If They Don't Have The Skill To Make Scratch Tortillas How Good Can Their Mexican Food Be?

[scrumptiouschef]

Out here in Austin we're seeing dozens of new Mexican joints pop up.

Most are taco carts while some are brick and mortar but there is a disturbing trend amongst the start ups.

They're serving tortillas from plastic bags.

There are now two types of Mexican restaurants in town.

1] Restaurants that are making sauces, soups, stocks, beans etc wholly from scratch. These restaurants by and large are serving high quality food well worth your dining dollar.

2] Restaurants that are buying #10 cans of the cheapest Sysco style food products you can imagine, putting a Mexican sounding name on the side of their building and flinging their doors open.

Which begs the question. If they don't have the skill to make a tortilla from scratch how good can their "Mexican" food be?

[paulj]

When he appeared as a guest on a Julia Child show in the 1990s,. Rick Bayless said he preferred buying tortillas in a paper wrapper - an indication of a fresh local source.

[scrumptiouschef]

We can synthesize this discussion down to a pretty fine point.

There are some eaters who prefer their food stuffs to be made from scratch [ tortillas, stocks, apple pie, bread what have you ] while there are others who don’t consider this to be a telling factor of the skill of the cook preparing their food.

Which is why the most popular Mexican restaurants in Austin bring in their tortillas, buy Maggi bouillon by the case and look upon convenience foods as the saving grace of their commercial kitchen.

The vast majority of the eating public neither know nor care how their food made it’s way to their plate, they just want to fill their empty bellies and get back to the office or televison set or whatever their current interest is.

The best taquerias in town meanwhile continue soldiering along pressing patting or rolling their tortillas, slowly simmering roasted bones into stock and creating handmade sauces for their guests.

I’d suggest a trip to San Antonio for anyone who hasn’t had the great fortune to sample handmade Mexican cuisine particularly the tortillas.

It’s as good as any I’ve had in Mexico which I’ve had the great fortune to visit dozens of times as I live 3 hours away.

Read about the lives of men like Jose Bartolome Martinez and Francisco Garcia, pioneers of Mexican food who hung their hats in San Antonio at the end of a hard day a century or so ago.

Mexican food in America today would look a lot different today if it were not for these gentleman.

Can’t make it to S.A? Then read some Robb Walsh, the Texan who keeps winning national food writing awards. He’s written thousands of words on the importance of the molinos, masa and tortilla ladies of that fine city.

Meanwhile I’ll keep searching out the taquerias in Austin that are focused on the craft side of their art and putting a bit of money in their tills.

And the Torchys and Taco Delis of Austin will keep on getting rich selling tortillas out of plastic bags.

Cause most people don't care whether they're made from scratch or trundled out of a factory.

[Cachetes]

"Cause most people don't care whether they're made from scratch or trundled out of a factory."

Actually, that is not what many of us said. What we said was that it was not the sole factor determining whether a restaurant was worthy, and that some of our most delightful culinary experiences have come in places that don't make them on-site.

I am not arguing with your desire for a homemade tortilla - like you, I think they are hands-down better than the factory made ones, even ones that are made daily right around the corner. But, I won't let the lack of a house-made tortilla stop me from eating at a place. Even in Mexico, this would significantly narrow my dining options and close out some wonderful and unique places.

[paulj]

Why should a homemade tortilla be better than one made in a factory around the corner? Is there a difference in the masa, or the pressing, or cooking?

[Cachetes]

You are right to question me. I guess I just always love the freshness of a tortilla that comes right off the comal. The temp is perfect, it's not slightly moist from being wrapped with others in paper, and it's not spongy from sitting in the back kitchen for an hour or two and poorly reheated. But you are right that there's not something inherent to either that makes one necessarily better than the other.

[EWSflash]

What constitutes a factory? Lots of people making tortillas by hand instead of one or two people? Maybe. There are those here. In Sonoita, Mexico, the tortilla factory has tons of people and minimal machinery cranking out tortillas by the thousands daily. But that's in Mexico.

[escondido123]

I believe you have made this an either/or that is not the reality. There are wonderful restaurants that as you posted"are slowly simmering roasted bones into stock and creating handmade sauces for their guests." They are not however, making their own tortillas because they think the ones they buy fresh daily from elsewhere are as good or better than what they would make given their circumstances (time, staff, etc). To say that those of us who don't think inhouse tortillas are the be all and end all of Mexican cooking "neither know nor care how their food made it’s way to their plate, they just want to fill their empty bellies and get back to the office or televison set or whatever their current interest is" is really a little insulting.

