![]() ![]() Gruma puts its origin date as 1949 - but 22 years earlier, Jose Bartolomé Martinez of San Antonio took out a U.S. The multinational has long claimed it was the first producer of dehydrated masa, which revolutionized tortilla-making because fresh masa spoils quickly. The most notorious example is Gruma, the largest tortilla company in the world. See, Mexicans can stretch the truth to fit a convenient narrative as well as gringos when it comes to our food, folks. And now you have a white reporter named Sam Dean telling us that a Mexican had fibbed about creating a product popular with so many?īut then reality grounds me. After all, we’re still outsiders in the United States despite our numbers, our centuries of living here. We’re invested in those who do rise up to levels we can only hope to achieve. There are too few Mexican Americans recognized for inventing things beloved by almost everyone. That’s why Montañez’s story had such cachet. Why the venerable King Taco chain still keeps its original taco truck. That’s why the oldest documented frozen margarita machine sits in the Smithsonian. Food history, especially involving junk food, might seem superfluous - but the public loves it, because it’s so tangible and visceral. I was proud to tell their story in my book, along with the Doritos one, as a form of historical recovery. That restaurant is still around, and its name is Mitla Caf é. Bell didn’t bother to name it and even joked that their tacos “dripped melted fat.” In founder Glenn Bell’s grandiosely titled “Taco Titan: The Glenn Bell Story,” he openly boasted about how the idea to make billions off of hard-shell tacos came from a Mexican restaurant that stood across the street from his hamburger stand off Route 66 in San Bernardino. Family members showed me documents to support their claim, and Doolin’s daughter confirmed this in her own book. They offered a version of Doritos at Disneyland in the early 1960s at the old Casa de Fritos restaurant that they stocked, and convinced West that Frito-Lay should mass-produce their crunchy creation. I laughed when all those obituaries came out because the real inventors were the Morales family of Anaheim. When Frito-Lay executive Arch West died in 2011, news outlets across the country - including this paper - wrote he invented Doritos after getting “inspired” by a vacation in Mexico, because that’s what West said. It wasn’t until a Texas Monthly reporter found Gustavo Olguin in Oaxaca in 1982 that the actual inventor of Fritos entered the official record.Īnother example features my favorite chip: Doritos. Doolin never bothered to name that Mexican, nor did his company in the decades since. Call it Manifest Destiny with a dusting of cheese.įrito-Lay, parent company of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, offers two examples.įounder Elmer Doolin told anyone who’d listen during his lifetime that he created his company by buying the original recipe for $100 from a Mexican in San Antonio during the Great Depression. ![]() The crediting of popular Mexican food products in this country to whites is a trope that perpetuates the idea of American ingenuity and Mexican idleness. The former phenomenon was one of the themes of my “Taco USA” book. And their frustration over Sam’s article isn’t so much about Montañez rather than a microcosm of two big issues that continue to plague Mexicans in the United States: historical erasure and the continued yearning for heroes that white America can also embrace. But I understand why people are rallying behind Montañez. It’s easy to dismiss the critics as Flamin’ Hot Truthers who can’t see the Cheetos bag for the chip. Some even accused this paper of ulterior motives - best-selling author Julissa Arce, for instance, tweeted that The Times “just can’t stand us winning,” whatever that means. His supporters accused Sam of trying to tear down a successful Mexican, of wasting his time to investigate such a seemingly trivial matter. ![]() But another school of thought also emerged to defend Montañez. Sam’s story went viral, and many readers praised his work. ![]() But Sam found documents, people, videos and more evidence that showed Montañez had little, if anything, to do with the development of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. The deposed Flamin’ Hot king’s resume is mostly real and truly impressive - the Ontario native did rise up from mopping floors to sitting in executive offices and on prestigious advisory boards. This past weekend, Sam crushed Montañez’s claims like a toddler squeezing a Cheeto into dust. I told Sam that, while I didn’t see any reason to discount Montañez, he should see if there was a there there. Times colleague Sam Dean asked me something I had never considered: What if Montañez hadn’t told the truth? ![]()
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