t do much to spread the word of nachos outside of Piedras Negras, and while Carmen brought them to Los Angeles they still never really hit critical mass. It wasn’t until Frank got his brand of concession nachos into Texas Stadium and up into the mouth of announcer Howard Cosell that they reached a tipping point.
Cosell, ever the loquacious gentlemen, thought the name was hilarious and started using “nacho” as noun, verb, adjective, and however else he felt like saying it, blurting out things like “That was nacho man!” and “What a nacho run that was!” While some men would have declared their love for the food by going on about how tasty this combination of chips and cheese and spicy jalapenos was, Cosell put his own unique take on things, and low and behold, that did the trick. Word of the dish traveled throughout the land, making what could have just been a niche southern Texas dish a worldwide phenomenon.
Frank Liberto has always been a controversial figure in the world of nachos, with many blaming the concession nachos for the bad rap nachos have gotten over the years as a second class food. Despite this, there is no doubt that without him most Americans would not be aware of the dish and they would not be nearly as well knows as they are today. You may not want to eat the nachos you see in a movie theater of sports stadium in favor of the artisanal ones down at your local gastropub, but if it wasn’t for Frank they probably wouldn’t even be on the menus of most places.
The real tragedy here is that not only is a man dead and a family left grieving, but the last living member of nacho history is gone. With the holy trinity of Ignacio, Carmen, and now Frank all having passed, there is nobody on the scene today who was down in the trenches and shoveling that nacho cheese in order to have the good name of the food take root in the world. This is what the passage of time does, and nobody from the lowliest nacho serf to the mightiest nacho king can avoid it. So goodnight you prince of nachos, you king of San Antonio, I will slowly pour out a container of Ricos Gourmet Nacho Cheese Sauce for the fallen. You will be missed.