Capirotada
Capirotada (pronounced:
kä-pē-rô-tä-thä), formally known as "Capirotada de
vigilia," is a traditional Mexican food like a bread pudding that is usually eaten
during the Lenten period.
In fact, it is one
of the dishes that is served at Good Friday. As with many Mexican
dishes, there is a variety of presentations of this dish. However, one of the
general understandings is that this capirotadadoes
not include any meat. There are other traditional Mexican recipes called capirotada that included meat as a layer.
It is
generally composed of toasted bolillo (which is like the French baguette) and soaked in a mulled syrup made of the following: whole cane sugar, which is known as piloncillo; clove; and cinnamon sticks. Some of the typical
ingredients include nuts, seeds, and dried (and sometimes fresh) fruits, among
these are: apples, dates, raisins, apricots, peanuts, pecans, almonds, pine nuts and walnuts. In addition, aged cheese
is added, which might explain why some people's recipes call for milk.
As these are native
ingredients, they are still identical ingredients to those used during the
1640s to make breads and cakes. The ingredients and
recipes have been recorded by the Holy Office of the Inquisition and saved to this day in
the archives.
The basic ingredients carry
a rich symbolism to the Passion of Christ, and the dish is viewed by many Mexican and Mexican-American
families as a reminder of the suffering of Christ on Good Friday. The bread is for the Body of Christ, the syrup is his blood, the
raisins are the nails of the cross, and the whole cinnamon sticks are the wood
of the cross. The melted cheese stands for the Holy Shroud.
Coyotas
Coyotas are sugar
cookies which are large, flat and traditionally filled with brown sugar.[1] Coyotas originated in the 19th Century inEl Fuerte, Sinaloa, Mexico.[citation needed] The
version most commonly today dates from 1954 as prepared at Villa de Seris[citation needed] in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico.
Tortilla
Tortilla (or flour tortilla to differentiate it from other uses of
the word "tortilla") is a type of thin flatbread made from finely groundwheat 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), andenchiladas. Tortillas are also used
to make baleadas,
a typical dish from Honduras.
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, though thinner
and smaller in diameter. In China, there is thelaobing (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.
Production
The tortilla is made from
specially treated (nixtamalized) maize flour, which has been a
staple food of the Mexican region since pre-Columbian times; these are also now
commonly made from wheat flour (tortilla de
harina or tortilla de trigo). The maize
and wheat Mexican tortillas have different textures: the maize (corn) version
is somewhat thicker and heartier in texture, while the wheat version is less
easily broken due to its high gluten content, and can be made larger in
circumference and thinner without breaking too easily.
In Panama, a tortilla is a deep fried cornmeal disk, 2–3 inches in
diameter. The South American tortilla of Bolivia and Chile is inspired by the
Mexican food, but is a small flat cake, usually salty, made with wheat or maize
flour, and cooked over embers.
Mexican maize tortillas are
commonly eaten throughout the western world as tortilla
chips, and are an essential ingredient in many popular Mexican
dishes, such as enchiladas, tostadas, and flautas. Tacos, while usually made with
maize tortillas in Mexico, are made with either maize or wheat tortillas in
other places that make Mexican-style or Tex-Mex food.
The wheat flour tortilla is
probably best known as the tortilla used to make burritos, a dish originating in northern Mexico. Wheat tortillas have also
become a staple of the peoples of northwestern Mexican states (such as Sonora and Chihuahua) and many southwestern USNative American tribes.
Maize tortillas are known
in the Basque region of Spain as talo, and were a traditional Basque farmers' staple, until wheat flour suitable for bread was brought in by
rail. Maize breads are made in other regions of northern Spain, such as Asturias, and Cantabria, where they are called borona.
Tortillas vary in size from
about 6 to over 30 cm (2.4 to over 12 in), depending on the region of the
country and the dish for which it is intended.
In commercial production
and even in some larger restaurants, automatic machines make tortillas from
dough.
According to Mayan legend,
tortillas were invented by a peasant for his hungry king in ancient times. 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]
Excavations in the
"Valle de Tehuacán" in the state of Puebla, Mexico have revealed the
use around 3000 BC of the basic cereal, a small, wild cob, eaten by native
people. According to Agustín Gaytán, chef and Mexican Cuisine historian, in a
Greeley Tribune newspaper article:
"Sometime about 3000
BC, people of the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico hybridized wild grasses to
produce large, nutritious kernels we know as corn. Mexican anthropologist and
maize historian Arturo Warman credits the development of corn with the rise of
Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Mayans and the Aztecs, which were
advanced in art, architecture, math and astronomy. The significance of corn was
not lost on indigenous cultures that viewed it as a foundation of humanity. It
is revered as the seed of life. According to legend, human beings were made of
corn by the Gods. By the time Spaniards reached the shores of what is now
Mexico in the 1400s, indigenous Mesoamericans had a sophisticated and flavorful
cuisine based on native fruits, game, cultivated beans and corn and
domesticated turkeys".[2]
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.[3]
"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".[4]
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, 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).
