History of Tortillas - History of Tacos
The mainstay of the Mexican diet was, and still is, the tortilla, made from corn. The tradition continues today with little change. The kernels are cooked with lime to remove the husk and then ground on a stone slab with a grinding stone. The dough is formed into little round balls and then patted out by hand into thin round cakes or wrapped in a corn husk, the tamale, to then fill and eat. The versatility of the tortilla as a wrapper in endless. They are used for tacos and enchiladas, among native Mexicans, tortillas are commonly used as eating utensils, as a plate as in a tostada, and much more. In the United States the tortilla is no longer seen as just an ethnic bread. This is partially due to the increase of the Hispanic population.
What's Cooking America's Tortilla Recipe:
Tortillas - How To Make Tortillas
In northern Mexico and much of the United States, tortilla means the flour version. Flour tortillas are the foundation of Mexican border cooking and a relatively recent import. Their popularity was driven by the low cost of inferior grades of flour provided to border markets and by their ability to keep and ship well.
3000 B.C. - Excavations in the valley of “Valle de Tehuacán”, in the state of Puebla, revealed the use, for more than seven thousand years, of the basic cereal by excellence of the Mesoamerican diet, a little wild cob that along with roots and fruit was a complement for hunting. According to Agustín Gaytán, chef and Mexican cuisine historian, in a Greeley Tribune newspaper article:
1519 - When Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), also known as Hernando Cortez, and his conquistadores arrived in the New World on April 22, 1519, they discovered that the inhabitants (Aztecs Mexicas) made flat corn breads. The native Nahuatl name for these was tlaxcalli. The Spanish gave them the name tortilla. In Cortés' 1920 second letter to King Charles V of Spain, he describes the public markets and the selling of maize or Indian corn:
1529 - In the monumental manuscript books, General History of the Things of New Spain (Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana), by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagun (1450-1590), it is known that the Aztec diet was based on corn and tortillas, tamales and plenty of chilies in many varieties. Considered one of the fathers of culinary history. He compiled and translated testimonies of his culinary informants from the native language Nahuatl into Spanish. His work is the most complete record of Aztec foods and eating habits.
Sahagun was sent to New Spain (Mexico) to compile, in the Aztec language, a compendium of all things relating to the native history and custom that might be useful in the labor of Christianizing the Indians. The work thus undertaken occupied some seven years, in collaboration with the best native authorities, and was expanded into a history and description of the Aztec people and civilization in twelve manuscript books, together with a grammar (Arte) and dictionary of the language.
1940s - In the 1940s and ‘50s, one of the first widespread uses of small scale gas engines and electric motors was to power wet grain grinders for making masa. A hand press or hand patting were used to form the masa into tortillas.
1960s - Early tortillas took hours to make but by the
1960s, small-scale tortilla-making machines could churn out hot, steaming
tortillas every two seconds.
In Mexico, the word taco is a generic term like the English word sandwich. A taco is simply a tortilla wrapped around a filling. Like a sandwich, the filling can be made with almost anything and prepared in many different ways (anything that can be rolled inside a tortilla becomes a taco). The contents of a taco can vary according to the geographical region you are eating them. The taco can be eaten as an entree or snack. They are made with soft corn or fried corn tortillas folded over.
1520 -Bernal Diaz del Castillo (1496-1584), a Spanish soldier who came with Hernán Cortés to the New World, wrote an intriguing and detailed chronicles called A True History of the Conquest of New Spain. He also chronicled the lavish feasts that were held. From the article by Sophie Avernin called Tackling the taco: A guide to the art of taco eating:
1914 - The first-known English-language taco recipes appeared in California cookbooks beginning in 1914. Bertha Haffner-Ginger, in her cookbook California Mexican-Spanish Cook Book said tacos were:
1929 - Pauline Wiley-Kleemann in here cookbook Ramona's Spanish-Mexican Cookery, featured six taco and tacquito recipes. These included recipes for Gorditos that came from Santa Nita or Xochimilco, Pork Tacos composed of snout, ears, jowls, kidneys, and liver, Cream Cheese Tacos, Egg Tacos, Mexican Tacos, and Tacquitos
Taqueria or taco trucks are found throught the West
and Southwest of the United States. There are two kinds of taco trucks;
traveling trucks that cruise around neighborhoods and business areas, and
non-cruising trucks parked permanently in lots.
People in the coastal areas of Mexico have been eating fish tacos for a long time. The history of fish tacos could seemly go back thousands of years to when indigenous North American peoples first wrapped the plentiful offshore catch into stone-ground-corn tortillas. The people of Ensenada say their port town is the fish taco's true home, dating at least from the opening of the Ensenada mercado, in 1958.
The people of San Diego, California, have been hooked on fish tacos
since 1983. In fact, fish tacos are the fast-food signature dish of San
Diego: they're cheap to buy and fast to make. Fish tacos were popularized in
the United States by Ralph Rubio, who first tasted them while on
spring break in Baja, Mexico. According to the story he tells, there was one
Baja vendor he especially liked, a man named Carlos, who ran a
hole-in-the-wall taco stand with a 10-foot counter and a few stools. Carlos
fried fish to order and put it on a warm tortilla. Customers added their own
condiments. Rubio tried to persuade Carlos to move to San Diego, but Carlos
was happy where he was and would not budge. He did agree, however, to share
his recipe, which Rubio scrawled on a piece of paper pulled from his wallet.
Several years later, Rubio opened his own restaurant in San Diego, called
Rubio's - Home of the Fish Taco. Today, fish tacos are legendary and are
sole throughout San Diego and the Southwest.
California Mexican-Spanish Cook Book; Selected Mexican and Spanish Recipes, by Bertha Haffner-Ginger, Citizen Print Shop, Los Angeles, 1914.
Bernardino de Sahagún, by James Mooney, Transcribed by Joseph E. O'Connor, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIII.
Growing Corn in Mexico, Pan-American Adventure: Tepotzotlán, Mexico, by Don Lotter, August 3, 2004.
Hernam Cortes: From Second Letter to Charles V, 1520, From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. V: 9th to 16th Centuries, pp. 317-326.
Ramona's Spanish-Mexican Cookery; The First Complete and Authentic Spanish-Mexican Cook Book in English, by Pauline Wiley-Kleemann, Editor, West Coast Publishing Co., Los Angeles, 1929.
Rubios, Fresh Mexican Grill.
Tackling the taco: A guide to the art of taco eating, by Sophie Avernin, Vuelo Mexicana
Tacos, Enchiladas and Refried Beans: The Invention of Mexican-American Cookery, by Andrew F. Smith, Presented at the at Oregon State University, 1999.
The real taste of Mexico, by Jesse Fanciulli, Greeley Tribune, November 24, 2002.
Toward a Recipe File and Manuals on "How to Collect" Edible Wild Insects in North America, by Gene R. DeFollart, The Food Insects Newsletter, Volume 4, Issue 3, November 1991.
Wrap It Up: A Guide to Mexican Street Tacos, by Karen Hursh
Graber, Mexico Connect.
What's Cooking America© copyright 2004 by Linda Stradley - United States Copyright TX 5-900-517- All rights reserved. -