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Images from top left to right:
Tortilla Fryer, Tortilla Press,
Tortilla Soup and Tortilla
Baker.
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History of Tortillas
Tortillas or "tlaxcalli"
as they were known in the native Nahuatl
language, are
thought to date back as far as
10,000 B.C. According to
Mayan legend, tortillas were invented
in ancient times by a peasant
for his hungry king.
In 1519, Hernán
Cortés and his conquistadores
arrived in the “New World”
(modern-day Cuba and Mexico).
In 1520, in Cortés’ second
letter to the King of Spain, he
describes public squares where
daily markets were held and
attended by
thousands of people that bought and sold
a great variety of merchandise and foods.
Among the foods he described
were
Indian corn (maize) in
grains and in the form of flat
corn bread. This corn
bread was later given
the name "tortilla" by the
Spanish.
In 1529, the
Franciscan friar Bernardino de
Sahagun, in his expansive
manuscripts - General History of
the Things of New Spain (Historia
general de las cosas de Nueva
España), described how the Aztec
diet was based on corn,
tortillas, tamales and a wide variety of
chilies. His work is known as
the most complete record of
Aztec eating habits and foods.
His work went on to include a
total of twelve manuscript books
that expanded into a description
and history of the Aztec
civilization.
Traditionally,
corn tortillas were made by
soaking corn kernels in a
lime/water solution, to remove
their skins, and then grinding
them into
corn dough (masa). A golf ball
size piece of dough was then patted
down by hand and into a thin
pancake shape. It was then
placed onto a hot
griddle (comal) and
cooked on both sides. This
tortilla making process is still
in use today.
History
of Tortillas continued!
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