In 1529, Franciscan friar
Bernardino de Sahagun was sent to New Spain (Mexico) to compile a compendium of
all things relating to native history and customs that might be useful for
Christianizing the Aztecs, named "Indians" by the Spain conquerors.
This took 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 grammar (Arte) and a
dictionary of the language.[5]
In his extensive
manuscripts – General
History of the Things of New Spain (Historia
general de las cosas de Nueva España) – Sahagun described how the
Aztec diet was based on maize, tortillas, tamales and a wide variety of chiles.
He compiled and translated testimonies of his culinary informants from the
native language of Nahuatl into Spanish. His work is the most complete record
of Aztec foods and eating habits, and he is considered one of the fathers of
culinary history.
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 bio availability 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.[6]
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. 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.
Tortilla 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.[7]
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.
Consumption
Wheat
flour tortillas have been used on many American spaceflights since 1985 as an
easy solution to the problems of handling food in micro gravity and preventing bread crumbs from escaping into delicate
instruments.[8]
Mexico
Maize has been the most basic
necessity in the kitchen for centuries. It is the most planted crop in the
Mexican region. The country grows more than 42 different types of maize. In
turn, each of these types has several varieties whose number is estimated at
more than 3,000 by the International Center for the Improvement of Maize and
Wheat (CIMMYT). The characteristics of each breed are varied according to soil
conditions, the relative humidity of the environment, altitude, and even how it
is grown. Although some of the earliest evidence of maize cultivation suggests
domestication took place in several places at the same time, it is likely this
process was linked to people who spoke Oto-Manguean,
although it has questioned the origin of Mexican maize.
Either way, maize is the basis of
most Mexican cuisine, with some exception in the culinary traditions of northern
Mexico, where wheat is taking the place of maize as the cereal base. The
primary way in which maize is consumed in Mexico is the tortilla, but it is
also a necessary input for the preparation of almost all types of tamales, atoles and snacks. Furthermore, the maize used for tortillas can be
ripe and dry,but it is also consumed fresh and mature (maize), or soft and
fresh (xilote).[9]
Tortillas are consumed daily.
Because they are very popular, most tortillas are made in factories with
machinery, but they can also be home-made, especially in small towns. Tortilla
factories are very common and can be found in any city, village, or settlement,
and there are places where there are several in a single street. Tortilla
production starts from early morning because lunch is the main meal of the day
for most people. In Mexico, lunch is eaten between 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Some
supermarkets or grocery stores also sell tortillas, and in such places they can
be bought throughout the day.
Tortillas come in several
different flavors and colors according to the kind of maize used. Tortillas
come with all the traditional foods of Mexico, though not with all the fillings
that are used these days.
In northern Mexico and much of
the United States, "tortillas" mean wheat flour tortillas.[citation needed] They are the foundation of
Mexican border cooking and a relatively recent import. Their popularity was
driven by the low cost of inferior grades of wheat flour provided to border
markets and by their ability to keep and ship well.[10]
Tortillas are used to prepare
many Mexican and, more generally, Latin American dishes. Traditionally, all
these dishes (except burritos) are made with maize, not wheat, tortillas. The
dishes include:
·
Tacos dorados
"Tortilla art" is the
use of tortillas as a substrate for painting. Tortillas are baked and then
covered in acrylic before they are painted. The culture of Latino artists is
represented by tortilla art, so this is an important part of tortilla history.
This kind of art, though, is not quite famous throughout all of Mexico.[12]
Central America
Tortillas in Central
America sometimes differ somewhat from their Mexican counterparts, although are
made similarly. In El Salvador, the tortillas are about 5 millimeters thick and
about 10 centimeters in diameter. Like the Mexican tortillas, the maize is soaked
in a mixture of water and lime (or lye), then rinsed and ground. In El
Salvador, they sometimes use sorghum (called maicillo there) to
make tortillas when there is not enough maize.[13] Also in El Salvador, there
is a particularly large and thick tortilla called a "chenga"[14] on top of which food is placed
(like a disposable plate, but is edible) to serve food to the labourers in
coffee plantations and farms.
Honduras is well known for
using wheat flour tortillas to make baleadas,
which consists of a wheat flour tortilla, folded in half, with various items
(beans, cream, scrambled eggs) put inside.
Maize and wheat tortillas
can often be found in the supermarkets in El Salvador and Costa Rica.
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).[15]
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.-wikipedia
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