Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (or Tortilla)

hand made corn tortillas

Give us this day our daily bread.  Matthew 6:11 (King James Bible)
Give us this day the bread we need.  Matthew 6:11 (Phillips)
Keep us alive with three square meals.  Matthew 6:11 (The Message)

Whatever version of the Bible you are looking at, it mentions food that keeps us alive.  In southern Mexico that bread means corn tortillas.

Last week I received a lesson in how to make tortillas.  The process is long and I can see why people go to tortilla stores (tortillerias) to buy their daily bread or in this case their daily tortillas.

The first step in making corn tortillas is to prepare the ingredients.  There are only two ingredients so that part is easy.  You use either white or yellow field corn and lime mixed with water.

Then comes the more difficult part.   After rinsing the corn under cold water, you add water to a pot and add lime and stir until dissolved.  Add the corn to the lime water and boil for 2 minutes.  The pan is then removed from the heat and the corn is allowed to soak overnight. 

The next morning you rinse the corn again and rub off any hulls still attached to the corn.  You now have what is called Nixtamal.

There are still little brown "head" on the corn and you need to remove (by hand) those little tips.  This is kind of like "dead heading" the corn kernals.

At this point the corn is ready for the grinder.  In the mountains, each home has a small grinder (similar to an old fashioned meat grinder).  A long time ago, they used a stone and pestle type grinder called a metate.  Now a days, at least in the city, people take the corn to a commercial grinder.

The corn is put through the grinder and what comes out is called "masa" or dough. 

Only now is the dough ready for making tortillas.

I learned how to pinch off a piece of the dough about the size of a ping pong ball.  You lay the dough on a banana leaf and start to pat it with the palm of your hand, turning the banana leaf to keep the round shape.

Once the dough is patted down to the desired thickness, it is put on a comal which is a smooth flat griddle made of clay.  The comal is put over an open fire and the tortilla cooks.  The tricky part was getting the tortilla onto the comal in one piece. One side is cooked and then using your fingers (ouch, watch out for burns), you flip it over and cook it on the other side.

All in all the process takes about 24 hours from start to finish.

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