Stuff You Should Know - Salsa: NOT THE DANCE

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Salsa is one of the great inventions of the culinary world. Here in the USA it's mainly a vehicle for tortilla chips. In Mexico, it's more like a sauce to add to, well, anything. Get ready to be hungry!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey and welcome to the SalsaCast. This is Josh. I'm Chuck. I'm Tomato. He's Onion. Jerry's the Chili here. And you put us together, chop us up, put us in a blender, squish us under your armpit, let us drip down blender, squish us under your armpit, let us drip down the side of your chest into a bowl, and you've got stuff you should know. Just two guys trying to recapture the magic. That's right. That's been irretrievably lost forever. So anyway, salsa, right?

Yeah. People like to say salsa. I'm glad somebody said that to get it out of the way. I feel like we would have gotten in trouble. Had we not actually said it. Yeah. Now we can just move on. Yeah, let's move on. Because salsa, of course, what we're talking about

is the stuff that comes in a jar at the grocery store that's loaded with high fructose corn syrup that you put onto tortillas and shovel in your mouth. And just as Mexicans have done for thousands of years. Yes. that you put onto tortillas and shovel in your mouth, just as Mexicans have done for thousands of years. Yes. Not always. There's plenty out there that aren't loaded with high fruit

because corn syrup, but you know, a lot of the big jarred stuff that you find in a little silver caddy right beside the chips, a lot of that stuff is. So yeah, a lot of the stuff in the jar has gotten good in recent years. And you can actually thank the, the, I don't want to say cheap stuff, the more generic, super American versions. Yes. For laying the groundwork for those better versions to come.

Sure. But what we're doing is just talking about that thing that you dip your chip in that we love, that had a, that's still very popular, but that got very, very famous in the late 80s and 90s as sort of America's new favorite condiment, outselling ketchup, very famously in 1991. And then it overtook cats up in 1992.

That's right. And we're going to talk all about salsa. Uh, this is a Dave Ruse joint and Dave helped us out with this and he found somebody, I don't even know who this was. He just describes them as a Mexican college student who said, Watch, watching someone shovel salsa with a tortilla chip is strange to Mexicans. Like how an American would feel watching someone drink salad dressing out of a bottle. I do take issue a little bit. I get the point, but I think that would be an appropriate thing to say if we were

just eating it out of the jar, like shoveling it like directly like a drink into our mouth. You know what I mean? I do. But the point this guy's making, and I was being a troll earlier when I was saying that it was authentic, just like Mexicans do. You eating salsa with chips is thoroughly American.

And if you go to Mexico, they don't serve chips in salsa because maybe a better analogy would be like if you went to Mexico and they served, well, chips and ketchup. How about that? That's a very direct analogy. Although I will say I have been to some super great, authentic places in Mexico City that would give you the house specialty salsa with the large handmade tostadas. And you know they're handmade because they're weird, irregularly shaped.

And they put like five or six of those in a big wooden bowl and you can kind of break those apart and eat them with your salsa. I've seen that plenty of times. Yes, had you looked around at that restaurant in Mexico City, you would have noticed that you were the only one who was served that and it was because you were wearing

your American flag tank top. Not true, my friend. It's on the menu. Mexico City is pretty great, huh? It's the best. I think we talked about it recently, right? Yeah, we talked about it when I got home, and then since I went on that trip, you went on a trip,

and you had already been there before anyways, but yeah, we got to, you know, reminisce a bit together. I remember, it was the Brutalism episode that we talked about my trip to. Yeah, probably. That was great. Anyway, yes, Mexico City's wonderful. If you can make it down there or over there or up there,

you should. But should we talk about the origins of salsa? Yeah, because again, let's just spell this out. Salsa in Mexico is a condiment. Okay. Okay? I think that's pretty clear. I just wanted to make sure.

Yes, let's go on to the origins. That is the stuff you should know way though. What, overstating something five times? Just to get out the hammer, beat people over the head with it. I feel like that's the Josh from Stuff You Should Know Way, at least. Well, people are busy when they're listening, so you never know.

It might take that third or fourth mention. They'd be like, well, I was washing dishes, and I didn't even hear until that last one. Thanks, Chuck. That's very supportive of you. I was thinking, you know, something we could do is if we wanted to make sure that somebody got the point we're trying to make, to make sure they're paying attention, we could just say something like beep. And then insert the fact that we're trying to get across.

So they'll really pay attention. Yeah, that's a good point. So if you want to go back to the origins of salsa, you would have to go back thousands of years in Mesoamerica, because in Central and South America, they really loved to grow chilies and tomatoes and you put chilies and tomatoes together, you're going to have some kind of a salsa. Yeah.

