Last night I began to study at "La Escuela de La Tortilla." (The School of the Tortilla.) The following is the notes that I scribbled after class.
1) Ask vendor at tortilla stand (where we go every week after Youth Group) to teach me how to make tortillas.
2) Show up right before a group of Honduran men - so that you can immediately put your learning into practice and make baleadas (tortillas with beans, cheese, and sour cream - see picture below) for them.
3) Have the lady start you off with a small piece of dough. Flip the dough back and forth between both hands, with quick, hard bursts. (as seen in picture.)
4) Miss catching dough with one hand. It lands in the dirt.
5) Pick it up to try again - not to waste dough because it most likely will happen again - only to be told that the dirt ruins how the dough spreads.
6) Receive a tea towel and must use it to imitate the same motions as above.
7) All people around laugh
8) Pass Level 1 - now graduate from tea towel to using real dough. 
9) Very slowly with great force - almost create a round tortilla. Which is fixed and then placed on a hot plate to cook for less then a minute.
10) Continue to practice making baleadas - which are served to customers arriving.
11) Make my own baleada and eat it. Lick fingers. Yum.
12) Have vendor-lady's husband request that I make his baleada.
13) Do not wash hands.
14) Start with a piece of dough and "correct" motions. Do this facing the wall so that no one can see.
15) Complete tortilla.
16) Have satisfied customer. Receive payment of large bottle of coke.
17) Leave vendor stand with many people laughing at two white girls.
\manda
1 comment:
"what was the highlight of your two or three years spent in honduras? what would you say is the most significant thing you learned while you were there?"
"well, I'd have to say that the most significant thing I learned was how to make tortillas. This lesson I have carried along with me ever since, and it has helped to form who I am today. Yes, definitely the highlight."
PS I hope the bottle of coke was not as flat as the tortilla was!?
PPS Funny how in #5, the reason you can't use the dough again after it falls in the dirt is because the dirt ruins the way the dough spreads rather than the fact that the dirt is dirty and will taste bad...
Post a Comment