Whole grain tortilleria?

[Newbie3]

Some tortillerias grind their own corn from whole grain, but mix it with Maseca corn flour (one operator said he adds the Maseca to make the tortillas softer).

Would anyone know of a tortilleria that does not add corn flour, but only uses 100% whole grain corn? Hopefully a place in Riberas del Pilar, or San Antonio...

Thanks...

[tomgates]

Check the WW tortillas at Superlake, over by the bulk packaged nuts, usually.

They're made in Tonala. i like them alot.

Patti

[virgogirl]

Check Melissa's tortilleria in Ajijic. Right on the carretera.

[hensley]

Check Melissa's tortilleria in Ajijic. Right on the carretera.

I agree these gals even have flaxseed tortillas.

[the walkers]

the only one we buy from is one that makes their masa from locally grown corn using the old methods . "Tortilleria Elena" is located behind the big church, around the corner from "Susanna" beauty shop on guadalupe victoria in ajijic. they also sell the raw masa itself so several local taco stands buy it and make their own.....

[More Liana]

I believe the OP is looking for corn tortillas made from nixtamal-ized dried corn. If that's the case, he/she needs to take the advice given in post #5.

And a question: the tortillería on Encarnación Rosas just below Guadalupe Victoria is no longer making tortillas this way?

[Kevin K]

I believe the OP is looking for corn tortillas made from nixtamal-ized dried corn. If that's the case, he/she needs to take the advice given in post #5.

And a question: the tortillería on Encarnación Rosas just below Guadalupe Victoria is no longer making tortillas this way?

That's the one the walkers are talking about (and that I first learned about from you More Liana), though Encarnación Rosas changes names to Donata Guerra south of the carretera.

Getting back to the OP's question though, I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that any of the tortillas de maiz one would find at a tortilleria here are going to be whole grain corn, but many if not most are made from masa mixes that contain GMO corn. Meanwhile the wheat tortillas from Melissa's mentioned above list "harina de trigo, agua, manteca vegetal, sal, levadura" as ingredients. I read that as wheat (not necessarily whole wheat) flour, water, vegetable shortening [probably containg hydrogenated oils], salt [iodized and fluoridated] and leavening. Seems to me any corn tortillas would be lesser of evils for those who can't make a daily or several-times-weekly trip to the one local tortilleria that does things the old fashioned way. More Liana I hope you'll weigh in on this.

[More Liana]

That's the one the walkers are talking about (and that I first learned about from you More Liana), though Encarnación Rosas changes names to Donata Guerra south of the carretera.

Getting back to the OP's question though, I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that any of the tortillas de maiz one would find at a tortilleria here are going to be whole grain corn, but many if not most are made from masa mixes that contain GMO corn. Meanwhile the wheat tortillas from Melissa's mentioned above list "harina de trigo, agua, manteca vegetal, sal, levadura" as ingredients. I read that as wheat (not necessarily whole wheat) flour, water, vegetable shortening [probably containg hydrogenated oils], salt [iodized and fluoridated] and leavening. Seems to me any corn tortillas would be lesser of evils for those who can't make a daily or several-times-weekly trip to the one local tortilleria that does things the old fashioned way. More Liana I hope you'll weigh in on this.

First: unless I have lost my mind completely, Encarnación Rosas changes its name to Donato Guerra south of Constitución, not south of the carretera. From the walkers post saying that the tortillería was 'behind the big church', I was thinking it was a different tortillería. Encarnación Rosas is three blocks east of Marcos Castellanos, where 'the big church' is. The 'big church' is the Templo de San Andrés.

Kevin, the rest of your post has me even MORE confused.

• Maseca (the brand of corn flour used 99% of the time when old fashioned nixtamal-ized corn is NOT used at a tortillería) is not considered to be whole grain corn. Maseca is the dominant brand of dried, processed corn flour, not ground nixtamal-ized corn. And yes, it does contain GMO corn.
• You're right, harina de trigo is wheat flour. If flour tortillas are made of whole wheat, the terminology would be harina de trigo integral--the integral being the word for whole wheat.
• manteca vegetal is something like Crisco, or whatever is analogous. Flour tortillas made with lard (manteca de cerdo) are actually better AND better for you than those made with manteca vegetal.
• As to what is the 'lesser of evils'--that's where you lose me. An evil lesser than wheat flour tortillas? An evil lesser than--well, than I don't know what. IMHO, there is very litte evil greater than Monsanto and GMO corn.