I mean, that's essentially the basic ingredients for salsa. You could make those, you can make a salsa with just those two things. You really could and people do. Some people do, yeah. Although over the years, people have added to it more and more, but yeah, as far back as about nine, 10,000 years ago, people were making something similar to salsa. Like we would recognize it as salsa today. It just kept getting more and more and more advanced and more expansive, right? At a few thousand years

of tinkering, something's going to get a little more advanced and salsa is no different. Yeah, for sure. The first person that we found that has kind of written about this was a Franciscan priest named Bernardino de Sahagun. I have no idea how to pronounce that. Sahagun, I have no idea how to pronounce that. Sahagun. Sahagun, S-A-H-A-G-U-N. There was a record, he wrote a lot about the Aztec culture and specifically in his Florentine codex, wrote about a sauce in a food market or different kinds of sauces in a food market in Tenochtitlan. That's probably not right either, but I'll just read through some of this as a food market and Tenochtitlan is probably not right either, but I'll just read

through some of this as a quote, hot sauces, sauces with juices, shredded food with chili, with squash seeds, with tomatoes, with smoked chili, with hot chili, with yellow chili, with mild red chili sauce, yellow chili sauce, hot chili sauce, bird excrement sauce, sauce of smoked chili, heated sauces, bean sauce, toasted beans, cooked beans, mushroom sauce. You of smoked chili, heated sauces, bean sauce, toasted beans, cooked beans, mushroom

sauce. You get the idea. You keep going. You have to finish. Oh, okay. Why not? Sauce of small squash, sauce of large tomatoes, sauce of ordinary tomatoes, sauce of various kinds of sour herbs, avocado sauce, end quote.

Shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. That's exactly what I was thinking. That's about that. Yeah, so he's talking about salsa there. Yeah, yeah, very clearly. And again, this stuff had been around for thousands of years and they were just selling it like it was nothing because it was nothing, because in Mexico,

salsa is a condiment. That's right. Traditionally prepared, the Aztecs, and still you'll see these today. In fact, I have one in my kitchen. I think you do too, right? Yeah, I also have a masa maker that you got me as well. Oh, that's right.

A mocajete is a lava rock mortar and pestle. They're very, very heavy if you get like a real deal one. I can recommend this as a gift, like a house warming gift to someone, apartment warming gift, like you can spend like 50 to 70 bucks on like a really, really nice heavy duty real deal mocha Hete. And it's a great gift for someone because when you pull this thing out at a dinner party and you're grinding the either salsa together table side or if you're making some guacamole table side it's a really

kind of fancy fun thing to do not fancy but fun. It really warms whatever structure you're trying to warm. Agreed. So the chili so tomato we need to make sure everybody knows this. The tomato is indigenous to Mesoamerica, right? I think you kind of intimated that earlier. Correct. Same with chilies. And when the Colombian exchange began, specifically when Christopher Columbus tried chilies for the first time, he compared them to black pepper because that was probably the spiciest thing he'd ever tasted in his life.

And in Spanish, you call that pimento. And so that's why in English we call chilies peppers, but really chili is a Nahuatl word. I think cheese, chili. Yeah. And then they switched the I to an E and here we go. It was a Nahuatl word, I think, chile. Yeah. And then they switched the I to an E and here we go.

Yeah, I mean, I've never heard the word pepper said by people from Mexico. Maybe they do, but I've always just heard them call chilies. Sure. Because, you know, Christopher Columbus got it wrong, got another thing wrong. That's crazy.

Who'd have thought? The word salsa was already a word in Spanish. It was a generic word for sauce. Um, and I think it was a Spanish priest in a dictionary published in 1571 that actually put that in the dictionary and Aztec style tomato chili condiment listed as salsa in that 16th century dictionary. This case closed. I think that's taking a break time if you ask me.

Oh, sure, let's do it. You want to? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition, the emotional toll is as real as the physical symptoms. Starting this May, join host, Martín Hackett for Season 3 of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby studio production, and partnership with Arginics.

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Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's the hardest question you've ever asked your mom? Mom, what happened to your sister Margarita? For me, it's about a murder that's haunted my family for decades. They said that they took her and the next day she was already dead. To find the answers, I went to the place where my family is from, El Salvador, and found that the story starts with a priest

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If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Listen to season two of Snafu on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hoo, ha, hoo, ha, hoo, ha. Hi, I'm Katie Loews. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Katie Lowe's. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, Unpacking the Toolbox,

where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show. To officially unpack season three of Scandal. Unpredictable, you don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride that twists and turns in season 3 Mesmerizing But also we get to hang out with all of our old scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington So many people! Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope

And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth pulling scene that kicks off a romance. And it was Peak TV. This is new scandal content for your eyes, for your ears, for your hearts, for your minds. Well suit up gladiators, grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes. Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, it's not like salsa was an immediate hit over in Europe. First of all, Christopher Columbus had misdirected everybody and they thought it was basically like black pepper.

The chilies, I should say, were. But the bigger problem was that people in Europe, and I swear we've talked about this before, people in Europe initially thought tomatoes swear we've talked about this before, people in Europe initially thought tomatoes were a deadly part of the nightshade family. You did not want to eat a tomato. It was toxic at the very least, potentially deadly, combined with something that was kind of like black pepper.

