The Makings of a Woman and Honduran Corn Tortillas (Part One)

Experience #4

As a missionary kid, I had the extraordinary privilege of living in the beautiful country of Honduras for 5 years. I saw a ton of places and met even more people. One family in particular left an impression on my own family's life that can never be removed. They taught us how to make corn tortillas. Corn tortillas are a staple in Honduran diet. Without them, you won't live long. Besides, you wouldn't want to, they're so delicious.

My mother, brother, and I were commissioned to learn the trade by the master of tortología.

How we came across this master is as simple as this:

The first few years that we lived in San Pedro Sula (the economic center of Honduras), we attended a church up the dirt hill from our house. The pastor and his family welcomed us with open arms, as did the rest of the church. As we got to know this pastoral family, we found out the pastor was attending seminary classes once a month and needed to travel 2 hours away for a few days at a time. We invited Pastor Héctor, Doña Marta (his wife), and Estér (their daughter) into our home several times and grew to know them more. When Pastor Héctor had to leave for his seminary classes, we invited his wife and daughter to stay with us for the duration of his absence, considering the security issues of the country. New to the country, we became the mission of Doña Marta. She was determined to teach us ignorant North Americans the art of corn tortillas. Ignorant, we were. But no more.
We labored for hours to achieve our goal: 24 corn tortillas, 12 empanadas, and 8 taquitos.

The Honduran corn tortilla is simple. It consists of Maseca (corn flour), water (clean), and salt (Iodini-zed, preferably).

The Honduran empanada is not as simple. What it lacks in simplicity, it gains in deliciousness and trans-fat. I'm not making this stuff up.

The Honduran taquito takes the empanada to a whole new realm with its sleek, cylindrical-not-really shape and fashion. 

Anyhow.

Since I've been promising people my corn tortilla recipe and finite wisdom on the subject, I've decided to make public the secret to my success.

Prepare yourself for The Recipes.

Honduran Corn Tortillas.

*Disclaimer: This recipe is based upon the memory of an individual taught by another individual. Versions of this recipe may vary on geographical, cultural, physical, emotional, spiritual, mental... wait, what?

.....differences of specific populations. This is what I was taught.

• A good amount of Maseca (corn flour)

• A good amount of water (clean, if you please)

• Salt (to taste, but don't taste it before you add it in. Gross.)

Knead with hands until well-mixed and of good consistency.  Taste the masa (corn flour mixture) for flavor and add more salt if needed. (No, you can't take salt out of it. Trust me, I've tried.)

Heat a comal (frying pan for tortillas) to a very high temperature. In the meantime, take a ball of masa, enough to fit the palm of your hand, make into tortilla, and fry in comal. Wait until done. Eat afterwards. Yay.

Simple, enough, right?

Wrong.

Although  Doña Marta's corn tortillas were absolutely phenomenal, the moment she left our kitchen, chaos erupted from every corner. To this day, I am convinced every Honduran woman has an inherent natural power of tortología (equivalence of a PhD in tortilla-making). My mother and I were not born with this highly-desired ability. We couldn't tell how much water to put in, so it was "just right" or how to mangle the masa into something that looked like a tortilla.

So we improvised.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you with the cheater's way of Honduran corn tortillas. No judging, please.

Cheater's Way of Honduran Corn Tortillas

• 3 cups Maseca (corn flour)
• 3 cups water (still clean, please)
• Salt (Again with the sanitary laws)

Put maseca into medium-large bowl. Add half the water and stir. I like to knead with my hands and kid myself into thinking that I'm being authentic. Ha. You can stir with a spoon. Spatulas work great too. Add more water until you can stir and a ball forms. You will be surprised how much water corn flour can hold. I kid you not: maseca sucks water like quicksand sucks zebras.

Umm. Let's just say I had a traumatic National-Geographic Channel experience as a young child...... Yup.

You're aiming for a consistency of grainy cookie-dough-likeness. When you push your finger into the masa, you should see an indentation of where your finger was. Your finger shouldn't be wet after touching it and the masa shouldn't be crumbling.

Rule of Thumb(s):

1. If it crumbles, add more water.
2. If it wets, add more maseca.

Clear as mud? Or masa? Ho-ho! See what I did there? No? We're moving on.

Add about a teaspoon of salt to the masa. Knead/stir until you think the salt is fairly incorporated into the ball of corn flour-goodness. Now.... taste it!
Don't expect too much. It will probably taste bland like corn and water. Guess what it's made out of? Yep. Moving on again.
I like more salt in my masa. I'd probably go with almost a tablespoon of salt. No, my blood pressure is just fine, thank you. *twitch, twitch*
Once you've found a level of salt to your liking, this is where the tortillas take their form.

Take a plastic grocery bag (Walmart does just fine; ideally, the thicker the better. On second thought, go with Target) and take a 4-6 inch in diameter plate or circular thing and place on top of the plastic bag. Draw a circle around your circular object and then remove said object. Take your scissors and cut the circle, both sides of the bag. You should end up with two 4-6 inch circles of the same size. Wash them with soap and water.