  If you'll help me clarify your meaning, I'd be glad to weigh in on this. It's an urgently important subject.

[tomgates]

Thanks, Kevin K.

Need to bring my glasses with me to the store!

Patti

[Kevin K]

First: unless I have lost my mind completely, Encarnación Rosas changes its name to Donato Guerra south of Constitución, not south of the carretera. From the walkers post saying that the tortillería was 'behind the big church', I was thinking it was a different tortillería. Encarnación Rosas is three blocks east of Marcos Castellanos, where 'the big church' is. The 'big church' is the Templo de San Andrés.

Kevin, the rest of your post has me even MORE confused.

• Maseca (the brand of corn flour used 99% of the time when old fashioned nixtamal-ized corn is NOT used at a tortillería) is not considered to be whole grain corn. Maseca is the dominant brand of dried, processed corn flour, not ground nixtamal-ized corn. And yes, it does contain GMO corn.
• You're right, harina de trigo is wheat flour. If flour tortillas are made of whole wheat, the terminology would be harina de trigo integral--the integral being the word for whole wheat.
• manteca vegetal is something like Crisco, or whatever is analogous. Flour tortillas made with lard (manteca de cerdo) are actually better AND better for you than those made with manteca vegetal.
• As to what is the 'lesser of evils'--that's where you lose me. An evil lesser than wheat flour tortillas? An evil lesser than--well, than I don't know what. IMHO, there is very litte evil greater than Monsanto and GMO corn.

  If you'll help me clarify your meaning, I'd be glad to weigh in on this. It's an urgently important subject.

Hi More Liana,

I'm relying on Tony Burton's map which shows the name change as I mentioned, but I think your memory is correct and my map is wrong. In any case, it's the same tortilleria you mentioned. We love the place.

As to the other questions:

1. I, too, am confused about Maseca. If whole-grain corn (GMO or otherwise) isn't the only grain it contains, what else is used?

2. Of course I agree 100% that freshly-rendered lard beats Crisco every time, but I have never seen it used in a commercial tortilla for sale in these parts.

3. The lesser of evils question I raised is this: if the choice we have is between whole-grain corn tortillas that contains nothing but corn (albeit GMO), lime and water and white/wheat flour (presumably also from GMO grains) tortillas with hydrogenated oils in them - which is the choice we actually have, unless we make the trek to the one decent corn tortilla place on Encarnacion Rosas - then aren't fresh corn tortillas the lesser of evils? And I ask this question sharing compltely your view that Monsanto is pretty much the devil incarnate.

[bennie]

its the trans fats which give me migraine headaches. too bad, the tortillas from 100 yrs ago were the real thing. the lime can cause headaches too. traditional foods are like packaged these days.

[Travis]

Calle Galeana is what I'm thinking....and that's all I've got to say on the subject.

[More Liana]

This whole conversation is comparing apples and oranges--flour tortillas to corn tortillas. Let's start with flour tortillas.

• Flour tortillas are not 'native' to this part of Mexico. They were created and continue to be most used in Mexico's northern states, where wheat is grown. To meet the demand of the numbers of people from the North who now live in Central Mexico, flour tortillas are now minimally available here. However, they are NOT the standard choice on Central Mexico's table.
• Until the fairly recent whoopdedo about the evils of manteca de cerdo (lard from rendered pork fat), ALL flour tortillas--commercial or home-made--were made with pork lard.
• Once the whoopdedo that lard is bad for you began to take hold here in Mexico, commercial manufacturers started using manteca vegetal. I am going out on a limb here, but IMHO manteca vegetal is now the manufacturer's preferred fat for flour tortillas because it has a longer shelf life than manteca de cerdo. In other words, the public be damned, let's do what's best for business. /saws off limb behind her.

Now, let's talk about corn tortillas.