Why would you ever want to eat something like that? But slowly but surely, about almost the 1700s, a guy named Antonio Latini became the first person Slowly but surely, about almost the 1700s, a guy named Antonio Latini became the first person to write down a recipe for what you would recognize as salsa, even though he called it Spanish style tomato sauce. Yeah, I guess he was Italian, and so they were just liking it to like regular tomato sauce maybe?

I think so, because the basis of it is pretty much tomatoes, but it has everything else. Like you would want chili peppers, onions, thyme, which is, I guess, a traditional ingredient found outside of Mexico for salsa. Yeah. But combining the hot chilies with the tomato, I think y'all said through in there, salt, oil, and vinegar, and at the very end of this recipe,

little gross, but says it is a very tasty sauce, both for boiled dishes or anything else. Boiled dishes. Boiled bacon. Oh God, I love bacon. Do you remember that in Better Off Dead? Uh, no. I don't remember that.

His mom boiled, boiled the mom, and John Cusack's mom boiled everything, and at one point she's serving bacon, and it's boiled in like this kind of weird light green whitish color. It's a really good part. I remember her making, that was a weird part of that movie that everything she made was strange. Mm-hmm, french fries? Yeah. That's good stuff. So the other way that the Columbian Exchange worked obviously was things in Europe were introduced to the New World and all of a sudden things like onion would come along or, although they did have wild onion is indigenous to North America,

but garlic, cilantro, believe it or not, not indigenous to North America, cumin, all these kind of unique vegetable oils and animal fats, that comes Mexico's way and they're like, oh, we know just how to use this. So thank you for introducing us to it. Yeah, it was weird. If you look around the internet, you'll see that some people claim that animal fats and vegetable oils are not indigenous to Mesoamerica. And of course they are, because there's animals walking around that have fat, and there's vegetables there that have fat. But apparently they did not make great use of this stuff. They didn't use fats very often. They usually charred stuff or grilled it or boiled it. And then they would add like salsa, fat-free salsa, as like the condiment to it. But yeah, I found that kind of mind-blowing because if you stop and think about it, there's a

lot of Mexican food, like actual authentic Mexican food that isn't fatty at all. It's just kind of charred with a sauce that has no fat to it. It's interesting. I just never thought about that. Yeah, and you said a key thing there too, which we should mention, which is fat free. That's one of the reasons salsa became so big in the 80s and 90s, because that was during the golden age of everything

must be fat free. So salsa was like, you know, it wasn't some fatty condiment. There were no fatty condiments really, or were there now that I'm thinking about it. Chunky style fatty condiment. Yeah. Oh, God. So now we're going to talk about a couple of other sauces. And that sounds like something from like a future movie

or something. It does. Remember like the beer that just, it's white. It's just all white can. It just says beer in like a thick black font. Oh yeah, they had that in LA on my first visit years ago. Yeah, you got me a can of it. Did I really?

Did I send you a can of it? Yeah I really? Mm-hmm, I did. Did I send you a can of it? Yeah, so that's exactly what that label would look like. You're exactly right, generic. We're gonna talk about a couple of things now that are close to salsa but not, and that is mole and hot sauce. We're not gonna spend too much time on this

because I think most people kinda know the difference, but the line can kinda be blurred. I would say the main difference in mole is that mole is, it's basically always pureed, it's never going to be chunky, kind of the same with hot sauce, but mole also usually has like, I mean if you got a good mole going, you're talking 15, 20, up to 30 or more ingredients. That's kind of what makes mole a mole. Yeah, so you have a really sophisticated layered tastes with mole that can be like, it can be tangy.

It can also be kind of like weirdly raisiny or mushroomy or something like that. It's different, but as far as a person walking around Mexico is concerned, that'd be like comparing ketchup to gravy. They're just different. Yes, they both go on your food, but in different ways, in different contexts, in different amounts. And gravy's probably not even a good example,

but it's the best I can come up with. But salsa means sauce, but mole is sauce. Because as everyone who's listened to this episode up to this point knows, salsa is a condiment, not a sauce. Yeah, so you would add it to the top of a taco or a tostada, whereas the mole, it would be like, you know, chicken mole typically has like the chicken completely drenched in the sauce when it hits the table. Right. Like the very famous joke in Mexico, you want some chicken with that mole? But then they say that in Spanish.

And the other thing is hot sauce, of course, also different. Hot sauce meant to be, although there are some super hot salsas, hot sauce is generally only hot and meant to be, you know, dabbed on a few drops at a time and also not chunky and also usually has vinegar which you're not going to find in a lot of salsa. No, not at all. And apparently hot sauce itself is, it traces itself back to Massachusetts, the very beginning of the 19th century. Um, that was where it came from, but it got pretty popular south of the border as well, because it does involve chilies of some, in some form or fashion. Usually it's chili vinegar and salt are the three ingredients.

