For 50 million Latinos, each eating 256 eggs per year, the first meal of the day probably begins with Breakfast Tacos, Migas or Huevos Rancheros. That's 1.4 eggs per day - scrambled, poached, boiled, sunny sided up, many with a Latino twist.
In Tex-Mex kitchens scrambled eggs nest in tortillas as breakfast tacos: chorizo and egg; potato and egg; potato, egg and bacon. Want to wake up your household pronto? Sautee chorizo in a skillet with jalapeno, onions, add scrambled eggs, sit back with your coffee, and count to ten. Before you say "ocho" the sweet alliance of chorizo, eggs and spices will have nalgas in kitchen chairs prepared to battle indigestion and pepper heat in the name of tradition and deliciousness.
If you live in South Texas you know the 24-hour ritual of driving through Taco Cabana, Chachos, or Las Palapa with a few dollars in exchange for a paper bag of steaming hot taquitos wrapped in aluminum foil. Ask for ketchup instead of salsa and eyes will challenge you like a jalapeno to a glass of water. If you and your buddies swerve through after midnight chances are your mission is to soak up beer and margaritas with tortillas and eggs.
Now if you're a Latino living in California, Arizona or New Mexico you'll take the same taco fillings but wrap them in a gigantic, size of a tablecloth, tortilla, and call it a Breakfast Burrito. The name is inspired by a donkey's ear or the pack that sits on its back. When the Spanish arrived in the New World they witnessed Aztecs eating hand-held "street food" including a smaller version of today's burrito. For the conquistadores eating without silverware was primitive. Today we call it multi-tasking.
So, what other cool things do we do with eggs? Well, years ago frugal Latinos learned to recycle stale tortilla chips by creating Migas - Spanish for "crumbs". This Tex-Mex Sunday morning favorite is made from scrambled eggs, fried tortilla chips, jalapenos, onions, tomato, pico de gallo, and Velvetta cheese - the yellow box king of Latino refrigerators.
The "macho" of Latino egg dishes, Huevos Rancheros, is a classic Mexican breakfast of fried eggs topped with a tomato-chili sauce. You can almost hear mariachi trumpets and guitars as you shovel "incredible eatable huevos" and refried beans with tortillas.
In addition to eating eggs we love to crack them - on heads. Guard your cabeza when you enter a Latino backyard during Fiestas and Easter. You will be attacked with cascarones - clean, colorful eggshells filled with confetti and sealed with tissue paper. Who wants to bet that egg consumption spikes two weeks before we need our homemade cascarones! Can you hear your mother at breakfast - "Eat more eggs, we need cascarones."
As we celebrate National Egg Day remember that the influence of Latino culture is everywhere - even in our breakfast eggs whether at home or McDonald's.
Check out our website http://RSVP-Latino.comfor fun ways to dress up your breakfast burritos.