chilaquiles

The Nahuatl compound 'chīlāquilitl' joined 'chīlli' (the chili pepper) with 'āquilitl' (edible greens cooked in broth). The word described a dish of softened greens and chili cooked together in liquid, documented by Sahagún's Franciscan researchers in their Nahuatl-Spanish vocabularies of the 1550s. The dish they recorded, softened corn with chili broth, is the direct ancestor of what Mexicans eat today. The continuity of both the word and the technique across five centuries is unusual.

After the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521, indigenous cooking techniques did not disappear. They merged with Spanish ingredients: lard replaced vegetable fat, Old World cheese and cream arrived, and chicken became a common topping where turkey had been used. The tortilla as a fried or dried unit replaced the looser corn preparation. By the 17th century, 'chilaquiles' was in use in New Spain to describe fried tortillas simmered in salsa until partially softened: the dish's modern form.

Josefina Velázquez de León, Mexico's most important culinary writer of the 20th century, documented chilaquiles in multiple regional variations in her cookbooks of the 1940s and 1950s. Red sauce versions from Jalisco, green tomatillo versions from Mexico City, and dry-fried versions from Monterrey each carried distinct textures and flavors. The disagreement over how soft or crisp the tortilla should be is ongoing and, in some families, heated. Each region had its own answer and considered the others wrong.

Chilaquiles arrived in the United States with Mexican immigration concentrated in Texas and California in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the 1990s they appeared on Los Angeles brunch menus; by 2010 they were standard offerings in New York and Chicago. The Nahuatl word required no translation and underwent no anglicization. Chilaquiles in English is chilaquiles, the same word Sahagún's informants used in 1550.