• The pre-columbian indigenous people of what is now Mexico 'invented' corn tortillas in approximately 10,000 B.C. At least, the traces of the earliest known tortillas date to that time.
• Even the earliest tortillas were prepared with nixtamal-ized corn. I've discussed that process on this board and if you're interested you can Google it for more information. Be careful of the Wikipedia article about tortillas, though; it contains more mis-information than truth.
• The process of nixtamal-ization involves mixing lime (not the fruit, the chemical) with water and simmering dried dent corn (cacahuatzintle) in the prepared water until the corn softens and the hard outer part of each kernel can be removed. At that point, the corn (now called nixtamal) can be cooked further for use in the soupy stew known as pozole OR the nixtamal can be ground into masa--wet-ground corn dough used for making tortillas, tamales, and a whole range of Mexico's antojitos.
• Nixtamal-ization of dried dent corn releases the amino acids and other components that they contain, components vital to human health, so that they can be absorbed and utilized by the human body. Without nixtamal-ization, these essential components go to waste, as the body cannot assimilate them. How did the ancient indigenous people know this? No one has answered that question--yet.
• Making tortillas from scratch is hard work. First you plant, grow, harvest, and air-dry your dent corn. Then you take the individual kernels off the cobs. Then you let your corn simmer in the lime water, then drain it and take the hard husks off each kernel. THEN you take your prepared corn to the molino (mill) to be ground into masa (corn dough), or you grind it yourself on a metate (3-legged volcanic stone grinder). And you do this every single day, day in and day out.
• A family of five--parents, two children, and a grandparent, or some other combination of five people--eats tortillas for desayuno (breakfast), almuerzo (a later, heavier midmorning meal), at comida (main meal of the day) and generally for the light meal called cena (supper), eaten prior to retiring for the night. Five people can easily consume three or more kilos of tortillas EVERY DAY. For the kilo-challenged, that's a bit over 6.5 pounds. (An aside: the cost of tortillas has doubled in the last few years, from 5 or 6 pesos the kilo to 12 or more pesos the kilo. You can readily see that a family earning minimum wage needs MORE than a day's minimum wage just for tortillas.)
• Today's Mexican life is substantially different in some ways from Mexican life in the past. About 9 million Mexican women work outside the home (INEGI data). The majority of Mexico's population now lives in cities, not in rural, farming areas. The need for a product that circumvents the necessity to take corn from the milpa (cornfield) to the molino (mill) to the mesa (table) led Grupo Gruma (the owners of Maseca) to bring Maseca to market.
• Now: what is Maseca? Maseca is dried, processed corn that has been ground into flour. Period. There is no other grain in it. Here's a link to the nutritional makeup of Maseca, as published by Grupo Gruma: http://www.shopwell.com/maseca-corn-flour-instant-masa/flour/p/3729792125. Take a close look at the nutritional list. THE ONLY components are calcium and copper, at 2% each. Industrialization has removed all amino acids, proteins, and other nutrients.
• Maseca and Grupo Gruma won't tell you this outright, but the corn in Maseca is almost entirely GMO. GMO corn in and of itself does not contain the same nutrients that are contained in traditional Mexican 'dent' corn.
• So, bottom line: you can draw your own conclusions about Kevin K's question that maybe it's better to eat Maseca tortillas than tortillas made from nixtamal, rather than eat no tortillas at all. In my personal opinion, it's a multi-faceted question about nutrition, health, tradition, politics, the future, and the whole gamut of how life is lived in the 21st century. There is, as best I can see, no easy answer.

[Kevin K]

Thanks More Liana for this brilliant history lesson! It just underlines the scale of the tragedy of what Monsanto in particular and modernization in general have done to Mexico's staple grain.

My first reaction (like Travis) is to make a beeline for what is, apparently (and astonishingly, and sadly), the ONLY traditional tortilleria that have survived at Lakeside (the one on Encarnacíon Rosas).

One small correction. The link to the nutritional makeup in More Liana's post was dead when I clicked on it, but I found another on the same site that worked:

http://www.shopwell.com/maseca-corn-flour-instant-masa/flour/p/3729792125?f=sr&nr=3&sp=1

The nutritional data shown does show protein content of 3 grams per serving so perhaps all is not compltely lost, but I sure don't like being a guinea pig for GMO corn.