And there's some good stuff out there, but yeah, it's not really salsa. Although, as we'll see, is it chips and salsa time? We're gonna have some? I would love some after researching all this. Which, by the way, hat tip to Dave, big thanks for helping us out with this one. Big hat tip. No, I say we hold off on the chips and salsa.

That was surprising. Because we have to go, we have to, I mean chips and salsa is an American thing like he said, so we gotta go back to kind of when this hit the states in a big way. And anyone who knows the history of North America knows that a lot of the United States used to be Mexican territory.

Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, a lot of Colorado was Mexico, but once that was, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, a lot of Colorado was Mexico. But once that was no longer Mexico, there were still a lot of people living there, Mexican communities, Mexican culture, Mexican foods. So it should come as no surprise that Texas and California, and New Mexico, and Arizona Arizona and places like that, have always had and still continue to have a thriving Mexican food scene there. And this was true back in the 1920s and 30s when salsa kind of came on the scene.

Yeah. And so the collision between often Anglo or other kind of European settlers, um, in this area, colliding with former Spanish settlers and indigenous people in the area. Um, they, they kind of came together to form like kind of a hybrid between Mexican and what would be American cuisine. So things like Tex-Mex or Cali-Mex or Southwest-Mex was born, which is, was originally at least, authentic Mexican dishes, but kind of toned down a little bit. Made a little blander, made a little more Yorkshire pudding-y, you know what I mean?

Yeah, not as hot, made for the American palate. I think Dave dug up this recipe from 1934 in the LA Times for chili salsa. The name of the article was Delicacies from Mexico. Even though it said in the article, the salsa is used in many Spanish dishes, I think it was just a time when they were like, Mexico, Spain, what's the difference?

Right. When in fact, there's a pretty big difference, including an ocean in between them. Yeah, and also the recipe included parsley and flour. Yeah. You just don't see that in many salsa dishes. So it was kind of Tex-Mex-y for sure. I think even before Tex-Mex really was a thing.

But going back to salsa and the idea that salsa, I think I said the good stuff in jars today was built on the shoulders of the less good stuff of yesteryear You can kind of trace that no shade also by the way. I hope I'm not coming off that way I'm not throwing shade at anybody like David Pace who innovated And really kind of introduced America to salsa But at the same time made it more palatable to his market He took salsa and took it from a condiment,

which it is in Mexico, and made it into kind of like a snack or an appetizer. So a dip, I guess, is a better way to put it. Yeah, David Pace was a Louisiana guy, born and raised. His family was in the molasses business, bottling molasses. So he had a background in bottling and jarring a food product. Went to World War II, settled down in San Antonio, Texas eventually, where the Mexican food scene is and was and is robust.

You've been there, right? You've talked about the food there with me, I believe, privately. Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. It's good stuff. Never been there. I got to do it. But he loved that chili salsa that he would get locally at different Mexican restaurants.

And like you said, he settled down the taste a little bit, made his own variety called paste picante. Picante is an adjective meaning spicy or pungent. If you notice, if you look at the jar, it doesn't say salsa on there. No. It says Pecante sauce. And the tomato was the star.

The chili took a little bit of the back seat and he had a goal to be what he said was the Heinz of salsa. And although he did well, it would be his son-in-law, Kit Goldsbury, who would really kind of kick that brand to the next level. Yeah, I mean, think of this pretty ambitious. I want to be the Heinz of salsa, and it actually turned out that way, but just, yeah, not under his watch.

He retired and Kit took over, think about the late 70s, sometime in the 70s, and at that same time, there was a health craze going through America that translated, like I think you said earlier, by the 80s into everything has to be fat free. Yeah. And salsa again, is basically by definition, fat

free. So it was ready made to step up and kind of take the spotlight. And the pace was very lucky that Kit Goldsberry was in charge because he, I guess, knew a great opportunity when he saw it and just pushed pace into the mainstream through a really clever, earwormy kind of advertising campaign that people still say today, you make me say it sometimes when you say New York City. I mean, you stopped and been like, you're not gonna say it.

And that's from like, 1989 was when that first ad came out. Yeah, that's right. And in 1993, we got the famous line, get a rope. You go look this thing up on YouTube. This ad ran for 10 years from 93 to 2003, when they are one of the camp, cowboy camp guys is chastising Cookie the Cook because he's using salsa from New York City

and they all go New York City and an actor named Ralph Bonzo Bear Stedman uttered those famous three words, get a rope. Even though Dave, did you notice, he put get the rope in here? I did. He said get the rope, I got so mad at Dave. Did you send him an email?

No, but he's listening, so I just wanted to tell him this way. Oh, geez. But yeah, Ralph Bonzo Bear Stedman was, just want to shout him out, because it's an iconic commercial line, it's kind of up there with Where's the Beef? Yeah.

