As another National Nacho Day rolls around, let's put our chips down, lick the cheese from off our fingers, and spend a moment to think of the reason for the season. You could say that by just eating nachos you are in fact thinking of the reason, but that’s like only associating Christmas with opening presents. No, the reason that we are all here today is due to the hard work and tireless effort of one man, Ignacio Anaya. Or rather the lack of hard work he did after inventing nachos...

In 1960 we came very close to losing nachos forever when Ignacio’s son tried to copywrite the dish. I say “lost nachos forever” as if all chips and cheese combined would cease to exist, but I don’t know how a copywritten food works. Maybe you need to send the Anaya family a dollar every time a restaurant made an order? I can’t say, but it is good that we live in a world where I don’t have to know the answer to that, as fortunately too much time had passed and the recipe was free to the public. When told, Ignacio was rumored to have shrugged and gone back to eating nachos. He didn’t need to fight The Man so the law could tell him he did a great job inventing the world’s best food, just having done so was all the effort he needed to put into it.

On October 21st, we celebrate The Day of the Nacho, a.k.a. Dia de los Nachos, or we would have if we weren’t too lazy to celebrate more than one nacho related holiday a year. National Nacho Day is good enough, and if Ignacio was still alive today he’d probably think so as well. Heroes know they don’t need two days in their honor, they did the work once, so one day is fine, and that’s what makes them heroes.