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February 4, 2006

The Search for the Perfect Nacho DOW JONES REPRINTS

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Our correspondent travels to the snack's birthplace in Mexico and finds the truth beneath the toppings commercial use only. To order
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PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico -- It takes all day to shlep from New York to this drab border town some 140
miles southwest of San Antonio. But for a nacho-nut like me, it was like a trip to Plymouth Rock, where • See a sample reprint in PDF format.
the whole noble finger-food experiment began. And the time to enter the sacred precincts of Restaurante • Order a reprint of this article now.
Moderno was now -- on the eve of the Super Bowl, when the nacho attains its apogee, when millions of
hands reach out for a delicious mess of corn chip, melted cheese, jalapeño slices and God knows what else. SUPER NACHOS
To find the country's top nachos, we got
Over-the-top toppings can ruin this dish. Baroque "Mexican" versions of the nacho are all too common, recommendations from more than four
with refried beans, guacamole and sour cream tossed over the chips and cheese. You might even stumble dozen chefs, hotel concierges, chili experts
and even the cook for the Seattle
upon nachos with shrimp, chicken, beef, the Aztec corn fungus huitlacoche, sea bass, sushi and a ghastly Seahawks. Then we went on a cross-
range of bottled sauces. country eating tour to test their choices.
See our favorites 1 .
This culinary confusion may be one reason prospects for the nacho seem to be softening. According to the
NPD Group, a market research firm, servings of nachos in fast-food and casual restaurants dropped by 3% Plus, a top chef's recipe for a nacho
upgrade.
in each of the past two years.

My mission to Piedras Negras, then, was a search for the primeval nacho, a handmade and beautifully simple concoction, built from corn tortillas cut
on the spot into triangles and fried in lard, with real cheese, not orange lava from a bottle, and plenty of pepper slices cut from whole peppers. This is
what I hoped to find at the Moderno. It's certainly what any Super Bowl hero making nachos at home tomorrow should strive for.

It's a well-established ritual. American men in the millions have almost finished their preparations for the big game. They've bought a wide-screen
HD television. They've paid enough attention to the records of the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers to feel confident about gaming the
point spread. Now all they have to do is shop for the nachos they will bravely "cook" in their annual visit to the family kitchen.

But the question this begs is how have nachos infiltrated our national food life and why are they linked to football?

According to nacho lore, it all began in 1943, when several military wives at Fort Duncan in Eagle Pass, Texas, decided to go on a toot in Mexico.
This did not require much pluck. Eagle Pass is just a short bridge over the Rio Grande from Piedras Negras in the state of Coahuila. In Piedras
Negras (black stones, from the coal once mined there), they took shelter in the Victory Club, demanding food as well as drink. The only employee
present, the maitre d', grabbed some fried corn tortilla chips from the bar, melted Wisconsin yellow cheese on top of them and then set a slice of
canned jalapeño peppers on each snack.

This Escoffier of la frontera was Ignacio Anaya, nicknamed Nacho. The Army brides
gobbled his improvisation up and spread the word about the dish their leader Mamie had
dubbed Nacho's especiales. Eventually people all over southern Texas were calling them
nachos.

The evidence for this tale is less solid than what we might demand to prove that, say,
George Washington threw a silver dollar across the Potomac. The most convincing account
comes from Ignacio Anaya Jr., not a disinterested party, in an interview in the San Antonio
Express-News in 2002. Long before then, the Victory Club restaurant had closed and
Nacho Sr. had moved to the Moderno. He died in 1975, two years too soon to enjoy global
fame.

Nachos Worth Their Salsa: Tex -Mex classics at El Chile
Café y Cantina in Austin, Texas.
In 1977, one Frank Liberto started selling nachos at Arlington Stadium, an early Texas
Rangers venue near Dallas. Liberto made sure his nachos were on hand for sports
broadcaster Howard Cosell to try when he came to town for "Monday Night Football."
Cosell talked up nachos on the air, and the rest is history, the history of a planetary
pandemic.

The "original" Liberto nacho was a convenience food with an ever-soft cheesoid topping poured over commercial tortilla chips. In the more than 40
countries where some version of pre-fab nacho sauces are now sold, local taste and ingenuity have transformed a spontaneous Mexican invention into
a chameleon-like dish that makes your typical neighborhood garbage pizza seem as pure as a holy wafer.

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It was to peel back more than half a century of adulterated nuevos nachos that I made my pilgrimage to the Moderno. I glanced nervously at border
agents with a large dog checking travelers heading north from Eagle Pass. I did not stop to play the slots at the Kickapoo tribe's casino, nor did I tour
historic Fort Duncan, although it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I also resisted the temptation to shop at the local GAP
(Gonzales Auto Parts). I just drove over the international bridge and blundered through the one-way streets of Piedras Negras, a partly seedy city
showing many signs of Nafta prosperity.