Next, take a little container of water and have it at your disposal. Tortillas do better with wet hands. Place a folded dish towel on your counter/working space. Place 1 plastic circle on top of the the dish towel. Wet both circles with about a penny's worth of water for both of them. The next step is to grab enough masa to fit in the palm of your hand and form it into a ball. Proceeding onwards... Place the ball of dough on top of the moistened plastic circle, which is on top of your dish towel. Cover the ball with the second moistened plastic circle. And..... press!

You will soon discover the amount of water you chose to moisten your circles with is incredible important. Too much and you have a soggy tortilla, too little and your tortilla becomes sticky to the plastic. Practice, my friend, practice. And a lot of soggy/sticky tortillas makes perfect. Make sure you keep the plastic circles properly moistened for each tortilla.

Press downwards on the tortilla and with one hand and rotate to the right, keep doing that so that the circles come full circle (Pun intended). The idea is that you are flattening out the tortilla in a plastic sandwich on top of a surface that will allow the rotating motion (the dish towel). Confused yet? I am and I've done this before.

Alternate Version-- The Ultimate Cheater Version--

We found that using a plate or a flat surface and pressing down on the tortilla (in the circles) worked just as well and was even faster. 

Once you have your shaped tortilla with desired thickness and diameter, put  on a frying pan or skillet. Wait until it starts smoking on the bottom, then flip it. There should be tan spots on both sides and look slightly porous when fully cooked. Tortillas should not be burnt, repeat: tortillas should not be burnt. 
If it turns out your tortillas do not look like perfect circles, do not be discouraged. Mine looked like the shape of Honduras and still do. If you don't know what Honduras looks like, google it. Then you can laugh. I do. 



Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go

                                                              -Joshua 1:9

Go ahead. Try something new. Tackle the seemingly impossible corn tortillas. I did.

I'm making this into a series so you'll have to wait for the empanadas and taquitos for another time. I promise the next posts won't be as long :)
P.S. Happy Independence Day! Viva Honduras!

Passion and Perspective

There are certain things in life that we do that get us plain excited about living it. There are certain things in life we are so passionate about, they define whom we are, what we do, and how we live. I think part of the trick is to know about what to be passionate. Choose wisely.  

Recently, I examined myself for some of my favorite activities or hobbies. Some have been deemed favorite since infancy like eating food, for example. Others have been accumulated onto my list on a much more recent time-scale. Examples would be horse-back riding, archery, and taking naps. I'm sure I didn't mind the latter as an infant either.

Since this is my blog, I suppose I must divulge a smidgen about myself, lest I kicked off of the Internet. Yet there are worse things in life than a shy blogger, such as moldy cheese. 

Onward.

Some of my passions include: 

• Getting to know and share my savior, Jesus Christ.
• Cooking
• People
• Stars (The twinkling kind)
• Photography
• Sunsets
• Sailing
• The color purple (.......Yes.)
• Taking care of people 
• Music
• Small Children (Big kids are okay too)
• Learning 
• Getting someone to smile, or better yet, laugh.

I could continue on, except:

1) That would require even greater effort in thinking and really looking in to what I'm passionate about, what takes my breath away, and makes me take a step back and say, "Wow."

2) This is all I could come up with off the top of my head.

3) The space I'm using in this post for lists is getting a little long. 

 This ends here. Maybe. Probably not. Nope. 

Anywho.

One mentioned above is of particular interest to me. Photography and I have had an interesting history, for sure. From birth to around age 5, I despised all cameras and absolutely hated getting my picture taken. True story. Sixty percent of our family pictures had three faces in them: my dad's, my mom's, my brother's, and the back of my furiously shy head.

It's a real shame: I was a cute kid. At least that's what my mom says. I don't actually have any real photographic proof to see for myself. I do know that I was blond. That's about it.  

I'm not sure when my attitude about cameras changed. Obviously, it has since I was five. I own my own camera now, enjoy being with people in front of one, and consider almost any DSLR figurative eye candy. I have a theory about my conversion. Perhaps it was when I was given my first camera for Christmas when I was five. My life has never been same since. I discovered what it was like being on the other side; to see what the world looked like through a camera lens. It's beautiful, BTW (Grandma, that stands for "By The Way." You're welcome). 

My favorite things to capture are little details. This is most likely because my camera has the potential of taking that kind of image well. It was a surprise. It was a delight. It was a challenge. As I learned what my camera could do, I was motivated to see what I could do better, how I could manipulate a subject through perspective into something totally new and beautiful. It is also different because most of us don't stop to notice and spend time with the small things in our lives. Although most of the pictures I take I barely spend any time on (A bad habit I've developed), cheap memories have still been captured, nonetheless, in the lowest quality possible.

Experience #3

I was recently challenged in my photography. I watched a video that completely changed my perspective about what can be done with a camera. It was beautiful and eye opening. A camera can do so much more than preserve a memory. It can capture emotion, an idea, history, inspiration, time, and wonder. I have been challenged to not just point-and-shoot, but to be purposeful in what I capture. After all, it's not the megapixels that make a photo great, it's the message conveyed.