And he's a guy from the North. Where's A Beef? Oh, she passed away too. No, no. Instead of where's the beef, where's A Beef? Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Where's the beef? Where's the beef? Quote. I love it. Sorry, Dave. But Ralph was from the Pacific Northwest, seemed like a really good guy, did lots of

local acting and voice acting, and he passed away in 2014 and left a very sweet family behind. So, big shout out to Bonzo Bear. So, yeah, so this ad campaign, New York City, it just came at a perfect time, the product

was perfect, not only were people trying to get more fat free and salsa was a great alternative to everything else, like ketchup and stuff. People were also trying new tastes, exotic, ethnic tastes. Like Mexican salsa, chunky style was just really, you were really sophisticated if you ate salsa, not ketchup at a time in like the late 80s.

So it really, it just, everything just came together and so all of a sudden America just falls in love with salsa. And still today, like even in hindsight, I know this sounds kind of unnecessarily hysterical, but I can't believe that salsa ever outsold ketchup. It's mind boggling to me. Yeah. Like that it was that popular.

And it stayed pretty popular. And like I was saying, it just kept getting better and better and better to where the stuff that you buy in jars of the grocery store today is often pretty good, really good. Yeah. And chances are your local grocery store may even have like a house-made version that

they sell in like the little plastic containers that has a, you know, a sell-by date on it, that kind of thing. Sure. You usually see those. My favorites are the, well, we'll save that. But again, chips and salsas is a pretty American thing. They do have the tostada in Mexico, but a tostada is used to sort of like an open face taco

to put stuff on top of, and then you'll put your salsa on top of that. Right. But we do have a few competing origin stories for the origin of tortilla chips, which is pretty fun, I think. Yeah, as told in the Stuff You Should Know book, The Incomplete Compendium,

we talk about the invention of Fritos specifically by a guy named Elmer Doolin. I wonder where I heard that before. Remember we talked about Frito feet, how dogs get Frito smell on their feet, and that chapter features an illustration of Momo wearing a long haircut. That's right.

If you don't have a book, you should get it just to see Momo in there. Yeah, and as a matter of fact- It's a good illustration too. It is. It's great. And as a matter of fact, we're not even going to tell you that story. You have to go read it in the book. That's right. Oh, you want to do that?

Yeah. All right. You want to hear about Elmer Doolin? Go drop a, you probably get that thing for like six bucks now. Go to your library even. Yeah, get it for free. Go crack a book. All right, let's move on to story number two then, Josh, I like that.

All right. Rebecca Webb Carranza, she's married to Aghani Mario and they own the El Zarapa Tortilla Factory in LA in the 1940s and they made corn tortillas kind of straight up but when they had misshapen tortillas that they couldn't, you know, that didn't look like the rest, they couldn't sell those or thought they couldn't. And they would cut them into triangles and fry them up and sell them as tort chips.

And apparently it was a pretty big seller in the 1940s and 50s regionally and then eventually, I think nationwide even. Yeah. I mean, imagine you, like you had tortilla chips that you could buy in the 40s. Of course you'd be crazy for that. Like there wasn't a lot of competition at the time, you know what I mean, snack wise. Yeah, and I think this number three though

is probably the leading candidate though, don't you think? It's gotta be because number one, he predates everybody by a few decades. Exactly. And number two, he was known as the corn king of San Antonio. His name was Jose Bartolome Martinez. He looked like a, well, Hispanic Teddy Roosevelt.

Okay. He kinda does. And he was called the corn king for nothing. He set up the first industrial scale mill for grinding corn in the United States. And he apparently had four different mills around San Antonio at one point, and was pumping out 60,000 pounds of tortilla chips a day,

all the way back in the 19-teens. So he probably was the guy who created the tortilla chip. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, it's impossible to find out, like, hey, what was the first restaurant that started just throwing that stuff on the table kind of for free? Although it's not for free usually anymore. Usually you get like the chips with a trio of salsas and like a cheese dip for, you know, seven or eight bucks.

But there are probably still some places that, you know, maybe some of the chains throw it on the table for free, like Olive Garden does with that bread and salad. Yeah. A lot of people think that it's kind of sacrilegious to start charging for it. Even if you're upgrading the salsa, it's just, it's a tradition that should be honored and restaurants are like, that actually costs us a lot of money. Yeah, for sure. People say, I care not.

I mean, even if you pay something, they're going to keep giving you basket refills of chips. I guess it just feels off paying for chips and salsa. I'm fine with paying for queso, paying for guacamole. Yeah, yeah. And if they are like, we have like a higher end salsa that we're not going to give you for free, paying for that, that's fine.

But there should be some basic level salsa with chips at a Mexican restaurant in the United States that's complimentary. Even work it into your price structure, but don't charge for it. There's something just off about it, I think. So like a fancy salsa like made with Goldschlager, that would cost something.

Right, they set it on fire table side. All right, to each cost something. Right. They set it on fire tables, huh? Um, all right. To each their own. Nice. Okay, but one more thing before we move on. You said it was impossible to trace where the first restaurant that started serving chips and salsa came from. And that seems to be true. But there was an historian on Reddit there,

ask historians, subreddit. Somebody asked like what the first restaurant was that started serving chips and salsa. And this historian dug up something kind of close. It's potentially a chain called Macayo or El Nido. They apparently were owned by the same person in Phoenix that by the early to mid 70s was already serving chips and then transferred over from hot sauce,

people used to put hot sauce on their chips, to salsa, serving salsa with chips. So it's possible that was the first restaurant to do it, but what was even more interesting is that apparently before then, people put hot sauce on their chips, much like that analogy I was talking about earlier of putting ketchup on your chips. It's not that far off. I love that you said that was much more interesting than the Reddit historian.

