La Michoacana Tortilla Factory

05/25/2017

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06/27/2013

06/27/2013

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06/27/2013

United States

In the United States, the tortilla is no longer seen as just ethnic bread. Many Americans use wheat flour tortillas in various dishes. They are commonly used in burritos, which originated in northern Mexico many years ago. As a testament to their popularity, the Tortilla Industry Association (TIA) estimated Americans consumed approximately 85 billion tortillas in 2000 (not including tortilla chips).[14]

Tortilla chips — made from maize tortillas cut into wedges, then fried — first gained popularity in the 1940s in Los Angeles, California. These chips were mass-produced there, but are still known as Mexican food. The ingredients in maize tortillas are maize, lime, and water. Fried chips add salt and vegetable oil.

Some alternative ways tortillas can be eaten in the United States include combinations such as beans and meat, apple cinnamon and sugar, or peanut butter and jelly. Flour tortillas are also used to make sandwiches, casseroles and stews, and hot dogs, and there are numerous other uses. It is not as common to have home-made tortillas in American homes as in Mexico.

Many people from northern Mexico and the native Mexicans in the southwestern United States eat tortillas as a staple food. Many restaurants use wheat flour tortillas in a variety of non-Mexican and Mexican recipes. Many grocery stores sell ready-made tortillas.[

06/27/2013

History of the corn tortillas





According to Maya legend, tortillas were invented by a peasant for his hungry king in ancient times[citation needed]. The first tortillas discovered, which date back to approximately 10,000 BC, were made of native maize with dried kernel[citation needed]. The Aztecs used a lot of maize, both eaten straight from the cob and in recipes. They ground the maize, and used the cornmeal to make a dough called masa.[1]

On 22 April 1519, Spaniards led by Hernán Cortés, also known as Hernando Cortez, arrived in what is now Mexico. They found that the inhabitants (Aztecs and other native Mexican peoples) made flat maize bread. The native Nahuatl name for this was tlaxcalli.[2]

In Cortés' 1520 second letter to King Charles V of Spain, he described the public markets:

"This city has many public squares, in which are situated the markets and other places for buying and selling. . . where are daily assembled more than sixty thousand souls, engaged in buying and selling; and where are found all kinds of merchandise that the world affords, embracing the necessaries of life, as for instance articles of food. . . maize or Indian corn, in the grain and in the form of bread, preferred in the grain for its flavor to that of the other islands and Terra-firma".[3]

This bread made from maize was later given the name tortilla (little cake) by the Spanish. In parts of southern Spain, the origin of many of the Spaniards conquering America,[citation needed] a tortilla or tortillita is a crisp, thin, circular, fried cake made of chickpea meal. These tortillas, which apparently have their roots in southern Spain's Arabic heritage, look strikingly similar to the fried maize tortilla (or tostada).[original research?]

Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún described how the Aztec diet was based on maize, tortillas, tamales and a wide variety of chiles. Sahagún noted that the Aztecs not only used corn in their tortillas, but also squash and amaranth, and that some varieties used turkey eggs or honey as a flavoring.[4]

Traditionally, maize tortillas were made from nixtamalized maize; kernels were soaked in a solution of lime (calcium hydroxide) and water to remove their skins; this also increases the bioavailability of then-unknown niacin. The grains were then ground into maize dough (masa). A golf ball-sized piece of dough was patted down by hand into a thin pancake shape, placed on a hot griddle (comal), and cooked on both sides. This tortilla-making process is still used today in southern Mexico.[5]

To meet the needs of big cities and the modern lifestyle, the traditional process was mechanized to increase production of tortillas. In the 1940s and 1950s, one of the first widespread uses of small gas engines and electric motors was to power wet-grain grinders for making masa.[citation needed] A hand press or hand patting were still used to form it into tortillas, but by the 1960s, small-scale tortilla-making machines could produce cooked tortillas every two seconds.[citation needed]

06/27/2013

Tortillas today



Today, personal and industrial (Mexican-style) tortilla-making equipment has facilitated and expedited tortilla making. Manually operated wooden tortilla presses of the past led to today's industrial tortilla machinery, which can produce up to 60,000 tortillas per hour. Tortillas are now not only made from maize meal, but also from wheat flour; home-made and store-bought tortillas are made in many flavors and varieties.

Maize tortillas are naturally low in fat (approximately 2.5 grams for a typical size) and sodium, and provide calcium, potassium, fiber, iron and B vitamins.

Tortillas remain a staple food in Mexico and Central America, and have gained popularity and market share elsewhere. In the U.S., tortillas have grown from an "ethnic" to a mainstream food. They have surpassed bagels and muffins, and have now become the number two packaged bread product sold in the U.S (behind sliced bread).[citation needed] The Tortilla Industry Association (TIA) estimates, in the U.S. alone, the tortilla industry (tortillas and their products – tortilla chips, tostada shells and taco shells) has become a $6 billion a year industry.[6]

The wheat flour tortilla has different origins from the traditional maize tortilla. However, the acceptance of the wheat tortilla has increased so rapidly, it now is also part of the basic diet in northern Mexico.

06/27/2013

A tortilla (or flour tortilla to differentiate it from other uses of the word "tortilla") is a type of thin flatbread made from finely ground wheat flour. Originally derived from the corn tortilla (tortilla in Spanish means "small torta", or "small cake"), a bread of maize which predates the arrival of Europeans to the Americas, the wheat flour tortilla was an innovation after wheat was brought to the New World from Spain while this region was the colony of New Spain. It is made with an unleavened, water based dough, pressed and cooked like corn tortillas.

Flatbread tortillas have been eaten for thousands of years in north, northwest and northeast Mexico, where they are a staple, as well as many southwestern US Native American tribes. More recently, other countries have begun producing them to serve the expatriate Mexican market and the growing demand for Mexican food, particularly in North America, Europe and Eastern Asia.

Tortillas are commonly prepared with meat to make dishes such as tacos, burritos (a dish originating in northern Mexico), and enchiladas.

In appearance and use tortillas are rather similar to the South Asian chapati. Tortillas are also very similar to the unleavened bread popular in Arab, eastern Mediterranean and southern Asian countries,"pita", though thinner and smaller in diameter. In China, there is the laobing (烙餅), a pizza-shaped thick "pancake" that is similar to the tortilla. The Indian Roti, which is made essentially from wheat flour is another example.