The history of Frito Pie

[joiei]

As explained on Eater

 

http://www.eater.com/2016/4/3/11326520/frito-pie-explained

 

I have eaten frito pie all my life.  I was born in the real West Texas, 100 miles west of San Angelo in a little town that was just a wide spot in the road and it is still just a wide spot in the road.  My mom would serve frito pie and sometimes she made a frito pie cassarole. 

I don't know where those folks from New Mexico get the idea that it started there in the 60's because I am older than that.  

 

So Jaymes, when we get together in Austin, we will have to have frito pie at least once.  I'm looking at the end of May.  And bbq of course.  

 

Quote

What is Frito Pie?

Despite its name, Frito pie is not pie at all but rather a pile of Fritos with chili on top. The humblest version of the dish is served from the chip bag itself: The bag is typically placed in a paper boat and split down the middle, and the chili is poured right inside.

Frito pie may vaguely resemble nachos, but due to its messy nature, it is always eaten with a (usually plastic) fork. (A Dallas Morning News restaurant reviewer raised eyebrows back in 2011 when they committed the faux pas of denouncing a restaurant’s Frito pie for being too difficult to manage as a finger food.)

 

[lochaven]

Friday night lights back home and Fritos pie sold during the game. Thanks for the info. 

 

[Jaymes]

Yeah, we've done the "waitress in Santa Fe" thing here before.  Inexplicable to me that anyone could believe it.  And my roots in New Mexico go pretty damn deep.  Grandfather was a sheriff up in Farmington/Aztec back around the turn of the last century.  He and my grandmother lived in an old stone house on the banks of the Animas River.  That house had been the overnight stop for the Durango-Farmington stage.  Before my grandmother married him, she had been a "Harvey Girl" working at several of the New Mexico Harvey Houses.  Aunt owned a motel up there - The Aztec Motel, built in, I think, the 1930's.  Uncle had the first pharmacy.  Other uncle owned two Western Auto stores - Aztec & Grants.  Cousin was the state hydrologist for many years...in...that's right...Santa Fe.  Nephew currently state trooper assigned to Cuba.  I spent most of my summers up on the Animas River.  Two of my three children were born in New Mexico - Clovis and Alamogordo.  So it's not a territorial pride Texas vs New Mexico issue to me.  It's just common sense.

 

Elmer Doolin started packaging Fritos in San Antonio in the 1930's. I repeat, San Antonio.  The home of the Chili Queens, who were already a nationally-famous tourist attraction.  I'm sorry, but who in their right mind could possibly believe that nobody in San Antonio, the home of the Chili Queens, would have considered the natural connection between fried corn tortilla chips and chili until some waitress in Santa Fe came up with the idea decades later?

 

Not to mention that I was in junior high in San Angelo, Texas, in the mid-1950's and I distinctly remember at lunchtime walking across the street to the drive-in and getting Frito Pies, served in the little bags, with all the "fixin's" added.  And absolutely nobody said, "OMG what's this???"  They had already been eating Frito Pies for years.  And years.  And years.

 

In order for me to ever believe the "waitress in Santa Fe" story, I'd have to believe that those hundreds of Frito Pies I ate when I was a kid in Texas in the 40's and 50's were all in my imagination.

 

I will add, however, that it's such a natural combination that I have no doubt Santa Fe Waitress did start serving it, coming up with the "idea" on her own.  I don't doubt that.

 

But who logically could possibly believe that she was the very first.

 

That utterly defies common sense.  I cannot believe that they're still claiming to have "invented it." 

 

Seriously?

 

Give it up already.

 

 

 

Edited April 4, 2016 by Jaymes (log)

[Jaymes]

4 hours ago, joiei said:

So Jaymes, when we get together in Austin, we will have to have frito pie at least once.  I'm looking at the end of May.  And bbq of course. 

 

 

End of May.  Sounds great.

[kayb]

I love Frito pie. This makes me want to go to Sonic and get one. 

 

It really makes me want to go back to Paris, TN, ca. 1971, and have one from the K&W Drive In, but Sonic is a lot more doable.

 

[weinoo]

11 hours ago, dscheidt said:

Crunchy, fatty, salty heresy.  Mmmm. 

 

Have you ever had a real Frito Pie? In New Mexico (or Texas)?  I can just imagine the look on someone's face when you for a Trader Joe's corn chip pie!

 

Host's note: this discussion sprang from the Trader Joe's topic.

Edited 9 hours ago by Smithy
Added host's note (log)

[Shel_B]

1 hour ago, weinoo said:

Have you ever had a real Frito Pie? In New Mexico (or Texas)?  I can just imagine the look on someone's face when you for a Trader Joe's corn chip pie!

