Tortillas (!?)

[logovo]

For the first time ever I attempted flour tortillas last night*. They tasted tortilla-like, I made a big mess and wonder how the hell you get them to be nice and round, but I was encouraged to try them again, this time with lard. See, I made them with evil-EVIL Crisco this first time, because I was not brave enough to try the less easy to work with fat. Or so I'm told! My mom made some with olive oil or (UGH) canola oil, but they never tasted anywhere as good as lard. But lard was verbotten at in my mom's kitchen, to the weird point where she actually used Crisco sometime for tamales, thinking Crisco was healthier than lard. Oh mom, the bastards lied to us :(

Anyway, yes, I feel bad about using Crisco, but now I have some lard in the fridge and think next weekend I'll make another batch and see if I can make tortillas that are closer to a round shape.




*My parents are from Jalisco (central Mexico), where corn tortillas are king. Flour tortillas are more of a staple in the northern part of Mexico. So, mom never learned to make them until she was about my age. I remember her first attempts not producing round and fluffy results, but she learned to do them over time.

Comments

[kass]

I've never tried making flour tortillas. I can make decent gorditas -- or at least what we called gorditas where I grew up (south Texas): stubby thick little corn tortillas -- but I yearn for the really good homemade corn tortillas of my childhood, which cannot be found up here in the frozen north. *wry grin*

[logovo]

I grew up with the same name fpr what we think of as gorditas, although it's also regional (I think) - I know some people fried them or stuffed them, but for us they were just fat little tortillas, which we would usually have for breakfast on special ocassion's, when we had bought fresh masa early in the morning or leftover from the day before. We usually just made squarish cuts with a nice on top, and put some butter and salt. Oh, so good.

Yeah, for good corn tortillas you really need a tortilleria to be making the masa fresh and be selling them the same day. We're lucky in San Diego to have so many tortillerias, but a friend who was living in Montreal couldn't find decent ones, so I FedExed 1/2 lb, and she was so happy! She said that just opening the package was like smelling home :D

[lasilvia]

I remember my grandmother Tirza's flour tortillas. They were heavenly. Mami tried to make tortillas, but she's SO Puerto Rican. It just didn't work. I remember eating corn tortillas every meal. I would go to the tortilla factory and watch them come down the little ramp and pile into hot, fresh corn tortillas. Mmmmmm...I still long for fresh tortillas.