At left, Mariano Martinez visits the world’s first margarita machine which he donated to the Smithsonian Institute. For the full story, read the account by Rayna Green, a curator in the Division of Home and Community Life at the National Museum of American History. Its in her blog for Cinco de Mayo. Here’s an excerpt:
“I am a curator who specializes in American foodways (among other things), and a member of the team that brought Julia Child’s kitchen to the National Museum of American History. In the summer of 2003, in the course of developing a public program on Tex-Mex food, I got to know a Houston food writer named Robb Walsh. Robb had just written a wonderful book, The Tex-Mex Cookbook, a history of the phenomenon he calls an American regional cuisine. In that book, he told the story of a Dallas restauranteur who invented the frozen margarita machine. Robb told me that I had to go and get that machine for the museum.” -Rayna Green