Hand-Made Tortillas
Making tortillas is a basic daily chore essential to every Mexican meal. In small towns and large cities, the residents can buy from a store that does nothing but make tortillas by machine and sell them by the kilo.
In the tiny hamlets, there is not the population to support such stores, and people have less money, so they make them by hand.
The first step is to crush the corn. For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, this was done with a stone molchaet. This required a tremendous amount of work, with all the women of the house taking turns throughout the day, grinding the water-soaked corn into a rough flour.
It seems that there is a communal mill in most villages, certainly this is the case in Ek Balam.
Next, the resulting corn dough is formed into tortillas. This is much easier than making the flour. I tried using a molchaet and managed a tiny amount of flour, far to rough to actually use. I did have success with making tortillas by hand. An expert can probably make about ten perfect ones while I am busy making an acceptable one.
Finally, the tortillas are baked on a dry griddle, in this case a piece of scrap steel, balanced on the stones around an open fire. Tortillas can also be placed directly on the fire. They puff up like a blow-fish, and are restored to the proper flat tortilla shape with the smack of a hand and a puff of steam.
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[…] Here is what is happening at just a sampling of houses in Ek’ Balam: Making Tortillas Shirt Embroidery Hammock making The above three articles describe each. […]
Doug’s Travel Journal » Archives » Around the Block in Ek Balam / December 27th, 2006, 3:13 pm / #
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