Mexican Tortillas

Mexican Tortillas are a very popular food in the world, can not remember when was the first time that we tasted. They are available everywhere and now with the hemorrhage of snacks, the "Doritos" sell them up to the gas pumps, come in original flavor, flavored with cheddar cheese, onion, ranch, pizza and some more. We believe it was in one of our trips to California, even when we lived in Venezuela, who came to visit a friend in Irvine. His daughter called Life ate all the time.

The tortilla is a flat food as resembling a "pancake" made from corn or wheat that has been one of the foods that are consumed in Mexico for centuries. The story goes back when Cortes landed in 1519. The flour tortilla that is native to northern Mexico, where he was born in the colonial era in the year 1591, in Villa de Santiago del Saltillo, a town of Nueva Vizcaya, Coahuila today. History tells that there was a combination of two factors: the presence of colonizing groups Mesoamerican Tlaxcalans and plenty of corn. Just the word originates tiazcala the name "tortilla" which means a pair of hands together, as in how to pray, with a tortilla with both hands, representing the act of pie dough for the making of tortillas . By 1849 it appears in the northern states of Mexico and Texas, a dish made from flour tortilla filled with meat, later be known as donkeys. In 1983 the flour tortilla comes to Europe, England is the landing point. China starts manufacturing the Mexican tortilla flour in the year 1993. The history of corn tortilla goes back before 500 BC For example, in the Oaxaca region have evidence that the tables began to be used at the end of Stage of Villas (1500 to 500 BC) we know this because the plates of clay used for cooking appeared at that time. [] Pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica, using corn as their staple food, like the modern society of this region. The first chronicles of the Indies, described as the tortilla corn bread, even the first translation into Spanish in the chronicle of Francisco Lopez de Gomara the name of the city of "Tlaxcala", was referred to as: .. "Tlaxcala, means home baked bread or bread, since it takes more centli there that currently around "...[] toponymy of Tlaxcala, is referred to the (language Nahuatl tlaxcalli tlan, 'instead of tortilla').

The tortillas prepared from maize nixtamalized, a process in which corn kernels are cooked in boiling water with a lime base. This process makes the corn make a smooth consistency, which will convert the grains into a uniform mass of yellowish-white with which to prepare tortillas. Today is achieved industrialized corn flour and process of industrial production of tortillas, has been modernized to the point that there are machines that produce up to 10,000 tortillas per hour. They are cooked in sheets - called by the Mexicans "comal heated by gas, electricity or wood, where they turn 2 or 3 to take its characteristic golden. When leaving the pan, placed in a basket called "tazcal" and covered with a cloth called "napkin" to retain their heat.

The tortillas are distinguished by how they are prepared and filling, resulting in different dishes of Mexican cuisine. The so-called tacos (soft, stuffed and rolled), flutes (when fried), burritos (when the filling is meat or vegetables), quesadillas (tortillas stuffed fried), toast (totillas fried crisp filled with beef strips, chicken , fish, sprinkled with cheese), enchiladas (tortillas dipped in tomato sauce, stuffed rolls) chips - called internationally "doritos" (pieces of crisp fried tortillas to dip in salsa, beans or guacamole), also used to prepare the chalaquiles.

An anecdotal data is that the tortillas, especially flour, has been part of the diet of astronauts for space missions, favorite on toast, by the amount of crumbs that the latter leaves floating inside the ship. The recipe of the week is the Salad Mexican Chile Con Carne in which the primary ingredient tortilla. See you soon friends.