It seems like traditionally-made corn tortillas are particularly scarce in this area, as I see a lot more tortillas made from nixtamilzed corn in other parts of Mexico. Such tortillerias were quite common in San Miguel de Allende and there's even a niche market for blue corn tortillas there. I will get in touch with some of the folks at the Tuesday organic market and see if there is anything to be done at this late date to create more awareness of and support for real corn and products made from it.

[More Liana]

Kevin, you might want to talk to the folks at the organic market about the world-wide anti-Monsanto protest scheduled for May 25. Maybe someone would want to organize something at Lakeside. http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-march-protests-world-069/

Blue corn is not usually grown in Jalisco, which is why you don't see it there.

AND: if it is any consolation to you, it is all but impossible to find a corn tortilla worth eating in Mexico City. Even when the front of the tortillería is emblazoned with a proud "100% NIXTAMAL"--the tortillas are made with olote (corn cobs) ground into the masa to extend it. This gives the tortillas the consistency of cardboard. And here, where you see a lot of so-called blue corn masa made into tortillas, quesadillas, tlacoyos, huaraches, etc etc, the masa is dyed to appear to be blue corn.

This is the second time in a week that I have copied and pasted a link from the page I was reading and posted it here, only for it to come up dead. Wonder what that is about.

[Travis]

I believe the Tortilleria Elena that everyone is referring to is located at Calle Galeana #11, behind La Parroquia.

http://www.lakesideguide.tv/restaurants/ajijic/tortilleria-elena

[Newbie3]

This has been most informative.

I will definitely visit Tortilleria Elena.

If, indeed, they do not cut their masa with Maseca™, they will have my business in the future.

I don't speak much Spanish, but I hope to ask them if I may inspect the premises. If I don't see any telltale Maseca™ flour sacks, I intend to become a loyal customer of theirs.

Thank you, everyone, for contributing your thoughts and thoughtful information.

[More Liana]

Is it possible that the tortillería I and the walkers have posted about in the past has moved? It has always been on Encarnación Rosas, just below Guadalupe Victoria. Or--the better option by far--is it possible that there are now TWO tortillerías in Ajijic that use nixtamal-ized corn rather than Maseca?

[Travis]

The way I read the walkers post it was referring to Galeana, because of the "behind the big church" and "around the corner from Susana Beauty shop". I know the one on Galeana since I've spent a lot of time walking right past it and smelling the yummy tortillas (and hearing that inevitably horrible squeaky sound). I'll see if the one on Encarnacion Rosas is still there. I've never noticed it, but I don't know that block very well. (And how embarrassing is that? I've only lived here 5 years!!!)

[Newbie3]

I visited Tortilleria Elena. It's the real deal. They don't use Maseca™. They just have sacks of whole grain corn. The lady assured me that's all they use.

Thanks!

[Kevin K]

The address of Tortilleria Elena is indeed Gallena #11 just as Travis's link says.

We went in there today and asked the enthusiastic proprietress if they are indeed the only ones at Lakeside making tortillas from corn rather than maseca. She doesn't know but thinks it is quite possible.

Folks they take a lot of pride in what they do and are genuinely grateful for any patronage. They also charge the same price as all the places using GMO-laced Maseca. I hope as many of as us possible will go out of our way to support them.

[More Liana]

Kevin, could you do me a favor and check out the other tortillería, on Encarnación Rosas just below Guadalupe Victoria? Maybe it was Tortillería Elena and they have moved. Maybe it's out of business. Maybe there are two in Ajijic that make tortillas from nixtamal! I'm just curious, so there is no rush.

[Travis]

Was it just a door or two below Guadalupe Victoria, toward the lake, on the west side of the street? If so, it's a Cremeria.

[More Liana]

Yes, that would be the spot. Maybe the tortillería moved to Galeana. How's the cremería?

Thank you! Curiosity killed the cat, etc. LOL...

[camillenmx]

I second the poster who recommende Melissa's on the highway next to the Italian restaurant, across from OXXO Intercam, I watched them grind the slaked corn myself and the tortillas are made by hand (using a press) not a machine. They cost $20 pesos a kilo but are the best I have had outside of Mazamitla in a very long time. No maseca, no additives, just plain corn goodness, they were even a little sweet! Having spent a good part of my youth in northern Mexico I can tell you she also makes a very respectable flour tortilla as well.