By Brooke O’Connor

It’s impossible to think about Mexican food without immediately thinking about tortillas, whether made with flour or variously colored corn. A legend says tortillas were invented by a humble peasant to feed a hungry king. We have records of corn tortillas being made as far back as 10,000 BCE. Why have they been a staple of the Americas and how have women making tortillas become such an important part of society?

First, let’s look at the making of tortillas. Traditionally, dried corn is cooked in lime water. Not limes from trees, but an alkaline bath made with wood ash and/or white lime powder from the earth. This process creates a chemical reaction releasing the bioavailability of B vitamins, particularly vitamin B3, which is not widely present in traditional vegetable-based diets. Boiling in this water also increases the mineral uptake such as calcium, iron, copper, and zinc by hundreds of percentage points. After the corn is boiled for at least 90 minutes, the skins can be slipped off and the corn can be ground into masa and used for tortillas, or other bases for foods like tamales or sopes.

This process is called nixtamalization, coming from the Aztec language Nahuatal word nextli “lime ashes” and tamalli “unformed/cooked corn dough.”

We don’t know how the process was discovered, but we think it goes something like this. People in the Americas didn’t have metal cooking vessels in 10,000 BCE, and the traditional pottery was not strong enough to cook directly on hot coals or fire. The earthenware pots were elevated above the fire, then hot stones were put into the pot (with the food) to increase the temperature and cook food thoroughly. Limestone is an easily attained and abundant resource in the Americas, so it the heated rocks were generally pieces of limestone. The lime leaching into the water created the nixtamalization, but a side effect was better flavor and aroma in the cornmeal (masa). Soon it became clear that cooking with limestone versus other stones created a superior product, so this became the standard. Most likely the stones were heated in the wood ash underneath the pot, and some ash was likely to enter the food as well. Savvy cooks experimented with various amounts of ash and stone until they achieved the desired flavor.

Once the corn was made into masa, small round balls were flattened by hand, and laid over a large concave piece of pottery called a comal. The comal was treated with a thick layer of limestone dissolved in water, creating a non-stick coating. This would leave a light additional dusting of calcium on every tortilla, making it even more nutritious. Periodically the limestone would be washed onto the comal again, and tortillas naturally slid off the cooking surface, using only fingers. Much safer and longer lasting than the non-stick pans we have today, despite all the advantages of modern chemistry and manufacturing.

Because cooking was traditionally a woman’s chore, tortilla-making was an essential women’s role in Mexican society, but not given much importance. It was just another job in the kitchen. It evolved into micro-businesses for women who developed a particular flair for their nixtamalization process. The skilled tortilla maker began selling to other women, freeing them up to concentrate on other things.

As the industrial revolution hit Mexico, the “wage gap” between women and men became more of a “wage chasm.” However, because tortilla making was not mechanized, it remained an industry owned and run by women. It was an essential strategy used by women of the era to maintain some form of autonomy and financial significance.

Centuries later, we have tried to industrialize nixtamalization, with terrible impact on the environment, the nutritional quality of masa, and excess use of energy resources – not to mention the lack of complex aromas and depth of flavors.

In modern days, the role of women in Mexico has changed. Women who make tortillas to sell, for the most part, are using industrially produced corn meal. The concept of societal roles, and the loss of recognition of traditional flavors, have morphed the tortilla industry into an interesting reflection of society at large. Tortilla making is considered a lower-status job for women. In fact, anthropologist Lauren A. Wynne details how modern Yucatecan Maya women have no intention of making tortillas at home because they consider it lower-class activity, and the qualities of good-tasting tortilla have changed (“I Hate It”: Tortilla-Making, Class and Women’s Tastes in Rural Yucatán, Mexico,” Food, Culture & Society {18:3, 2015}.

An interesting side note to corn and its history, is what happened when the Spaniards came to Mexico. They were enchanted with this new grain. They’d never seen corn before and described it with delight in their letters back home; they created the name tortilla (little cake). They called it this because in southern Spain, where there was a significant Arabic influence, they made small round disks from chickpea flour, and it seemed similar. The Spanish then imported wheat and the flour tortilla was born.

After Europeans began cultivating corn, it became a popular food but led to a pandemic in poorer parts of society because, without nixtamalization, it lacked niacin; the deficiency brought on a disease called pellagra. Symptoms include inflamed skin, diarrhea, dementia, and sores in the mouth. Over time, the skin became thicker, peeled, and bled. If not treated, it was fatal. The same thing happened when Europeans settled in the southern part of the United States. Settlers relied on easily grown corn crops to survive, but neglected to learn the indigenous way of preparation. One could argue Nature herself served up a little social justice.

As most things go, history repeats itself. The traditional ways of cooking are becoming more interesting again, as our food resources become more expensive and less nutritious. There are several cooking schools in Huatulco that offer classes in traditional and modern Mexican cuisine.

There are also still women who make tortillas by hand, with corn they grew and processed themselves. If you are fortunate enough to have organic, indigenous corn, nixtamalized over a fire, and cooked over a traditional comal, you will notice the difference immediately.

Like history, women have always been circular. We have cyclical bodily rhythms, pregnant bellies, round with ripe life. It’s through the family circle we serve our immediate loved ones. We support each other, disguised as crafting circles. It only seems fitting, women will bring this art of circle-shaped tortilla-making back into the mainstream. There is something wholesome and delicious in the process. There’s a connection with the earth, history, and the elements when we connect with indigenous ways of cooking. If you have a chance to make even one tortilla with your own hands, take it. It’s a science and an art, and hopefully, together we can revive the womanly art of circles and tortillas.