Tortillas from local sources

Nice piece in today's Free Press:

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Southwest Detroit is the place to be for fresh-from-the-oven tortillas

BY SUSAN M. SELASKY • FREE PRESS TEST KITCHEN DIRECTOR • April 30, 2009



Making cornhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adT...lass_10x10.gif tortillas, considered the bread of Mexico, seems fairly simple. All you need is masa harina, water, salt and a tortilla press to make the dough as thin as what you find in stores.

But in anticipation of Cinco de Mayo [[the 5th of May), which commemorates Mexico's victory over the French in the 1862 battle of Puebla, why not leave it to the experts?

Lucky for us, we have three tortilla factories in our own backyard. Just flip over a package of corn or flour tortillas and you might see it's from one of southwest

Detroit's Big 3: Hacienda Foods, La Jalisciense Tortilla Factory and La Michoacana Tortilla Bakery. Or visit one of Mexicantown's grocers for freshly made tortillas. Go early and the packaged tortillas will still be warm.

About 70,000 corn tortillas run through just one line at Lydia Gutierrez's Hacienda Foods on an average day. On a recent visit, machines were humming along, producing corn tortillas, regular corn chips and blue corn chips.

"For us in Mexicantown, we will sell more corn than flour tortillas," says Gutierrez, who started the business in 1994 with her late husband Richard. "Outside the area, they sell more flour tortillas. In a lot of cases, flour tortillas replace breadhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adT...lass_10x10.gif."

It's the corn tortillas, not flour tortillas, Gutierrez says, that are used most often at the Hispanic table.

To make the corn tortillas, corn -- which Gutierrez gets mainly from Ohio -- is cleaned and soaked in lime for hours. It then goes into a machine where it is ground using two specially made round grooved stones that look like the wheels on Fred Flintstone's car.

Once ground, it becomes masa, which is similar to soft dough. At Hacienda Foods, the masa dough is fed through machines that press it and cut it into round tortillas or triangular chips. The tortillas and chips are baked and the chips are fried and seasoned.

Once you have corn tortillas, they can be used as soft tacos, fried for tostada or taco shells, or cut into chips.

Contact SUSAN M. SELASKY: 313-222-6432 or sselasky@freepress.com.

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http://www.freep.com/article/2009043...ES02/904300621

Yeah, flour tortillas are NOT Mexican. They are made for the American palate.

I have never seen flour tortillas in Mexico, yet they seem to be the preferred tortilla in most "Mexican" resturants in the U.S.

I've seen flour tortillas in Northern Mexico...

But wait, there's something worse.
I was once in Laredo, TX checking out a job opp, and went to a bbq on my potential bosses ranch.

They were making fajitas, and serving them on slices of Tastee Bread...

"Ok, where's the tortillas?" I asked.

"Oh, it's too hard to keep them warm, so round these parts, we just use Tastee bread instead of tortillas!"

It wasn't the deciding factor, but I turned down the job.

In our family there are strong feelings about whether corn or flour tortillas are the way to go. Both factions are in agreement that the tortillas should be purchased in Mexicantown.

There are similarly strong opinions about charcoal vs. gas, Hellman's vs. Miracle Whip, and other important matters.

Should the term be wheat, not corn? They are all technically flour, just one uses corn flour.

Wow, great you can get tortilla's in SW Detroit, how novel. Must be a slow newsday.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

Should the term be wheat, not corn? They are all technically flour, just one uses corn flour.

Wow, great you can get tortilla's in SW Detroit, how novel. Must be a slow newsday.

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Both papers did articles on Mexican food yesterday. It's because Cinco de Mayo is next Tuesday.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

Should the term be wheat, not corn? They are all technically flour, just one uses corn flour.

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Yes indeed, I meant corn flour tortillas or wheat flour tortillas. For some reason our family has always referred to them as corn or flour.

Now I'm hungry.

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Originally Posted by Crystal

Yes indeed, I meant corn flour tortillas or wheat flour tortillas. For some reason our family has always referred to them as corn or flour.

Now I'm hungry.

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This was not directed at you. Everyone calls them that! They are generally called 'corn' or 'flour'. I just always thought that was sort of funny. Whenever I'm asked, I order the 'corn' but when I'm asked, I am always asked 'corn or flour?'

Flour tortillas have been around since Cortez introduced wheat to the New World.

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Originally Posted by Crystal

In our family there are strong feelings about whether corn or flour tortillas are the way to go... There are similarly strong opinions about charcoal vs. gas, Hellman's vs. Miracle Whip, and other important matters.

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This is as it should be.

Maybe they are a Northern Mexican thing? I have never been north of Monterrey.

I have never seen flour tortillas in Mexico City, and I live here part-time. Not even once.

I've also never seen hard-shell corn tacos in Mexico. Is that another Americanized version, or do these exist somewhere in Mexico?

Corn tortillas, I use a gas grill for convienence but do enjoy charcoal also, and I believe that Miracle Whip is the most vile creation ever conceived by the human mind. It's salad dressing so it shouldn't even be in consideration. One of the few things I absolutely will not eat.