Corn Renaissance: An American Heritage Story
“Nixtamalization, like other indigenous knowledge, is rooted in our culture, and it’s very important for me to help keep this tradition alive by using it to make masa the traditional way, but also teaching others about it,” says Julian. He has partnered with other local chefs to teach classes and feed people corn products made with freshly-made stoned-ground masa.
Nixtamalized Blue Corn at Don Zorros Molino by Paula Thomas
August 13th, 2024
By Paula Thomas, CGC Community Member
[7 minute read]
The first time I ate a freshly-made, nixtamalized corn tortilla was in Oaxaca, Mexico, during a workshop about local cuisine with traditional women cooks. The abuelita, as we called the ladies teaching the class, handed us fresh-from-the-comal tortillas to nibble while we learned how to press them as thin as possible, while unsuccessfully keeping them from falling apart. The tortilla was warm. It was tender. And it had an intense corn flavor unlike any other tortilla I had tasted in the U.S.
[7 minute read]
The first time I ate a freshly-made, nixtamalized corn tortilla was in Oaxaca, Mexico, during a workshop about local cuisine with traditional women cooks. The abuelita, as we called the ladies teaching the class, handed us fresh-from-the-comal tortillas to nibble while we learned how to press them as thin as possible, while unsuccessfully keeping them from falling apart. The tortilla was warm. It was tender. And it had an intense corn flavor unlike any other tortilla I had tasted in the U.S.
The secret, one abuelita said, was the heirloom corn they used together with nixtamalization. Nixtamalization is a traditional cooking process first developed sometime between 1200-1500 B.C. by indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica.The word nixtamalization comes from the Aztec Nahuatl words nextli: ash and tamali: unformed dough. It is a process that loosens the corn’s outer layer, or pericarp, and softens the dry corn kernels by cooking them with an alkaline substance like wood ash or slaked lime. Nixtamalization also unlocks vitamins and minerals in the corn making it more nutritious and easier to digest.
To eat this kind of corn is to eat history, culture and tradition. Corn is the center ingredient in food traditions, cultural nuances, and sacred rituals throughout the Americas.
The story of corn is a story of adaptation and triumph. A story that began more than 9,000 years ago in the Central Balsas River Valley of Mexico, modern day Michoacán, where indigenous people began the domestication of teosinte, a small wild grass from the zea mays family with extremely hard seeds that hold no resemblance to what we know as corn.
From central Mexico, corn traveled up and down the Americas becoming a staple crop and a vital part of life and society throughout different cultures. Indigenous peoples in different regions worked to isolate varieties that adapted well to their climate conditions, soils, and water availability. They saved seeds and passed them down through generations as cultural heirlooms. There are more than two hundred heirloom corn varieties in the Americas, with a wide diversity of colors, sizes, flavors, and cooking qualities– with more than 50 in Mexico alone. Corn arrived in Colorado about 4,000 years ago adapting to the region’s climate and soils.
Types of Corn
There are different types of corn. Sweet corn, the dream of a good summer BBQ. Popcorn corn. Flint corn, harvested when fully dried and processed into flour or masa to make products like tortillas thanks to nixtamalization. And field or dent corn, the corn most grown in the U.S. GMO field corn accounts for 92% of all corn grown in the U.S. This corn is used to feed livestock and is in processed foods as high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, dextrose, and corn oil, making it a central ingredient in our current industrial food system. A recent National Geographic article, raised concern of the corn over consumption in the average American diet, “which can contribute to adverse health outcomes including high blood pressure and high blood sugar, plus increased risk of obesity, fatty liver disease, colorectal cancer, and type 2 diabetes.”
Reclaiming Corn
In Colorado, and across the country, there is a movement to reclaim corn as central to the land, climate, and cultures of the Americas. In the Denver Metro Area, countless chefs, traditional cooks, and activists are energizing around heirloom corn varieties, traditional techniques to grow it like the three sisters or Milpa, and the nixtamalization process to cook corn. There has been a proliferation of classes teaching the process of nixtamalization to make masa for the freshest tortillas, tamales, and countless other products. Workshops highlight regional dishes from Mesoamerica based on the varieties of corn adapted to each region. Meanwhile, cultural dinners offer menus that showcase corn in different and exciting ways.
To learn more about heirloom corn masa, I visited Don Zorros Molino, a Denver-based heirloom corn masa and tortilla producer. When I arrived, I found Julian Salas, chef-owner, grinding blue corn he had nixtamalized overnight. Julian began his corn journey in Chicago where he first learned about nixtamalization and heirloom corn.
“Growing up in a city with such a large and diverse Latino population, I was blessed to learn about the different cultures and how they ate, but most importantly how they use corn,” says Julian. “As I came into the role of being a chef, I realized I had taken time to learn about other cultures but not taken the time to learn mine. So I dove head first into Mexican culture and food. Nixtamal caught my eye naturally, as corn is one of Latin American staples in terms of food consumption.”
Julian’s enthusiasm for heirloom corn and nixtamalization is contagious.
“Nixtamalization, like other indigenous knowledge, is rooted in our culture, and it’s very important for me to help keep this tradition alive by using it to make masa the traditional way, but also teaching others about it,” says Julian. He has partnered with other local chefs to teach classes and feed people corn products made with freshly-made stoned-ground masa. “Using the stones to grind the corn gives it the right texture, flavor and nutrition. It is a mechanical way to replicate the stones in which women have traditionally ground corn.”
Other chefs are promoting heirloom and local corn varieties and are shining a light on nixtamalization. Alberto and Alejandro Rodriguez, the chefs at Molino Dos Caras, a brother duo from Michoacan, Mexico, use local corn from Bow and Arrow for some of the products they sell at the City Park Farmers Markets. In a recent workshop at Re-Vision, they shared with a classroom of eager corn lovers all about masa, corn and the process of nixtamalization, and their passion for the ancestral knowledge passed on to them by their grandmother.
As we focus on revitalizing the local grain economy, I’d like to make the case for heirloom corn, a grain with a history closely tied to this land.