Tortilla Chip Day

What the day is

Tortilla Chip Day is observed on February 24. The chip is a byproduct that outgrew the product.

Origin and background

The generally accepted account credits Rebecca Webb Carranza, who ran a tortilla factory in Los Angeles in the 1940s. Automated production inevitably turned out tortillas that were misshapen or the wrong thickness and could not be sold, and rather than discard them she had them cut into triangles and fried. They sold, and then sold better than the tortillas. She was recognized for it decades later, and the story is a clean example of a waste stream becoming the main business.

The triangle is not arbitrary. Cutting a circle into wedges produces no offcuts at all, which matters when the whole point is avoiding waste, and the shape happens to give a rigid point for scooping and a wide edge for strength. A square chip from a round tortilla would generate exactly the trimmings the process was invented to eliminate.

The structural property that decides quality is thickness and moisture. A tortilla fried while still soft absorbs oil and goes limp; one dried slightly first fries rigid. Commercial production usually bakes before frying for this reason, and baked-only chips, which skip the frying entirely, are lower in fat and noticeably more brittle because nothing has replaced the water that left.

The corn itself is treated by the alkaline process described on the Corn Chip Day entry, which is what gives any genuine tortilla product its flavor and holds the dough together.

Salting has to happen immediately out of the fryer while the surface oil is still liquid, or the salt simply falls off.

How to take part

• Make them from stale tortillas, which is the original method and works better than fresh.
• Let the cut pieces dry a little before frying so they crisp rather than soak.
• Salt them the moment they come out of the oil.
• Warm shop-bought chips in the oven, which revives them completely.
• Check the ingredients for nixtamalized corn rather than corn flour.