[paulj]

A while back I read an article about water recycling at shops that nixtamalize corn. Apparently in many Mexican towns, one or two businesses do most of the preparation of the corn, which is then made into tortillas in neighborhood tortillerias. There is a name for the waste water from nixtamalization, nejayote,

[jumpingmonk]

Wouldn't surpise me, nejayote can be really nasty stuff to deal with, given how alkaline it can be (partiucualry for the really big masa making plants, who can get away with using lye (sodium hydroxide) in lieu of the more tradional cal/pickling lime (calcium hydroxide) (the former is faster, but is also a lot more caustic). I'd imagine all that alkaline liquid tends to do serios damage if not properly disposed of (I saw a study about using concentrated nejayote as an animal food, but I assume the acidified enough before hand to make it closer to neutral.)

[Veggo]

Tortillerias, apart from providing fresh tasty product all through the day to households and restaurants, comprise a vital part of the economy of thousands of Mexican towns and keep pesos circulating locally. Recall that 53% of daily caloric consumption in Mexico is tortillas. As the giant nationals like Grupo Bimbo make headway (and they are) in taking market share with cheaper product manufactured in distant centralized facilities, with preservatives and probably lesser ingredients and certainly less love, the deleterious effects on villages is a double whammy. If there is a good side to this, maybe some restos will not settle for tasteless national brands and begin making their own tortillas when their local supplier has been knocked out of business.

[DiningDiva]

Add Maseca to your list, Veggo. A growing number of tortillarias in Mexico are now using Maseca (i.e. masa harina) with which to make their masa rather than mixtamalizing it. There is a small, but also growing, back lash agaisnt the use of masa harina, but the bigger issues are the gradual removal of price supports for masa/tortillas and preventing GMO corn from getting too big a toe-hold (root-hold?) in production.

[alanbarnes]

I agree that we can synthesize this discussion down to a pretty fine point.

There are some eaters who believe that a tortilla made of masa harina and preservatives at a centrally-located factory and shipped hundreds of miles is in the same category as one made from fresh-ground masa at a neighborhood tortilleria and served up warm. And then there are people who understand the difference.

[gilintx]

My uncle has a dinette that makes its own tortillas. It is a full-time job, and he has to put one person to work doing that and only that all day. I think buying in might be less of an issue of skill and more of an issue of resources. True, fresh made may be better, but where do you draw that line?

[paulj]

That's the impression that I got from one place in Seattle that makes its own, La Carta de Oaxaca
http://www.lacartadeoaxaca.com/h3.html
When I was there at a busy Saturday lunch time, there were 2 maybe 3 ladies doing nothing but make tortillas.

[escondido123]

I think made that morning is fresh enough. Where I live those are what Mexican places use, the ones made around the corner that day.

[Cachetes]

I just returned from a week in central Veracruz, eating some of the most delicious food that I've had in a while in Mexico. The salsas were mind-blowing in terms of how unique and/or delicious they were. Even at some small dives, there was some wonderful creativity.

Not one of them made their own tortillas. As many others said, it may have less to do with skill than with a variety of other factors.

[escondido123]

Having the skills to make something and actually making it day in and day out are two different things. It is not that black and white. I have eaten freshly made tortillas, my own and others, and frankly I don't taste much difference between those and the still warm ones I can buy around the corner.

[bulavinaka]

I think whether a places uses Sysco-type ingredients is only part of the equation as well. Execution is very important no matter what type of ingredients are used. An eatery can have the best of intentions in using only locally sourced organic ingredients yet really suck at making something. Conversely, a skilled chef can take mediocre ingredients and make a great dish.

The use of inexpensive ingredients is pretty common in immigrant communities particularly emerging ones due to sheer economics. As these communities become more established and more prosperous, the emergence of higher level ingredients and eateries that use them becomes more prevalent. However, as many have already mentioned, dedicating time and resources to something like a tortilleria is draining on a restaurant when viable alternatives exist.

