Mexican street snacks: tostilocos, dorilocos, chicharrones preparados and fruit with chilli

Botana: a bite on the street, at any hour

In Mexico, botana is whatever you nibble between meals: something crunchy, sour and spicy bought from a cart outside the school gates, at the entrance to a stadium, in a town square on a Sunday or on the corner near home as the afternoon draws in. Outside the country these street snacks are barely known, but at home they are as much a part of everyday life as tacos. They are cheap, eaten standing up and carry a flavour profile that is unmistakably Mexican: lime, salt, chilli powder, hot sauce and, very often, the sweet-and-sour tang of chamoy.

In this guide we run through the ones you see most: tostilocos and their relatives, chicharrones preparados, fruit with chilli, esquites and the iced drinks that complete the cart. Some use factory-made products as a base, and that very mix of a bag of crisps with fresh fruit is part of their charm.

The flavours that hold it all together: lime, chilli and chamoy

Before looking at each snack, it helps to know the key players that turn up in almost all of them:

• Lime. The small Mexican green lime is squeezed over everything, from fruit to crisps.
• Chilli powder with lime and salt. A dry, sour and only mildly hot seasoning that is sprinkled on generously. In Mexico it is sold under several brands and also loose.
• Bottled hot sauce. A runny red sauce of moderate heat, added in generous splashes.
• Chamoy. A thick red sauce that is sweet, sour, salty and a little spicy, made with fruit such as apricot, mango or plum, plus chilli. Its origins are linked to the salted fruits of Asia: some relate it to Japanese umeboshi and others, such as the food historian Rachel Laudan, to the Cantonese salted fruits that arrived with Chinese migration. Exactly when it reached Mexico is not documented.

If you are interested in the world of heat, our guide to Mexican chillies will help you understand the basics hidden behind these powders and sauces.

Tostilocos: the snack you eat out of the bag

Tostilocos are perhaps the clearest example of street-snack ingenuity. You take a single-serving bag of branded tortilla chips, slit it open lengthways and, inside the same bag, add layers of ingredients: chamoy, lime, hot sauce, cueritos (pickled pork skin), cucumber, jícama, cacahuates japoneses (peanuts in a crunchy coating) and sometimes tamarind sweets. They are eaten with a fork, straight from the bag.

The name joins the brand of the tortilla chips with the word loco, "crazy". Their origin is usually placed in Tijuana, Baja California, in the late 1990s, among street vendors, although sources disagree on the exact date and on who invented them: some accounts speak of the nineties and others of the early 2000s. From the border they spread across the country and into the south-western United States, where they are sold at stalls, stadiums and Mexican fruit shops.

Dorilocos and other "crazy" versions

Dorilocos follow the same logic, but with a bag of cheese-flavoured corn chips. There are versions with other bagged crisps, including very hot ones, and extras such as nacho cheese, pickled jalapeños or mango. The basis never changes: a factory-made snack that becomes a dish once it is filled with fruit, vegetables, sauce and chilli.

Chicharrones preparados

Despite the name, the chicharrón in chicharrones preparados is not always pork. The usual base is the chicharrón de harina, a large, rectangular and very crisp sheet made of wheat flour that puffs up when fried. On top go soured cream, cabbage or lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado, cueritos or pork crackling, and it is finished with hot sauce, lime and chilli powder. It is considered a snack that originated in Mexico City and is now found in many states.

Duritos, rueditas and other shapes

The same wheat-flour chicharrones are sold in small shapes: duritos, rueditas (little wheels) or pinwheel figures. You can buy them dry and uncooked to fry at home, or ready-fried, and on the street they are served in a bag with lime, sauce and chilli powder. Rueditas were also one of the original ingredients of tostilocos.

Fruit with chilli

Fruta con chile is the freshest snack on the cart. Pieces of mango, jícama, cucumber, watermelon, pineapple, papaya or orange are served in cups or bags, sometimes cut on the spot, with lime, salt and chilli powder and, for anyone who asks, chamoy. It is put together in front of the customer, and everyone decides how much chilli and how much lime goes on.

What surprises visitors is the combination of sweet fruit with salt and chilli, but it is a contrast Mexicans learn from childhood: chilli powder lifts the fruit and lime makes it even more refreshing on a hot day.

Esquites and corn in a cup

Esquites are kernels of tender sweetcorn, boiled or sautéed and sometimes served with a little of their cooking broth, presented in a cup with mayonnaise, cream, cheese, lime and chilli powder. The word comes from Nahuatl. In Mexico City they are called esquites, while in other regions they are known as elote en vaso, chaska or troles; hence the name trolelote, which some modern versions finish with crushed spicy crisps. Esquites carts almost always sell whole corn cobs on a stick, too, spread with the same toppings.

To drink (or to scrape): chamoyadas and raspados

Many snack carts share the pavement with iced-drink carts. A raspado is shaved ice drenched in fruit syrup, sometimes with condensed milk or pieces of fruit. The chamoyada takes the same idea into chamoy territory: mango ice or sorbet with chamoy, chilli and, often, a tamarind sweet on the straw. It is the sweet, sour, salty and spicy combination in its most refreshing form.

How to order (and what to expect)

At a snack cart, the key question is whether you want your botana con todo, "with everything", or whether you will choose each ingredient. You will be asked whether you want chamoy, whether you want sauce, hot or mild, and whether you want lime and salt. If it is your first time, ask for a little chilli and work your way up: the heat of these sauces is usually moderate, but it builds. And keep napkins handy, because almost all of these snacks drip.

Frequently asked questions

What are tostilocos?

A single-serving bag of tortilla chips slit open lengthways and filled, inside the same bag, with chamoy, lime, hot sauce, cueritos, cucumber, jícama and coated peanuts. They are associated with Tijuana.

Do chicharrones preparados contain meat?

The base is usually a wheat-flour chicharrón, which contains no meat. Some stalls add cueritos or pork crackling on top, so it is worth asking if you want to avoid meat.

What is chamoy?

A sweet-and-sour, salty and slightly spicy sauce made with fruit and chilli, used on fruit, crisps and iced drinks. Its origin is linked to the salted fruits of Asia.

What is the difference between esquites and elote?

Elote is the whole corn cob, served on a stick; esquites are the loose kernels, served in a cup. The toppings that go on them are very similar.

Sources

• Wikipedia, «Tostilocos» (origin in Tijuana, late-1990s dating, original ingredients, serving in the bag, dorilocos and other variants).
• Tasting Table, «Tostilocos are the fully-loaded street food that starts with a bag of Tostitos» (an account that places their origin in the early 2000s).
• Wikipedia, «Chicharrón preparado», and Mexican cookery blogs on wheat-flour chicharrones (wheat-flour base, Mexico City origin, duritos and rueditas).
• Wikipedia, «Chamoy (sauce)»; México Desconocido, «El chamoy, ¿la salsa que nos llegó de Japón?»; and NPR, «Chamoy is Mexico's flavor fiesta condiment courtesy of China» (Asian origins of chamoy, Rachel Laudan's hypothesis).
• México Desconocido, «¿No son esquites ni elote en vaso? Conoce la historia de esta delicia» (regional names for esquites, Nahuatl origin of the word).