Title: A Brief History of Chips and Salsa: The backstory on this power couple - Food - The Austin Chronicle
Headings: A Brief History of Chips and Salsa
A Brief History of Chips and Salsa
The backstory on this power couple
By Sierra Diaz, Fri., Aug. 18, 2017

Content: By the Forties, salsa had taken hold throughout the Southwest and quickly became a staple in metropolitan kitchens. Texas played a pivotal role in salsa's history, debuting brands like El Paso Chile Company and Pace Foods, famous for their Eighties "New York City? Get a rope!" ads. In 1979, Dan Jardine of Jardine Foods named Austin the hot sauce capital of America, proving our hot sauce bona fides. From there, more and more companies jumped on the salsa production train, sharply increasing consumption in the late Eighties and early Nineties. Salsa became a staple in American food culture – even outselling condiments like ketchup. The preferred salsa-shoveling vehicle – corn tortilla chips – also originated in Latin America. According to Mayan legend, peasants used dried ground native corn kernels to feed their hungry kings. Though the tortilla chip's definitive origin story is a mystery, Rebecca Webb Carranza claims she invented the chips as a way to use broken scraps from tortilla production.