Why corn is not a vegetable in Mexico — it’s a religion

I. The misunderstanding

In the United States and most of Europe, corn is a vegetable. It is sweet corn, eaten in August, boiled or grilled. This corn is a different plant from what I am discussing. In Mexico, corn is maíz — field corn, starchy, complex, dried and stored and nixtamalized before it becomes food.

Nixtamalization is the process that makes maíz nutritionally complete. The dried kernels are cooked in an alkaline solution (calcium hydroxide, called cal) for several hours, then steeped overnight. The alkaline treatment releases niacin that would otherwise pass through the body unused. Without nixtamalization, populations that subsist primarily on corn develop pellagra. The Mesoamericans encoded this knowledge into their food culture long before anyone understood the biochemistry.

II. The hierarchy

Masa harina is nixtamalized corn dried and ground into flour, reconstituted with water. It is convenient and produces acceptable tortillas. Fresh masa is nixtamal ground while still wet into a dough — what the tortillas at every market in Tlaxcala are made from. The difference between a tortilla made from masa harina and one made from fresh masa is the difference between something and the thing itself.

There are over sixty traditional varieties of maíz in Mexico — olotillo, bolita, cacahuazintle, azul. Each has different color, different starch content, different flavor, different appropriate uses. The corn you use determines the dish. This is not a preference. It is a fact of the ingredient.

III. The tortilla

A tortilla is three ingredients: fresh masa, water, and salt. The masa is pressed and cooked on a dry comal over medium-high heat — approximately 45 seconds per side, then a few seconds more on the first side.

The tortilla should puff when it is nearly done — a balloon of steam forming inside, pushing the two layers apart. This is what you are waiting for. It means the masa is cooked through and the moisture has converted to steam. A tortilla that does not puff has been made too thick, pressed too hard, or cooked at too low a temperature. These are correctable problems.

IV. The argument

A religion is a set of practices and beliefs that organize how a community understands itself and its place in the world. Corn in Mesoamerican culture organizes the agricultural calendar, the ceremonial calendar, the diet, the cosmology, and the understanding of what it means to be human. It is planted and harvested according to traditions that predate the Spanish conquest. It is offered to the dead at Día de los Muertos.

To reduce this to «vegetable» is to misunderstand what it is. Corn in Mexico is not what you eat. It is what you are made of. Cook accordingly.

Recipe — Fresh corn tortillas from masa harina

Don Esteban Cruz · Tlaxcala · use fresh masa when you can find it

• 2 cups masa harina
• 30 min rest
• 45 sec per side
• ~12 tortillas

For the dough

• Masa harina (Maseca brand) — 2 cups
• Warm water — 1¼ to 1½ cups
• Salt — ½ tsp

The method

1. Mix masa harina and salt. Add warm water gradually, mixing with your hands until a smooth dough forms that does not crack when pressed and does not stick to your hands.
2. Add water or masa harina in small increments to correct consistency.
3. Rest the dough 30 minutes covered with a damp cloth.
4. Divide into balls approximately the size of a golf ball. Press between two sheets of plastic in a tortilla press.
5. Cook on a dry comal or cast iron pan over medium-high heat, 45 seconds per side, then 15 seconds more on the first side. The tortilla should puff.
6. Wrap finished tortillas in a clean cloth to keep warm and pliable.

About the contributor

Don Esteban Cruz

Don Esteban writes about corn, masa, and Mexican food philosophy from Tlaxcala, México. He cooks at home from heirloom maíz his family has saved for four generations, and considers the comal the most important object in any kitchen.

Editor’s notes — the longer view

A note on the Popol Vuh. The K’iche’ Maya creation narrative — written down in the sixteenth century from oral tradition much older — describes the gods making four attempts to create humans. The third attempt, from corn, succeeded. This is the cosmological frame for everything that follows in Mesoamerican food culture.

A note on nixtamalization. Alkaline soaking breaks down the pericarp, releases bound niacin into a bioavailable form, alters the lysine and tryptophan profile to make the corn nutritionally complete, and develops flavor compounds that distinguish nixtamalized corn from any other preparation. The Mesoamericans worked this out three thousand years before chemistry existed as a discipline.

A note on heirloom corn. The native varieties of maíz are increasingly available outside Mexico through specialty importers (Masienda, Tamoa, Maizajo). These are seed lines maintained by communities for hundreds of generations. Buying them supports the people who keep the lineage alive.

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