On 1/20/2014 9:39 AM, Mike Lazzari wrote:
>> As it was explained to me in M?xico, 'tortilla' is a cooked flat thing. The
>> Spanish one is properly a 'tortilla de huevos', the new world one is
>> properly a 'tortilla de maize', the abomination served so much in the US &
>> Canada is a 'tortilla de harina (or trigo)'.
> And to add insult to injury these days they are cranked out by the multi
> kilos _by machine_. Dios mio! Everyone knows that the women folk must
> get up at 4am to make proper tortillas by hand. ...pat...pat...pat
Yeah, right. :-)
All over Mexico, you will find small versions of "La Máquina"* in small shop
spaces, garages, sheds, etc. In the cities,
one is never more than a couple of blocks from a local tortilla maker and
his/her máquina. Fresh tortillas every day is
the way of life. Rather like the French and their baguettes, I suppose.
In the giant supermercados, they have giant máquinas. I remember in a Gigante
store watching three huge máquinas pumping
out tortillas, which were snatched up as fast as they were made. I wanted to
see if they were any good, but I was
visiting the store on business and the lines were long.
For the little, local ones, the masa is mixed and made into balls by hand, then
flattened and cooked by la
máquina. The giant ones do it all automatically. Local women may argue the
merits of their favorite nearby producers.
Yes, I have indeed had many hand made ones. It's really a different thing, and
quality versions of each have their uses.
I never did manage to make decent ones. When I asked in-laws in Mexico about
that, they said nobody makes their own. :-)
The key to great tortillas, as with so many other foods, is freshness.
Tortilla Moose
* Sure, there are many other uses of this name, including, inevitably, sports
teams.
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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