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Mexican Tortillas
Mix a quart of white corn meal with boiling water enough to barely wet it, and cold water after that to make it like thin mush. Add a teaspoonful of salt. Drop large spoonfuls on the hot griddle, and spread them out to form thin cakes. "But," you say, "your toritllas are nothing but the Southern hoe cakes." Yes, that's what they are. But many people like hoe cakes better if they are shortened a little.
This is a cornmeal batter cake cooked on a griddle, and the author says as much before the paragraph ends. A few notes on quantities and on what the recipe is not.
- Not a tortillaA Mexican corn tortilla is made from masa — corn cooked in an alkaline lime solution (nixtamal), then ground wet and pressed into a dough that holds together without any batter stage. Plain cornmeal and water will not behave that way, which is why this version has to be poured and spread rather than pressed. Read it as a hoecake recipe, because that is what it is.
- Quart of mealA quart is four cups of cornmeal, roughly 1 lb 2 oz. That is a large batch; halve or quarter it unless you are feeding a crowd.
- White corn mealFine or medium-grind white cornmeal, not self-rising and not corn flour. Stone-ground gives more flavour but absorbs water more slowly, so let the batter stand five minutes before judging its thickness.
- The two-water methodScalding part of the meal with boiling water gelatinises some of the starch and makes the batter hold together on the griddle. Do not skip straight to cold water — the cakes will crumble when you try to spread them.
- "Like thin mush"Aim for a batter that falls thickly from the spoon and can be pushed outward with the back of it, roughly the consistency of a loose pancake batter. Cornmeal keeps drinking water as it sits, so hold back some of the cold water and adjust.
- Griddle heatThe recipe says only 'hot griddle.' Moderate heat works best: too hot and the outside sets before the inside cooks. Cook until the edges are dry and the underside is browned.
- "Shortened a little"The closing line means adding fat to the batter — a tablespoon or two of melted bacon drippings, butter or lard per quart of meal. It softens the crumb, which is what the author means by many people liking them better that way.
- YieldThe full quart makes a large number of cakes. They are best straight off the griddle and stale quickly.
Hoecake is one of the oldest cooked forms of maize in the American South, a direct inheritance from Native cornbreads made without leavening or wheat; the name is generally traced to the practice of baking the batter on the flat blade of a field hoe over coals, though some writers have argued the word simply meant a griddle cake. What is telling here is the confusion in the title. The alkaline nixtamalization step that defines a true corn tortilla was rarely described in English-language books of the period, and writers appear to have reached for the closest thing they knew. The author's aside — "Yes, that's what they are" — concedes the point to an anticipated objection.