Crunch time: why it's nachos with everything

KFC’s new “nacho stacker”, which has a layer of nacho cheese between the hash brown, cheese and bread KFC’s new “nacho stacker”, which has a layer of nacho cheese between the hash brown, cheese and bread

They're greasy, crisp and a danger to the roof of your mouth. But it is hard not to fall for the charms of hard-crunching tortilla crisps and slurpy, melting cheese in a plate of nachos – something not lost on the food marketeers of the world. For 2012 seems to be the year that the nacho came of age, got muscles and started stamping its mark on all the other wimpier foodstuffs.

Witness KFC's new "nacho stacker", which, you guessed it, has a layer of nacho chips between the hash brown, cheese and bread. Or venture into the snack aisle and find Doritos' semi-tautological nacho-cheese-flavoured chips. Even desserts aren't immune. Baskin Robbins' ice-cream parlours in the US now sell "nacho ice-cream", though mercifully they seem to have eschewed the crisps and just taken textural inspiration from Mexican starters (pairing ice-cream, waffles and brownie chunks).

It is enough to have you wondering where the Tex-Mex revolution will next take hold. Nacho soufflé, anyone?