 

Really.  While the original "Frito Pie" used Fritos, as in the beginning Fritos was the only corn chip available (early 1930's IIRC).  It has been said that, about a decade after the creation of the chip,  the Frito company themselves created the recipe in order to promote their prodct, and naturally the Fritos brand chip was featured. Now, most any corn chip, including generic supermarket brands, are used in Frito pies.

 

Currently, Frito Pie denotes more of a style than the use of a specific ingredient (although Fritos is still quite commonly used), and that style, that original recipe idea, has morphed into many variations. A few years ago, in Lincoln, New Mexico, I had a variation made with tortilla chips, which I later found to be not that unusual. Frito Pie, often called a walking taco, is frequently made with Doritos instead of the corn chip. Back around 1981, my wife and I had a dish (the precise name of which I don't recall) which was described as "corn chip pie" at the historic Oxford Hotel in Walsenburg, CO. 

 

BTW, in your opinion, what is a "real Frito pie?"  Is it the concoction served in a Fritos bag (dare I say corn chip bag?), or the casserole so frequently served at backyard and community barbeques, or the individual bowls served at many restaurants throughout the Southwest. 

 

 

 

[weinoo]

 

https://thebitenm.com/frito-pie-a-new-mexico-classic/

[TdeV]

2 hours ago, Shel_B said:

Really.  While the original "Frito Pie" used Fritos, as in the beginning Fritos was the only corn chip available (early 1930's IIRC).  It has been said that, about a decade after the creation of the chip,  the Frito company themselves created the recipe in order to promote their prodct, and naturally the Fritos brand chip was featured. Now, most any corn chip, including generic supermarket brands, are used in Frito pies.

 

Currently, Frito Pie denotes more of a style than the use of a specific ingredient (although Fritos is still quite commonly used), and that style, that original recipe idea, has morphed into many variations. A few years ago, in Lincoln, New Mexico, I had a variation made with tortilla chips, which I later found to be not that unusual. Frito Pie, often called a walking taco, is frequently made with Doritos instead of the corn chip. Back around 1981, my wife and I had a dish (the precise name of which I don't recall) which was described as "corn chip pie" at the historic Oxford Hotel in Walsenburg, CO. 

 

BTW, in your opinion, what is a "real Frito pie?"  Is it the concoction served in a Fritos bag (dare I say corn chip bag?), or the casserole so frequently served at backyard and community barbeques, or the individual bowls served at many restaurants throughout the Southwest. 

 

If you were to make a Frito Pie, Shel, how would you make it?

 

[Shel_B]

27 minutes ago, TdeV said:

If you were to make a Frito Pie, Shel, how would you make it?

 

First of all, I wouldn't use Fritos. I quit eating Fritos in 1958, and pretty much stayed away from corn chips and Frito-like products until discovering TJ's corn chips a couple of years ago. I like both of TJ's versions, and depending on whom I was feeding, I'd use one or the other.

 

I'd fry up some ground beef with diced onions, add some herbs and spices depending on mood (I could see Rancho Gordo oregano Indo and my own blend of dried chile powder [Ancho, Guajillo, Pasilla Oaxaca for example] and which corn chips I was using. I'd add drained, diced fire roasted tomatoes packed with citric acid to help them retain shape and texture, a can of TJ's green hatch chilies or, if on hand, some very finely diced jalapeño.  I'd use Whole Foods 365 spiced (or not) black beans, shredded cheddar or maybe pepper jack cheese. I'd adjust the moisture content with Bonafide organic beef bone broth.

 

I'd layer the dish with chips, meat mix, chips, cheese, etc., rather than mix everything together and pop the whole mess into the oven to brown a little. The top layer would be cheddar, even if using pepper jack, and maybe some broken corn chip pieces would be rained across the final cheese layer. I'd probably cook the casserole in the Fat Daddio 3" deep 9 x 13 pan. Nice pan, good for taking to a pot luck and feeding a crowd.

 

Except for the bottom layer of chips, which would be spread out over a very light layer of sauce to form sort of a bottom crust, the layers of chips would be spread thin so they'd not clump together too much and make eating the casserole just a little easier and more pleasant.

 

Anyway, I'm just riffing on an idea or two. For a dish like this, the recipe is often cupboard dependent, but generally I'm pretty well stocked.

 

Hope this gives you what you're looking for.

 

 

[blue_dolphin]

This sounds like the opening line of an entertaining story: 

24 minutes ago, Shel_B said:

I quit eating Fritos in 1958, …

OK, I’ll bite. What happened in 1958 that caused you to quit Fritos?

[weinoo]

2 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

This sounds like the opening line of an entertaining story: 

OK, I’ll bite. What happened in 1958 that caused you to quit Fritos?

Trader Joe’s hadn’t yet opened?