Well, no, the Reddit historian found all that. So kudos to them. Yeah, yeah. I got you. All right. So let's, should we just go over a few sauces here? Or should we take a break and do that? I think we should take a break and come back and tell people how to make their own. All right, we'll be right back and we're gonna tell you

how to get that mocha jete out and get busy right after this. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition, the emotional toll is as real as the physical symptoms. Starting this May, join host, Martine Hackett for season three of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio Production and Partnership with Arginics. From myasthenia gravis, or MG, to chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, also known as CIDP, Untold Stories highlights the realities of navigating life with these conditions from challenges to triumphs.

In this season, Martina and her guests discuss the range of emotions that accompany each stage of the journey. Whether it's the anxiety of misdiagnosis or the relief of finding support and community, nothing is off limits. And while each story is unique, the hope they inspire is shared by all. Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's the hardest question you've ever asked your mom?

Mom, what happened to your sister Margarita? For me, it's about a murder that's haunted my family for decades. They said that they took her and the next day she was already dead. To find the answers, I went to the place where my family is from, El Salvador, and found that the story starts with a priest who was killed on the altar and sparked a war. I'm Jasmine Romero, and on Sacred Scandal Nation of Saints, join me as we uncover an unholy war, one that includes government cover-ups and politicians turned death squad leaders. But I'll also tell you the story of one family, mine,

because on this journey, I found out that we had more secrets than I knew. Listen to Sacred Scandal, Nation of Saints, as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971, a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy s***, we are really here. This is really happening. They weren't professional criminals. They were ordinary citizens.

But they needed to know the truth about the FBI burglaries forged blackmail letters and threats of violence were used to try to stop antiwar marches even if that meant risking everything I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop the fire. I'm Ed Helms host of snafu season Medburg, the story of a daring heist that exposed J. Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Listen to season two of Snafu on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Unpack season 3 of Scandal. Unpredictable, you don't see it coming, it's a wild, wild ride that twists and turns in season 3. Mesmerizing.

But also we get to hang out with all of our old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people! Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth-pulling scene that kicks off a romance And it was peak TV This is new scandal content for your eyes for your ears for your hearts for your minds Well suit up gladiators grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind-the-scenes

Listen to unpacking the toolbox on the iHeart Radio App Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. The first salsa we should talk about is just the classic, it's my favorite kind of salsa overall, the pico de gallo. I love a salsa that's almost nothing but chunks, which is basically what pico de gallo is. Extremely fresh. Yeah, not a lot of saucy tomato in there even, just diced up tomato, onion, chilies, cilantro, lime juice,

little bit of salt, bang, bang, boom. I throw a little black pepper on top, but that's just me. Oh, Christopher Columbus would be proud. He sure would. He was like, see? But I really love just a good standard. I love a lot of kinds of sauces, but I love a standard pico de gallo for, especially, well, for both for eating with chips and with just putting on tacos and stuff.

You know, something I learned from researching this episode, I just had never occurred to me to ask, but pico de gallo actually means beak of the rooster, or rooster's beak. Did you know that? I didn't know that. I always just thought it meant pico de gallo. It never occurred to me.

Because gallo, you know, that's like a kind of beer in Guatemala, and it means rooster, right? All right, that's what I'm thinking of, because it's got a rooster on the bottle. Yeah, so they call it beak of the rooster, apparently, because people used to eat pico de gallo with their, their index finger, middle finger and thumb. They would just scoop it into their mouths.

Like, and that resembles kind of a, a chicken or a rooster beak diving into that bowl of pico de gallo, infecting it with all manner of communicable diseases for the next person to take too, which is actually kind of a problem with the fresh salsas. Yeah. I mean, you know, anytime it's a fresh, uh, fresh produce like that, there could be the danger of some sort of salmonella or something, but, uh, lime juice will kill that away. You hope.

Can we talk about Chipotle? Well, real quick, have you had the salsa Schneepeck? I have not. I haven't either, but it sounds good. It's, it's basically pico de gallo with some stuff swapped out, but the thing I find most interesting is rather than lime juice, sour

orange juice, I'll bet that's good stuff, man. I bet it is. Okay. Yeah. Let's go on to Chipotle. Yes. Chipotles are smoky. Uh, man. I bet it is. Okay. Yeah. Let's go on to chipotle. Yes. Chipotles are smoky. Uh, they're a little tangier.

