Question for August 2022

Yes! Across Mexico and Central Mexico, you can find tortillas eaten everywhere, as they were thousands of years ago. While the name is one granted by the Spanish (it means “little flat cake” from torta), the recipe is of great antiquity. It entails boiling dried maize kernels in water with a powder called lime (calcium hydroxide). The lime interacts with the maize, unlocking some of the nutrients so our intestines can absorb them. The process is called “nixtamalization” in English, and it comes from the Nahuatl word nextli, meaning “ashes” (as lime comes from burned limestone), and tamalli, the maize bread that is cooked by steaming rather than cooking on a griddle. Tamales (from the Nahuatl tamalli) maize bread stuffed with something flavorful, like cooked meat, also follows quite an ancient recipe.

Pic 1: A Mexica (Aztec) mother teaches her daughter to make maize tortillas for the family; Codex Mendoza fol. 60r (detail)