Best described as something between a funnel cake and a tostada, puffy taco is a crispy, fried snack that was invented in San Antonio by brothers Ray and Henry Lopez. The dough for puffy taco consists of ground corn masa, water, and salt. The dough is pressed in a tortilla press, deep-fried, and then a spoon is pushed into the middle until the taco curls around it.
The taco is then filled with ingredients such as carnitas or fried avocados. Eating a puffy taco is a messy deal, since it is believed that a true puffy taco should be greasy and falling apart.
MOST ICONIC Puffy Taco
View moreBeanburger is an iconic San Antonio dish originally made with a beef patty that is topped with diced onions, crushed Fritos corn chips, refried beans, and Cheez Whiz (processed cheese sauce or spread). Although there are several theories about its origin and inventor, a man named Frank Sills is nowadays synonymous with the burger as he was the owner of the original Sills Snack Shack, where this burger was originally served.
Today, there are numerous restaurants in San Antonio that serve different versions of the bean burger – with added crushed tostada chips, melted cheddar, or pico de gallo.
MOST ICONIC San Antonio Bean Burger
This Lone Star culinary treasure is quite simple – a tortilla stuffed with traditional breakfast ingredients, depending on personal preferences: processed yellow cheese, pork, and eggs are just some of the most common ingredients used in the preparation of breakfast tacos.
However, there is a huge food fight regarding this taco variety, with Austin and San Antonio both claiming the dish as their own. It is speculated that breakfast tacos were a staple in San Antonio a long time ago, but locals used to simply call it breakfast, while Austin had given the dish its current name.
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Deliciously chewy, dense and fudgy with a rich chocolate flavor, the beloved brownies are one of the most popular American desserts. Some claim that Bertha Palmer, wife of the owner of Palmer House Hotel, asked the chef to invent a new chocolate dessert to serve at the 1893 Colombian Exposition.
Others say that it was an accident, when Brownie Schrumpf, a librarian, excluded baking powder from a chocolate cake and was left with a thick, black cake bar. Regardless of the origins, what really popularized the brownies were instant, boxed mixes from the 1950s made by two brands - Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker.
MOST ICONIC Brownies
Sweet potato pie is a traditional pie with origins in the southern parts of the United States of America, and it's especially popular in North Carolina. The dessert is prepared as an open pie without the top crust; its interior usually filled a combination of milk, eggs, sugar, and mashed sweet potatoes.
It is often flavored with spices such as vanilla or nutmeg in the South, while in the North, some like to top the pie with marshmallow pieces. The tradition of making sweet potato pie in the South has been present since the days of slavery, and African slaves were the first ones to make the dish.
MOST ICONIC Sweet Potato Pie
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Usually accompanied by a glass of milk or a cup of hot tea or coffee, chocolate chip cookies are well balanced between salty and sweet in flavor, tenderly chewy in texture, and filled with small melting chocolate pyramids, bringing a generation of Americans back to their childhood.
The origin story of these sweet treats is incredibly interesting, almost as the cookies themselves. The Toll House Inn was a popular bed-and-breakfast in Whitman, Massachusetts, bought by Ruth Graves Wakefield and her husband in 1930. Ruth's cooking was so good that the inn gained an excellent reputation in a short span of time.