A lot of this stuff is usually roasted. Uh, tomatoes, garlic, onion, those chipotles. You roast those things up, get a little, little, uh, fire char on them, and then grind them or blend them into a paste. And you got a pretty good chipotle working. Uh, then there's salsa verde, which is made from tomatillos, which have a green cast to them. And then grind them or blend them into a paste. And you got a pretty good chipotle working. Uh, then there's salsa verde, which is made from tomatillos, which have a green cast to them. They're like little tiny green tomatoes, but tastes much better.

I'm not sure what's going on with tomatillos, but they're pretty awesome. And, um, that one's just pretty straight up. Like you, you kind of want the tomatillo to stand out, uh, taste-wise, but it can also be kind of hot. It's garlicky, oniony, there's some cilantro and all that. But the point is the tomatillos are really, it's a really tomatillo forward salsa. It's green. Sure.

That's why they call it salsa verde. Yeah. But I have to say, I just have to shout this out. If you want a good jarred salsa verde, you could do a lot worse than Trader Joe's. I don't know that I've ever had a jarred salsa verde actually. It's really good. And it's actually hard to find a good one. I think Mateo's makes a good salsa verde in the jar that you can get nationally.

And Trader Joe's is your best bet for sure. Do they ever, do they get rid of the whole Trader Jose thing? I don't know. I haven't looked closely, but I have seen that fairly recently, but maybe it was an out of date product that I bought. Yeah. I don't go to Trader Joe's.

I did when I lived in LA, cause it was convenient, but, uh, I haven't been in years. Um, salsa macha is something that I was introduced to on my Mexico City trip that I'd never had before. My good friend PJ, who is an outstanding cook and especially outstanding Mexican chef. His parents owned a Mexican restaurant, legendary Mexican restaurant in New Jersey for decades. They recently closed, but Mexican Food Factory, shot them out.

I guarantee you there's some listeners that have been there. that recently closed, but Mexican Food Factory, shopped them out. Nice. I guarantee you there's some listeners that have been there. But PJ was like, you gotta have the salsa macha. You just, you won't believe it and just try it. It sounds awesome. It's great. It's not like a traditional salsa you would see. It's like an oil.

So you've got your dried chilies, of course, but you also have like ground peanuts, garlic, sesame seeds, olive oil and vinegar. So no tomato in this guy. It's really, really great. I'm surprised you didn't run across it in Mexico City, but next time you have the opportunity, I urge you to try it.

I will. It sounds really awesome for sure. And that one comes from Veracruz, which also gave us Pescato Veracruz, which is the best way to have a fish. Yeah, I thought it was Oaxaca for some reason, but I guess I got bad information. That's all right, as long as you enjoyed it. Yeah, and I love all, I mean,

that's the wonderful thing about going to, well, I mean, now in the United States, Mexican restaurants have gotten so varied now. You can find, especially in the United States, Mexican restaurants have gotten so varied now. You can find, especially in the last decade, so many more options besides like Tex-Mex and Mexicali, which I still love that sort of Americanized version, but you can find some great authentic places and Oaxacan places and places that are more seafood forward

and it's just, they're really representing all the flavors of Mexico here in the States now and it's not a bad thing. No, it's not at all. It's a great thing really representing all the flavors of Mexico here in the States now, and it's not a bad thing. No, it's not at all. It's a great thing, as a matter of fact. You don't ever have to leave the U.S. Everybody just comes to us. Do you want to go over some of these other non-Mexican versions?

Yeah, the one that stuck out to me was aji creolo. That's right. It's like creole sauce. And in Peru, they make it with like sour cream or mayo, some garlic, and then aji peppers, which are orange. And it sounds really good, but there's also a confusing Ecuadorian version that is not like that at all.

Yeah, that one has, yeah, it's got the same exact name, so it is very confusing. It's got the same chilies, the Aji, I guess, A-J-I chilies, but they don't have dairy products. It's not creamy. They use vinegar instead. Yes, which is pretty much the antithesis of a creamy dairy product, vinegar is. Yeah, and Dave said it's pretty ubiquitous. It's like ketchup on the table. Yeah. Because it's a condiment.

Uh, he also threw in chimichurri in here from, uh, Uruguay slash Argentina. I don't know. I don't know if chimichurri belongs anywhere near this list. It just seems like such its own thing. Well, there's not a single pepper or onion in it. I don't think, or, um, pepper or tomato. Yeah single pepper or onion in it, I don't think, or pepper or tomato. Yeah. Is there, I don't think there's peppers in chimichurri,

is there? I think it's all like parsley and- Garlic? Cilantro, garlic, a lot of oil. I don't think there's peppers. Yeah. It's good, but I don't think it's salsa. I agree.

Should we just cut this part out? No, we need to leave it in as a lesson to everybody, never to call chimichurri salsa. We also have to answer to us. Well, Dave put it in there, so you know what I have to say to Dave is get the rope. Where's the beef, Dave? There was one other thing I wanted to mention too.

