Every PlateTales food history story tagged Mexican, newest first.
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Pan de muerto looks like an ancient Aztec offering, but its wheat, sugar and eggs came from Spain. Here is what the sources say about the bones, the legend and the rival origins.
Caesar Cardini of Tijuana has the best claim to the Caesar salad, but the famous July 4, 1924 date surfaced decades later, and three other men said the bowl was theirs.
Ignacio "Nacho" Anaya melted cheese over fried tortillas for four women from Eagle Pass, Texas. His own newspaper interviews say it happened in 1940, three years before the usual date.
Cacao was in use in Ecuador about 5,300 years ago. The chocolate bar is only from the 1840s on, and several tidy stories about Cortes and Aztec feasts do not hold up.
The tortilla is ancient, but the taco is younger than its legend. Where the word came from, who first printed it, and how Glen Bell's crunchy shell reached 1962 Downey.
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