Comments on: Why didn’t Mexico abandon the metate? http://www.rachellaudan.com/2009/11/why-didnt-mexico-abandon-the-metate.html A Historian's Take on Food and Food Politics Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:24:18 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Ruth Alegria http://www.rachellaudan.com/2009/11/why-didnt-mexico-abandon-the-metate.html/comment-page-1#comment-27062 Ruth Alegria Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:56:28 +0000 http://www.rachellaudan.com/?p=2187#comment-27062 In small "pueblos" where a tv is something you go to the local, and sometimes only store in town to watch, where water is still from a well or local spring, where community is definitely the sum of all its parts, the use of traditional utensils and local customs is alive and well. What we sometimes view as a lack of progress has thankfully kept for us a living history like no other in the world. Let us hope that "progress" does not end with these beautiful customs. In small “pueblos” where a tv is something you go to the local, and sometimes only store in town to watch, where water is still from a well or local spring, where community is definitely the sum of all its parts, the use of traditional utensils and local customs is alive and well.
What we sometimes view as a lack of progress has thankfully kept for us a living history like no other in the world. Let us hope that “progress” does not end with these beautiful customs.

]]> By: Adam Balic http://www.rachellaudan.com/2009/11/why-didnt-mexico-abandon-the-metate.html/comment-page-1#comment-27046 Adam Balic Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:11:13 +0000 http://www.rachellaudan.com/?p=2187#comment-27046 Small rotary querns which started appearing in Iron Age England, don't have grooves, but yes I think that you are correct a wet masa would not work all that well. But quite small communities, family groups had these querns in the Iron Age, so I don't thing that you need a professional group of people to maintain them. The advantage of them over the saddle quern is that they can be scaled up and be powered by animals, wind or water energy. Which frees up your workforce. I've never eaten tortilla made from masa, only masa de harina. I imagine that the former products are delicious, but also think that is irrelevant. Lots of things that were delicious are transformed or stop all together. I've spent the last couple of months making pre-chemical raising agent cakes and while these are delicious I know why they dissapeared in a generation once chemical raising agents were introduced, too much work and expense. Masa de harina isn't the same as ground cornmeal, I'm sure that tortilla can't be made from cornmeal easily. To use non-nixtamalized dry ground cornmeal to produce a tortilla I think that you would have to make a pancake type product, which doesn't seem to have occured in Mexico, along with fermented batters. Not to mention the health advantage of Masa over cornmeal. Also, until the old world Maize doesn't seem to have had much competition. Much of the change in milling technology in the old world seems to be a reponse to the uptake of bread wheat (in earlier periods club wheat). So lots of contributing factors, but I pretty sure that personal taste isn't a huge factor. Small rotary querns which started appearing in Iron Age England, don’t have grooves, but yes I think that you are correct a wet masa would not work all that well. But quite small communities, family groups had these querns in the Iron Age, so I don’t thing that you need a professional group of people to maintain them. The advantage of them over the saddle quern is that they can be scaled up and be powered by animals, wind or water energy. Which frees up your workforce.

I’ve never eaten tortilla made from masa, only masa de harina. I imagine that the former products are delicious, but also think that is irrelevant. Lots of things that were delicious are transformed or stop all together. I’ve spent the last couple of months making pre-chemical raising agent cakes and while these are delicious I know why they dissapeared in a generation once chemical raising agents were introduced, too much work and expense.

Masa de harina isn’t the same as ground cornmeal, I’m sure that tortilla can’t be made from cornmeal easily. To use non-nixtamalized dry ground cornmeal to produce a tortilla I think that you would have to make a pancake type product, which doesn’t seem to have occured in Mexico, along with fermented batters. Not to mention the health advantage of Masa over cornmeal. Also, until the old world Maize doesn’t seem to have had much competition. Much of the change in milling technology in the old world seems to be a reponse to the uptake of bread wheat (in earlier periods club wheat).

So lots of contributing factors, but I pretty sure that personal taste isn’t a huge factor.

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