Only a few blocks from Mexican customs I found Restaurante Moderno. No plaque, not even an old photo, commemorated Nacho Anaya. Bilingual
waiters dressed in a subtropical version of international penguin moved briskly from table to table, with drinks from the long bar. The dining room
seemed larger than it was, because two walls were mostly mirrors. There were also square columns with mirror insets. And on the dais at one end of
the room, a man in midnight blue played "Amapola" on the piano with a synthesizer backup of brass and rhythm.

My nachos were pristine, each chip covered with real melted cheese topped with a round of jalapeño. Hot salsa came on the side with a bowl
of...tortilla chips. What had Mamie the officer's wife seen in this simple invention? How had this simple invention swept the great world beyond the
state of Coahuila? I tried to think myself back to 1943, to a world without nachos on the brink of catastrophe. I was in Texas myself then, a toddler in
El Paso uprooted by war with parents who'd fallen in love with Mexican food in Juarez, across the border from Alphavillian Fort Bliss.

What bliss indeed to be present at the creation of a spicy Mexican bar snack. And how clever of Howard Cosell to see that this mosaic of cheese and
chips and stinging pepper was the perfect finger food for the age of the couch potato.

Do I like nachos? Where do I stand on molten processed cheese? Do I object to beans and guacamole? Yes, I love nachos. I order them reflexively in
airport bars. But, out of respect to Ignacio Anaya, I have to say that quality begins with first-rate ingredients -- real cheddar, real corn tortilla chips,
plenty of jalapeño slices. And whatever else you want to throw on.

That's just what I found on the way south to Eagle Pass, at El Chile Cafe y Cantina in Austin, near the University of Texas. My guess is that this
skillful kitchen, in the heart of the heart of Tex-Mex food, cooks nachos tongue-in-cheek. But they're delicious, because the ingredients are all treated
with respect.

They do not do this well in Paris, where I recently ate some nachos across the Seine from Notre Dame. If you happen to be in France tomorrow and
you insist on watching the game in real time, The Great Canadian will satisfy your Super Bowl lust with real-time action on several wide screens fed
by satellites. Skip the nachos. Mine consisted of a dismal pile of chips with a gluey topping of Emmenthal cheese, various other pseudo-Mexican
additions, served lukewarm and with barely three pepper slices. Best to eat dinner in a real restaurant and then slouch over to watch the game, chat up
barmaid Trish from Toronto and wish you were at home making your own nachos in your own way.
***

A Texas Star's Nachos Upgrade

For his take on the Super Bowl staple, it's all about the cheese.

For his take on the Super Bowl staple, it's all about the cheese

THE CHEF: Dean Fearing, chef of the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas.

HISTORY: He grew up on Southern food in Kentucky, but he made his name -- and won a slew of culinary
awards -- in Dallas with his creative Southwestern cuisine.

FASHION STATEMENT: Lucchese cowboy boots worn with his whites.

NACHOS PHILOSOPHY: "Bar food has to be bar food," he says. "We don't do new-wave nachos with wild
ingredients." But the bar at the upscale Mansion on Turtle Creek isn't the place for what he calls "a giant glob
of nachos." So each chip is prepared individually and topped with smoked chicken or Maine lobster.

TIP: "For the true flavor of the Southwest, a good grade of jalapeño jack cheese is a must, because it's the
cheese that will the set the nacho apart. Jalapeño jack adds a great, spicy flavor to the nachos." -- Russell
Adams
Mansion on Turtle Creek Nachos

Yield: 6 servings as an appetizer

Total time: 1 hour
Dean Fearing
6 6-inch white or yellow corn tortillas
1 cup canola oil
3 slices hickory smoked bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 15-ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 small onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
2 cups chicken broth
½ teaspoon coarse salt, plus more to taste
Fresh lime juice to taste
3 large ripe avocados, peeled and pitted
¼ cup finely diced onion

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¼ cup finely diced tomato

1 jalapeño chile, seeded and minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
Salt to taste
Lime juice to taste
1 cup smoked chicken, cut into strips
2 cups grated jalapeño jack cheese
Very thin slices fresh jalapeño, for garnish

First make the chips. Cut the tortillas into quarters. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat until it is hot enough to make a piece of tortilla
bubble vigorously. Using tongs, transfer a few tortilla quarters to the hot oil and fry for 30 seconds on each side, or until crisp. Drain on paper towels
and season with salt. Repeat with the remaining tortilla pieces.

Heat a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until the fat has rendered and the bacon is crisp, about 8 minutes.

Add the beans, onion, garlic, jalapeño, broth and salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat and cool for 20 minutes.

Place the beans and the liquid in a food processor and pulse to a chunky paste. Season with salt and lime juice.

Make the guacamole. In a medium bowl combine the avocados, onion, tomato, jalapeño and cilantro. Mash with a fork until smooth. Season
generously with salt and lime juice to taste.

Preheat the broiler. Spread each tortilla chip with the black beans. Add a dollop of guacamole. Portion the chicken on top of the guacamole. Top
with cheese to cover. Place under the broiler and cook until the cheese melts, about 2 minutes. Place thin slices of jalapeños on each nacho. Serve
with charred tomato salsa for dipping.
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