A favorite dip for any chip - store bought pepper jelly over cream cheese
Quick! What’s your favorite chip? Have to think?
My mother didn’t. She didn’t think there were any other chips besides Fritos! If you ever ate a sandwich at her home, be assured it would come with a serving of Fritos. She always had Fritos on hand.
And she was quick to point out that Fritos were created and continue to be made in Texas.
In 1932, 75 years ago this year, the first distinctive chip called Fritos, named after the Spanish word for “fried,” emerged from the San Antonio kitchen of Daisy Dean Doolin. The rest is history.
According to Dallas Morning News writer, Joyce Saenz Harris, Mrs. Doolin’s son, C. E. “Elmer” had eaten home-fried corn chips in a Mexican cafe. He was so intrigued by the taste of this particular chip that he went to his mother to borrow $100 to buy the recipe and the right to market it.
Mrs. Doolin not only gave her son her diamond wedding ring to pawn for $100, but once they had the recipe in hand, she undertook all the test frying in her own kitchen. While she fried, Elmer and his brother Earl experimented with perfecting the shape of the chip.
One year later, the brothers moved the Frito Company to Dallas. In 1945, the Frito Company granted H. W. Lay & Company the right to franchise and distribute Fritos in the southeastern United States. In 1961, the Doolin’s Frito Company merged with Lay’s potato-chip empire and became Frito-Lay. In 1965, Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay merged and became part of Pepsi Company, headquartered in Purchase, New York. However, the Frito-Lay Company still operates out of its sprawling corporate campus in Plano, a suburb of Dallas.
In the beginning, after the family had settled on the perfect chip, Mrs. Doolin pitched in with the marketing by developing recipes for their fledgling chips. According to legend, one of her creations was the Frito Pie. The simplest version of this concoction is to split open a small package of Fritos, which once sold for a nickel, pour heated Wolf Brand chili on top and eat it with a spoon. That’s the way it’s still served at the Texas Fair in October of each year.
Texans, as they are wont to do, sneer at the claims of their neighboring state that the tasty treat known as Frito Pie was actually invented there. According to their urban legend in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Teresa Hernandez created the snack to serve at the old Woolworth lunch counter in the 1960s.
I have to go with the Texas version of the story, not because I am a native Texan, but because I grew up eating Frito Pie and by the 1960s, I was married and making it myself.
According to Harris, several restaurants, Tillman’s Roadhouse which serves chili made from venison and Sonny Bryan’s which uses smoked brisket in its chili, list Frito Pie on their menus. At one time, Sonic Drive-In in Dallas also listed it on the menu. Although it’s no longer listed on the drive-in menu, Dallas customers can still get it if they ask for it. Nationwide, the chain now offers it as a Fritos Chili Cheese Wrap.
Harris writes, “Which you have to admit, is a clever way of adding carbs to the dish. Sixty-six grams of carbs, in fact, according to the Sonic Web’s site’s nutritional chart.”
My mother had her own twist on Frito Pie. She would spread a layer of Fritos in a jelly roll pan. Then she sprinkled a hefty serving of chopped onions over the chips and cover it all with grated cheese. She placed this concoction under the broiler until the cheese was bubbly. She served a scoop of the chip combination in a bowl and topped it with homemade chili.
As newlyweds in Dallas, our friends often hosted Frito pie parties. Although each host tried to add to the concoction, the choices were always served buffet style and guests could concoct a version to suit their own tastes. The buffet table allowed the most adventurous souls to create a layered dish, starting with a bed of rice, topped with Fritos. After the chili was poured over these two layers, guests could add lettuce, tomatoes, chopped onion, chopped jalepeno chilies, chopped olives, chives, grated cheese, guacamole salad and sour cream.
You get the idea. After the basic recipe of chips and chili, add your own favorite ingredients. As Harris says, “Please remember we’ve already said that Frito pie is not health food. It just tastes really good.”
2007
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