[scrumptiouschef]

Out here in Austin we refer to the defenders of the plastic bag tortillas as the “Torchy’s apologists”. Torchy’s is a local chain that puts out c-grade tacos on plastic bag tortillas. The food is prepared in a central commissary and shipped out to the satellite shops, heated and served to the public.

It is wildly popular.

For every eater that makes their way to El Taco Rico [ the apogee of Austin Mexican food ] 5000 roll through the doors of Torchy’s or Taco Deli, another abysmal and over crowded taco chain.

The difference between a scratch tortilla made moments before being served and a commercial grade version served up from a plastic bag is immeasurable.

It’s along the lines of the difference between a scratch stock made from roasted bones and a couple cubes of Maggi bouillon being tossed into a jug of water and called “stock”.

The making of the tortilla from scratch really speaks to the ethos of the kitchen.

It is the difference between a cook and a chef.

The former tears open a bag of Con Agra french fries and dumps them into the fryer. The latter cuts the potato and transforms it into something far beyond it’s humble origin.

Why bother baking a loaf of bread and making sandwiches from that loaf when surely there’s a bread truck winding along a nearby road that could be coaxed into stopping at your restaurant and off loading some bread?

If you’re ever in Austin and want to taste the difference between factory made bread and scratch loaves stop by Noble Pig. Everything in the house is made from scratch.

The best banh mi houses in town all bake their own loaves, yes you can get a decent banh mi on a factory loaf but why bother when there’s a plenitude of cafes with little Vietnamese ladies baking in house?

It’s the difference between a cook and a chef.

My favorite quote though has to be: “No sensible restaurateur will make tortillas in-house when better ones are available fresh from a nearby tortilleria”

When did the best restaurateurs become sensible?

I’m friends with lots of chefs and restaurateurs. The best ones are far from sensible. Indeed, they’re a bit out of whack.

Food is their calling and they would no more tear open a plastic bag of tortillas and call it a day then they would buy a bag of dried pasta and dunk it into a kettle of water and call it a days work.

They make the noodles from scratch.

It’s the difference between a cook and a chef.

It’s far more “sensible” to break out the can opener and crack open a can of Wolf than it is to spend 7 or 8 hours on the stove top crafting a batch of Texas Red into being.

Sensible is the last trait I’m looking for when I’m canvassing town for the best tacos or hamburgers or barbecue or anything else.

Would a sensible person smoke a hunk of meat for 15 hours over a low flame so they could eat barbecue. No.

It’s the gloriously irrational taqueras, pit masters and bakers whom I seek. The mad men who take the slow, difficult route in their food resulting in intense deliciousness not some half-assed short-cut method that the public embraces and even defends.

With the dumbing down of the typical taco consumer in Austin’s palate continuing apace, local commercial manufacturer El Milagro’s product is often mistaken for homemade.

Their product is fine but is in no way homemade

I had a great conversation with Gill, a lovely taquera at local legend El Rinconsito. I broached this very subject with her a couple years ago and her response was priceless.

“Lazy” she flashed. “They are lazy”.

She’s since retired but I think of her comments often when I’m at the window of a taco cart ordering some desebrada or carnitas.

Yeah it’s true that many restaurants don’t make their own tortillas but at the end of the day when you get a scratch one cooking on the comal while the barbacoa sizzles on the flat top you’re at the pinnacle.

Tortillas make a wonderful yardstick for the Mexican kitchen.

[bulavinaka]

I totally get where you're coming from. The house-made noodles, the bread baked in-house, the barbecue slowly smoked to perfection - all the things you mention exist here and are appreciated as well. I go out of my way for such things where and when I feel it is critical to the overall eating experience.

I've been fortunate enough to have freshly made tortillas not only at the places that were generally referred to above, but from my childhood neighbor's mom's gentle hands. And while I do appreciate those things where they're done right, done as they should be done, done as it was done for hundreds if not thousands of years, I think the tortilla is only one component of the experience for some Mexican foods - particularly taqueria food. I still don't consider it the end-all or even THE measuring stick. It's maybe part of the yard stick but there's so much more to measuring a local eatery IMHO. There's a local taqueria called Tacomiendo - a mini-chain of two shops and they make a good portion of their own tortillas by hand throughout the day. They are respected for this but are not considered to be the best even by LA Chowhounds. There used to be an informal but well-established round-up of street vendors in an area known as Breed Street. Of those very respected vendors - just about all considered to be rooted in authenticity - I think there may have been only a few that made their own tortillas to order. While I'd never wave off a fresh hand made tortilla if given a choice, I wouldn't demand it at the cost of possibly degrading the focus on everything else.

