tortilla "chips"

[baratron]

Richard says I am mad. The reason is this: I have always been confused by the naming of tortilla chips. Now, I have known for some time that "chips" are just what American English calls crisps, yet my brain doesn't seem to apply this to tortillas. Instead, I get confused. When you chip the furniture, or are "a chip off the old block", or even when you chip a potato, you're breaking a small piece off a larger thing. This isn't what happens with tortilla chips. They're not made by making a large tortilla and then breaking it up, they're made intentionally small. And that doesn't make sense.

Yes, I realise that what probably happened was that tortilla chips were originally made by breaking up a large tortilla, and even that triangular tortilla chips could be imagined to be part of a large circular tortilla - but what about the small circular ones? They can't possibly be pieces of a single large tortilla... not unless there's a lot of waste.

Richard says that the whole dilemma can be solved by simply calling them "nachos", but I had a vague feeling that this name refers to the dish made by adding salsa and jalapenos and/or cheese to the chips, not to the chips themselves? Hmmm.

Comments

[beaq.livejournal.com]

The round ones are obviously wee tortillas! (Which, of course, are omelettes in Spain.)