Like everywhere else online, the internet of nachos is no stranger to clickbait titles trying to draw you in. I’ve seen them all, from, “She ordered a plate of nachos. You’ll never believe what happened next!”, to, “When you read these 19 SHOCKING nacho facts, you’ll NEVER want to eat nachos AGAIN!”, to, “You think these are just normal nachos? Wait until you see what’s inside...” Usually I can resist their siren call, but when I see something like, “Readers Respond to a New Northwest Portland Restaurant That Sells Gummy Bear Nachos”, how can I not be expected to click that!
Read MoreHappy 124th Birthday Ignacio Anaya!
Since the bloom is off the rose of Google doodles and they are rarely talked about anymore, it is my duty to make sure that you look at today’s doodle. It is a very special one and we cannot ignore it. Happy Birthday Ignacio, we wouldn’t be here without you!
August 15, 2019
Ignacio Anaya García’s 124th Birthday
On this day in 1895, Mexican culinary innovator Ignacio Anaya García was born, whose proper name is not as familiar as his nickname: “Nacho,” a common abbreviation for Ignacio. As shown in today’s Doodle, illustrated by Mexico City-based guest artist Alfonso de Anda, this particular Nacho revolutionized world cuisine by melting grated Wisconsin cheese over some jalapeno slices and totopos (tortilla chips), thus inventing the dish he dubbed Nachos especiales.
The year was 1943, and García was working as Maître d' at Club Victoria, a popular restaurant in the border town of Piedras Negras, Coahuila. A group of American women, wives of soldiers stationed at nearby Eagle Pass Army Airbase, stopped in asking for a snack. Unable to find a chef, García took matters into his own hands, improvising the tasty treat much to his customers’ delight.
Word soon spread about the Nachos especiales, which were added to the Club Victoria menu, imitated around town, and written up in an American cookbook as early as 1949. By 1960, García had opened his own restaurant, El Nacho.
In the 76 years since their invention, nachos have spread all over the world. A mass-produced version was introduced in 1976 at Arlington Stadium in Texas, with liquefied cheese sauce pumped out of large cans. Stadiums were quickly selling more nachos than popcorn.
Although García refused to patent his creation—“It's just a snack to keep my customers happy and well-fed,” he reportedly said, “It's like any other border dish”—his name has gone down in history. Each October, Piedras Negras hosts the International Nacho Festival, and the town has erected a plaque in his honor, a fitting memorial to one man’s delicious legacy.
Guest Artist Q&A with Alfonso de Anda
Today's Doodle was created by Mexico City-based guest artist Alfonso de Anda. Below he shares his thoughts on the making of the Doodle:
Q: Why was this topic meaningful to you personally?
A: This topic was meaningful to me at a gut level, quite literally.
Q: What were your first thoughts when you were approached about the project?
A: Making a Doodle has been in my illustration bucket list for a while now, so I was instantly stoked when I read the email. It was such a nice way to start the day.
Q: Did you draw inspiration from anything in particular for this Doodle?
A: There isn't a whole lot of information on Ignacio, so I shifted my focus onto the dish itself. My approach was very straightforward; imagining Ignacio making his first plate of nachos while implicitly communicating a sense of fun.
Q: What message do you hope people take away from your Doodle?
A: I hope people get an instant crave for a snack after they see the Doodle. I also hope that they instantly drop whatever it is they're doing and satisfy that craving.
Concept sketches by guest artist Alfonso de Anda
Review: Smokin' Bowls
BBQ Pulled Pork, Cheese, Chips
Do you have one of those places in your life, some location, that you’ve passed by a million times in the course of your days and always thought, “Man, I should really check that out.”, but you never do? Years go by and it remains a mystery as you continue to think that one day you’ll stop by. You grow old. Your flesh sags. Your bones wither. Your organs fail. The face that looks back at you from the mirror is a stranger. As you’re lying in your death bed, the only things keeping you on this mortal place being the machines with tubes running into your body making it work, the fog of your addled brain clears just long enough for you to think, “Man, I should have really checked that place out...”, and then you die. Your family buries you in the ground and leaving the cemetery they pass that place and think, “You know, I should really check that place out.” The cycle continues.
Read MoreDoor Knobchos
What’s the worst thing you ever had on an order of nachos? Mushrooms? Carrots? Broccoli? Maybe all three of those at once like me, which caused a severe moral and spiritual crisis where I wondered if nachos were really my calling… Of course they are, but it made me realize that there can be some weird stuff on nachos, and not all of it good. Stuff, for example, like door knobs.
Read MoreHeroes of Nachos: Scholz Nacho Revolution Militia
Let’s say that every Tuesday for the past 50 years you had visited the same restaurant and gotten an order of nachos. One order of nachos a week, 52 weeks a year, 50 years, that’s 2600 orders of nachos. Pretty impressive when it’s put like that. But what would happen if the restaurant decided to change their menu, and that change involved removing nachos from it entirely? Would you switch to ordering something else? Would you start going to a different restaurant that sold nachos? Or would you, like this certain group of Austinites, band together into the Nacho Liberation Forces and try to get them returned to the menu? You can guess what a group worthy of the “Heroes of Nachos” title would choose.
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