When looking at both your examples as well as mine, I think one also has to consider scale. If you friend Gill were serving three times the customer base, would she be able to support such a base with the same tortilla experience? I don't know - you might. If Gill considers everyone else lazy, I can respect her opinion based on her personal business model, but it's just that - her personal opinion.

[tatamagouche]

Tortillas surely do make a wonderful yardstick. But not the only one, and while you have every right to disagree, a lot of us are saying it's not our primary yardstick. I certainly don't think it's the difference between a cook and a chef, no exceptions.

Here's a famous essay by Gabrielle Hamilton that speaks to your subject directly.

http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/a...

[scrumptiouschef]

Gabrielle Hamilton speaks:

From the New York Times:

“All you have to do is open a can of sardines and a box of Triscuits, call it a signature dish, and you get Best Chef New York City.”

Pay attention, chefs, and be humbled. That’s what it takes to beat April Bloomfield, Wylie Dufresne, Michael Anthony and Michael White.

So wrote Florence Fabricant after Gabrielle Hamilton won Best Chef in New York recently.

I did enjoy the link to the article, Hamilton can certainly write.

But serving canned beans at Prune? Downmarket food at upmarket prices.

One of the great pleasures of taqueria eating is dragging a fresh corn tortilla through a pool of creamy, homemade refried beans.

Cooking a bean from scratch is such a simple, direct kitchen task that to hear Hamilton brag about using Goya from a can is just depressing.

Everybody's ideal of Mexican food is different.

While Austin has some very good places there are only a handful that could survive in San Antonio where the metric is so stern that if a molino is not in the back of the taqueria you won't even be entered into the discussion of "best"

Since only a small percentage of taquerias in Austin make their own tortillas these days the Torchy's apologists are in deep clover.

It's no matter. I'll continue along, searching for the mujeres who're patting out, rolling out or pressing out delicious, scratch tortillas.

Just one of the yardsticks of a proud, dedicated Mexican kitchen.

[tatamagouche]

Don't get me wrong, I applaud your uncompromising style. But here in Denver, I don't know of any taquerias, however hardcore, that make their own tortillas. Yet I wouldn't discount them on that point—if I did I'd miss mind-blowing green chile, carnitas, carne asada, etc...

Same goes for New Mex., where homemade sopaipillas take precedence over fresh tortillas.

[natewrites]

Thanks for that post, Scrumptiouschef.

[alanbarnes]

If you really think that the epitome of Mexican food can be found in San Antonio, you should seriously consider broadening your range. Just because some guy has a molino and a sack of masa seca doesn't mean he's making really good tortillas. The best tortillas I've ever been served have come from tortillerias that nixtamalize and grind their own corn. When that becomes common at taquerias, then maybe you can hold it up as a standard. Until then? Not so much.

[EWSflash]

Thanks for that, alanbarnes.

[DiningDiva]

Corn may be the foundation of the Mexican kitchen, but whether tortilla is made in house, a tortillaria (of which I'd be willing to bet Autsin as more than a few) or the local broadline distributor, it's not a gauge of how good or bad the Mexican food is.

Tortillas can be an intregal part of the meal, or not. A well made sauce (think pipían, mole or salsa) can go a long way to make up for a mediocre tortilla. Frankly, I'd be more concerned about how well the kitchen manages to do with it's sauces, guisados, beans and proteins than I would about a tortilla.

[ipsedixit]

There's more to Mexican food than just tortillas, be they made from scratch or from Sysco.

[paulj]

Are you talking about corn or flour tortillas? Hand pressed or machine rolled and baked? From masa harina or freshly ground masa? Doing their own nixtamalization? Growing their own corn? Roasting their own snails to make the lime? :)

[alanbarnes]

No sensible restaurateur will make tortillas in-house when better ones are available fresh from a nearby tortilleria. Complaining that a place doesn't make its own tortillas is like complaining that it doesn't dry its own salt.

[Veggo]

I was horrified to learn that some of those snazzy Manhattan restos that adorn dishes with frozen foam and other Kelvin-esqe frou-frou, don't actually make their own liquid nitrogen in a back room.

