Bryce: Salsa Flinger is my Native American name.
Beth: I don't think salsa is a Native American delicacy.
Bryce: Not as it's currently made. The word is actually a Spanish derivation of a Choctaw word meaning fish stew. The cultures met in Eastern Texas in the early 1800s.
Beth: Fish stew...Really? (said dryly with an eyebrow raised skeptically)
Bryce: It wasn't just fish. Alligator hocks were really the key to the recipe.
Beth: I don't think Choctaws were in Florida, where the alligators are.
Bryce: There are alligators in the fresh water all around the Gulf.The gristle in the hock thickened the stew.When the African slaves arrived with okra, that went in the stew making the hard to harvest alligator hocks unnecessary. The French Canadians, completely did away with the Chotaw word and started calling the stew gumbo. Salsa was a noun without an object for centuries.
Beth: OK. Granted the Choctaw were around MS & LA, but I still think you're pulling this out of your butt.
Bryce: It was the Alamo that changed everything.
Beth: The Alamo is not at the Gulf.
Bryce:The units that fought for Spain had been stationed for several months in east Texas.
Beth: Which is not near the Gulf.
Bryce: Southeast Texas is on the Gulf.
Beth: Not San Antonio, which is where the Alamo is. I've been there. Corpus Christie is on the Gulf.
Bryce: Right. They were stationed near the Gulf but when the shit started going down, they were deployed there.
Beth: Who? The Texans?
Bryce: No, the Spanish troops.
Beth: Mexicans fought at the Alamo. Texas was part of Mexico.
Bryce: Right and Meixco had a treaty with Spain part of which was military support for the troubles in Texas and central and north California.The Spanish wanted control of the salmon trade out of California.
Beth: What does this have to do with salsa?
Bryce: It was small but valuable.So, the Spanish troops picked up the word from the Choctaw.
Beth: CA doesn't have salmon.
Bryce: Not now. It did.They were fished clean. Any more questions?
Beth: I don't think you have your facts straight.
Bryce: Every one is verifiable.
Beth: I think you're verifiable...cray cray.
Bryce: I'm just trying to help. I hate to see my friends live with a lie. Google California history salmon.
Beth: I would like to see your proof on salmon being in CA during the Spanish occupation.
Bryce: Mexican
Beth: They had a treaty, remember?
Bryce: But not an occupation.
Beth: Ownership.
Bryce: It was just fishing rights.
Beth: You're saying Mexico only had fishing rights to CA? What history book did you read?
Bryce: No. Mexico owned California. Spain traded with Mexico for, among other things, fishing rights.
Beth: The only salmon that's ever come out of CA is farmed, and I won't eat farmed salmon. Not healthy.
Bryce: Does salsa smell like alligator to you?
Beth: Ew.
Bryce: The ironic twist to this whole story is that alligators cannot eat modern salsa! Kills 'em in 30 minutes. One thing. What kind of seeds to you plant for a salmon farm? I can't find a fish section in my catalog.
***And that, my friends, is the totally true history of salsa you should totally believe, for reals. By Beth and Professor of Ergonomic Fictionalized History, Bryce Eddings.
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