Oh, it was a shout out. Uh, the greatest free table side salsa in any restaurant in the United States is to be found at a chain in Atlanta called La Fonda. They're doing something to their salsa that is unparalleled. It's the most sophisticated free salsa you've ever seen. And it's not small batch. They have literal vats of it sitting around in the restaurant waiting to be served. But it is so good. It's worth traveling to Atlanta just to try that salsa,

which gives it a Michelin star or two, in my opinion. Well, you'll be glad to know then, my friend, there is a La Fonda that opened up right down the street for me. All right, let's do dinner. Last year. And if you go to the Eastlake La Fonda, everyone, I can encourage you to go across the street on 2nd Avenue. If you go walk by the other restaurants there, mixed up burgers, you will see the Eastlake Garden. And that is a community garden that Emily and I run. Emily runs that thing. If you go there and it looks beautiful

and there are all kinds of herbs planted and flowers and stuff planted in beds, that is Emily's hard work because she's basically a full-time gardener now. That's awesome, man. What a great way to spend time. Yeah, and the Eastside Garden is just open for the public to use and enjoy after you've had some La Fonda. And she just recently put up a new Instagram page for the

garden. So if you want to, it doesn't have a lot on there yet, but it's, you know, if you want to follow the story, you can go to East underscore Lake underscore Garden and check it out. Yeah. You just get stuffed on La Fonda and walk around the community gardens in East Lake. That sounds like a pleasant evening, man. Yeah. All right.

So yeah, we'll do that. And I can finally give you your birthday present from like six months ago. Great. Oh, and you'll know it's the Eastlake Garden because there's a sign that says Eastlake Garden painted by local legend artists are land. Is that the one with the praying hands and the cat? The praying hands and lost cat and pray for Atlanta during COVID. So Ronnie's a very long time Atlanta resident and very popular local artist.

And we've commissioned Ronnie to do lots of things, including the sign for the East Lake Garden and his unique, amazing style. And this has been Hot Lana talk with Josh and Chuck. Yeah, that's it for salsa. Go out and eat salsa every day. Yes, go eat salsa, go learn how to make mole and just enjoy life. How about that?

Yes, Chuck said yes. That means it's listener mail time. I tricked him into it This is a good one. This is from Tamara and Tamara included a post Script pronunciation. I'm looking up real quick. Okay. Got it. Hey guys Listening to the widowhood episode reminded me of one of my favorite stories about my great grandmother, Judita. When my grandmother was little, 1930s Pennsylvania, her father supported the family as a coal miner and her mother, Judita, stayed at

home raising six children. She was an immigrant from Italy, didn't speak a word of English. My great-grandfather was in a mining accident and sent to a hospital hours away with an injury he could not recover from, keeping him bedridden. You mentioned that children of widows were considered orphans. Well, brother, I'm here to tell you,

so were children of those whose fathers were in the hospital even. Wow. There was an actual court hearing for the children where presumably they would be sent into the foster system. My great grandmother got a lawyer. No idea how that happened. But the judge was entering the courtroom. My great-grandmother was holding a conversation in Italian with her lawyer that went something like this. Are they gonna take my children? Yes, it's very likely. And it will cost them money to feed, house, and clothe my children, right?

Yes, that's right. Then why don't they give me the money and I'll take care of my own children? Just so happened that Judge was fluent in Italian, understood the pleas and logic of my great-grandmother, and that's exactly the arrangement they came to. Awesome. My grandmother recalls that her oldest brother was in charge of accounting for all the money they received from the state, documenting exactly how it was spent. They were lucky there was a little bit left over at the end of the month. They got some penny candy. And whenever I think life is rough, I recall Judita in knowing that her blood is in me.

And seeing the strong line of women I come from gives me the confidence I need to tackle whatever comes my way. Very nice. What a great email. Great email. That's from Tamara. And she was thrilled to know that she would be on. And everyone will be happy to know that her grandmother is still alive at 97 years old and is going to hear this email. So hello, Grandma. Hello Grandma, and thanks a lot, Tamara. If you want to be like Tamara and send us an awesome email,

we're always up for that. All you have to do is send it off to stuffpodcast at iHeartRadio.com. For so many people living with an autoimmune condition like myasthenia gravis or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, the emotional toll can be as real as the physical symptoms. That's why, in an all new season of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition from Ruby Studio and Argenics, host Martine Hackett gets to the heart of the emotional journey for individuals living with these conditions. To find community and inspiration on your journey,

listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1980, while El Salvador sat on the brink of war, one man held together the fragile peace, Archbishop Oscar Romero. He was brutally assassinated in front of dozens of his loyal followers. His death marked the start of a civil war that left more than 75,000 people dead and a million more displaced around the world.

My family includes both, those that fled and those that died. Listen to Sacred Scandal, Nation of Saints, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ever get the feeling someone's watching you? We know they're looking for us. Well, in 1971, a group of anti-war activists had that feeling. I was in the heart of the dragon

and it was my job to stop the fire. So they decided to do something insane, break in to the FBI and expose J. Edgar Hoover's dirty secrets. We had some idea that this was pretty explosive. I'm Ed Helms. Listen to season two of Snafu on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.