The NBA Finals are a rematch of the 1999 Finals, when a young San Antonio Spurs center picked No. 1 in the draft led his team to a victory over the veteran, wing-heavy New York Knicks featuring a former No. 1 pick at center. But they’re also a battle for the hearts and minds of America’s picante-sauce lovers.
That’s right. San Antonio is the home of Pace Picante sauce, a condiment that took America by storm by introducing what its founder called “the syrup of the Southwest.” This may sound crazy to a generation
raised on salsa and hot sauces, where appearing on “Hot Ones” is a celebrity rite of passage, but the idea of a spicy, tomato-and-jalapeño sauce as flavoring was highly exotic even into the 1990’s. So much that Jerry Seinfeld couldn’t imagine the idea of salsa being available in a diner.
Pace Picante’s signature commercial emphasized its Texas roots. Cowboys eating around the campfire extol the virtues of Pace Picante, a blend of “fresh vegetables and spices, made by people who know what picante sauce is supposed to taste like.” Where is the beleaguered cook’s “Mexican Sauce” made? New York City.
Then the cowboys decide to murder the cook.
Times have changed. Pace Foods now has their headquarters in Paris, Texas. They have a full line of different salsas that would blow those cowboys’ minds, including varieties with pineapple and mangos, which might well lead those trigger-happy wranglers to threaten another extra-judicial killing if it were served to them.
It’s also no longer a food that’s necessarily associated with Texas. Honestly, if you offered your average foodie a salsa that came from New York City, specifically Brooklyn, they’d be pumped. Of course, if you told someone in the early 90’s that the best player in the NBA would be a 7-foot-5 center from France who trained with Chinese monks in the offseason, they’d probably be just as disbelieving as those cowboys.
They’d also be surprised that Spike Lee’s biggest rival as the Knicks biggest celebrity fan would be a waifish actor dating the daughter of O.J. Simpson’s lawyer’s ex-wife and an Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete who is now a woman named Caitlyn Jenner. And if they followed the 90’s Knicks, they’d be shocked that officials review video for flagrant foul calls when no one is bleeding or spitting out teeth.
There’s no word on whether New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and San Antonio Mayor Who Cares have made a traditional bet for the Finals, where San Antonio gets bagels and a box of rats if they win and New York gets churros and podcasters from Austin. But if they do, let’s hope it includes an exchange of picante sauces.
(For the record, celebrity Spurs fans include Samuel L. Jackson (why?), Texas native Selena Gomez, Tommy Lee Jones, and George Strait.)
