After long, humid days in the field exploring the flora and fauna of the Belizean jungle, it was a comfort to return to the old banana plantation house and smell the solid, dry heat of the dinner tortillas.  Often too tired to flesh out my field journal as the sun sank toward the horizon, I squeezed myself in the small kitchen with our house chefs Sonia and her husband in an attempt to make myself useful.

We listened to the whirr of crickets and the throaty whistle of the common paraque as we watched the chicken simmer on the stove and brought out the long, flat griddle stone that Sonia used to bake the tortillas.

Patient and practices, she pinched off the dough handful by handful, rolling each chunk into a sphere between her palms before flattening it, letting gravity stretch the sides out as her fingers nimbly skirted the outside, pressing the edges into perfect proportions.  I copied her actions as best I could, but one glance at the stack of finished break easily revealed which were the results of my beginner’s efforts–oblong or oval shaped, overstretched or not quite thin enough.

“Practice makes perfect,” she told me, and pressed this recipe into my hand.

 

 

According to the Mayan creation myth in the Popol Vuh, human beings were first shaped from a dough-like mixture of yellow and white corn.  Upon his arrival in Mexico in 1519, Hernán Cortés noted that tortillas, called tlaxcalli in Nahuatl, were central to the Aztec diet.  Now, wheat and corn tortillas still function as both sides and staples of cuisine in the Central American region.

A tortilla is a physical, dynamic species of bread.  On any Belizean morning, you will find tortillas slathered with refried beans, curled around scrambled eggs and a vinegar-based coleslaw, holding a breakfast burrito together until it reaches your mouth.  At lunch and dinner, the rest on a plate alongside a chicken caldo or the gallo pinto they help absorb.

While tortillas contain relatively few ingredients, to make them you cannot simply combine a list of ingredients and heat them until they change state into the final dish.  They require careful sensory attention to create, formed in the maker’s own image of what food they will accompany.

The eyes and nose monitor the quality of the dough, to ensure that you add the right amount of water and flour to form a sturdy, elastic dough that is delightful to smell. The ears come into play as the tortilla cooks, listening to the volume of the heat and how it interacts with the air pockets and moisture within the thin round of dough. Touch is vital, and difficult to carry out correctly. The dough must be flattened, stretched and shaped into a thin circle of the desired size in a way that prevents air from entering and will allow it to cook evenly. And of course, a tortilla is best tasted as soon as it cools enough to hold.

 

 

For me, the process of making tortillas is a physical reminder of an otherwise ephemeral experience, a bit of muscle memory that goes along with a few photographs and an index of Caribbean coral species.

 

For you, to create your own tortillas, you will need:

1 pound of flour

¼ teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of shortening or butter (amounts of each are equivalent)

1 ½ teaspoon of baking powder

about 1 cup of water (or enough to give the dough a thick consistency)

Yield: about 10 tortillas, depending on desired size.

 

 

To begin, weigh out the correct amount of flour and mix all dry ingredients (flour, salt, and baking powder) together in a medium sized bowl. The shortening or butter can be added one of two ways. If softened, it can be cut into the dry mixture with a knife and fork. It can also be melted and stirred in. Because I usually use butter, I prefer to melt it on the stovetop or in the microwave before adding it as it mixes in most easily and evenly as a liquid.

Lastly, add the water gradually, mixing each splash in completely before adding the next. Watch the dough carefully as you do this. You should add just enough water to get the dough to become elastically solid without being sticky. About one cup of water should do the trick, but it will be slightly different for each batch you make. Once you have finished adding the water, your dough should look something like the picture on the left. Then pick it up and knead it three or four times, stretching it out between your hands and turning it back in on itself to form a spherical shape like the picture on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now comes the engrossing part—working the dough. Before you begin, it is a good idea to take a minute to prepare your cooking surface. Any kind of flat pan will work, though thicker surfaces will better absorb the heat and radiate it into anything you place on it. I use a ten inch unoiled cast iron frying pan. Place it on a burner, turn it on to just over medium, and leave it to heat. Beginning with a hot surface cooks the tortilla through quickly without drying it out or burning it. Once you’re ready, lightly flour your hands and a flat surface in front of you. Pick up the dough and divide it into about ten pieces by simply tearing chunks off of the main ball of dough. Gently roll these into balls between your palms. You will have created something like this:

 

 

One at a time, flatten a ball of dough onto the floured surface with the heel of your hand. Next take a rolling pin to it, alternating directions of rolling so that the shape of your tortilla is mostly round or elliptical. Push down as you roll to try to make the dough as thin as possible. Once it touches the heat it will try to shrink up if it can, and the thinner it is, the easier it will be to work into and around a main dish. As Sonia wisely told me of this step, practice makes perfect.

After you have sufficiently shaped your tortilla, gently peel it off of the floured surface below and transfer it to the warm pan. Leave it there for a few seconds to cook on the bottom before using a spatula to flip it over. Let the other side cook for about the same amount of time before lifting your finished tortilla off of the pan and onto a plate to cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Repeat for the remaining balls of dough until you are left with ten paper-thin, warm, supply flexible and tantalizing tortillas. Taste test one by placing a slice of cheese on top and giving it a few seconds to melt before devouring your work. Use the rest in any way you please. If you wish to store them for more than a day or two, they will be best kept in the fridge or freezer.

 

Sonia’s Tortilla Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 pound of flour

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of shortening or butter

1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

about 1 cup of water

Yield: about 10 tortillas

 

Instructions:

Mix ingredients

Knead dough

Divide and roll into balls

Flatten with palm

Cook on a flat pan