[DiningDiva]

:-D

[EWSflash]

+1

[mariacarmen]

Veggo, you funny!

[Veggo]

I appreciate that on occasion my comments are fleetingly entertaining to others. On the flip side, my most serious, factual, passionate posts on this topic have been deleted for admittedly having wandered off topic, but the topic begs for examination beyond the scope here.

I don't want hounds to think I'm just a goof- ball, because of what they don't get to read. Thanks.

[natewrites]

I agree Alan. But lots of towns and small cities don't have a tortilleria.

[Veggo]

You reminded me of how many great mexican dishes don't include tortillas at all, good or bad. Tortillas are not a telling yardstick by any measure.

[alanbarnes]

Very true. But the OP is talking about Austin, Texas. Complaining about pre-made tortillas there is like complaining about a Parisian restaurant serving bread from a boulangerie. Would that we should all have to eat such terrible stuff.

[pdxgastro]

Great analogy!

[christy319]

That's kind of like saying, if a deli doesn't bake their own bread, then the sandwich can't possibly be good.

[natewrites]

I just blogged about this very thing, only it was a terrible Mexican restaurant who not only didn't make their own tortilla chips but they didn't make their salsa either. The chips were TERRIBLE, like the kind you see in see-thru boxes with that bright yellow cheese at 7-11 type places. And the salsa was worse than the lowest brand grocery store brand. The meal my friend then ate was yuckky as well.

I sort of agree with the poster. While it doesn't guarantee horrible over-all meal quality, it's NOT a good sign at all of what's to come.

[escondido123]

If the tortillas are fresh and tasty, why does it matter if they were made in-house. I can make a great beef stew but the French bakery around the corner makes a better apple tart than I can. If I serve them in the same meal does that make my stew any less flavorful?

[ferret]

It's not necessarily about skill, sometimes it's about cost. Some places can afford to have enough people to make it all from scratch. If the food is good, you can overlook pre-packaged tortillas; if the food is bad, then you can make assumptions about skill. One of my favorite local Mexican places in Chicago buys their tortillas but otherwise uses great ingredients and prepares them well.

[Jase]

I think there's a wide gulf between the two scenarios you presented. Out here in LA, there are trucks that turn out some exquisite tacos with the Al Pasto on a spit, the pineapple and the skilled taquero slicing the meat off the spit. But most of them use your bagged tortillas. Some of the tortillas are better than others depending on sourcing. Alternately, there's some restaurants that make the tortillas fresh but the rest of food can be lacking.

I think like anything else, you have to evaluate the elements by themselves. Ideally, everything would be fantastic hand made. But that's the ideal. So to answer your question, yes someone's Mexican food can be amazing even if they don't have the skill to make a tortilla from scratch.

[EWSflash]

+1

On the other hand, a Mexican restaurant that doesn't fry its own tortillas chips is generally a deal-breaker for me, it's usually an indicator of mundane food to come.

[tatamagouche]

+2. Homemade tortillas are a treat but I'm far more concerned about excellent carnitas, pastor, asada, etc., with the right trimmings.

[bulavinaka]

+3

The trend that you are observing in Austin might be market-driven. Assuming that there's a niche of Mexican eateries that are already doing this (along with other key ingredients made in-house), the assumption of freshly made tortillas might be a given in order to gain respectability in your local dining market.

As Jase has already mentioned, the general status in LA tends to be the opposite (with the exception of Rivera that I can think of - a totally different level of resto as well as tortilla). The attraction of a "Tortilla Lady" making fresh tortillas is the big draw - much like fresh bread would appeal to one's appetite. The rest of the experience is typically fair at best, or at least not of artisanal quality otherwise. One of the huge perks of having a large Latino population in any given community is not only a fantastic array of Mexican cuisines, but also the fact that specialty businesses like tortillerias supply a constant flow of fresh tortillas to so many eateries - heck, our local Latino grocery store has their own tortilleria. Although the typical Mexican eatery tortilla is machine-made, they are fresh, and it is the sum of this and other parts of the foods that we can judge.

[paulj]

I thought free chips and salsawere a sure sign of an Americanized restaurant. :)

[alanbarnes]

Americanized doesn't mean bad.

[EWSflash]

Maybe so but i've gotten them as far south as Cabo San Lucas (28 years ago) and La Paz (same trip), without asking for them.