As part of a new series, “Making of a Dish,” BPR is sitting down with local chefs to learn about the dishes and experiences that have shaped them. This month, we visited Luz Maldonado at her and her husband Martin’s new tortilla shop, Tortillas La Regia, to learn the art of tortilla making – and how the new business is helping the Maldonados navigate the loss of a daughter.
There are always those staple foods you lean on, the meals that keep you company through every chapter of your life. For Luz Maldonado, that food is tortillas.
Luz learned how to make tortillas on a rancho in central Mexico.
As a young girl, she would join her grandmother Benita for the summer and help with chores that ranged from harvesting agave to marching over to the village’s mill for corn flour.
“They didn't have electricity, power or running water. It was very rustic,” she recalled. “So my siblings didn't like it. I was the only one that [would] be happy to go there…that's when I discovered the quietness and the beautiful silence of these very small villages.”
At the rancho, or small rural village, Luz and her grandmother would make corn tortillas by hand, for themselves and their neighbors.
They would waffle the masa back and forth between their palms and then cook them the rustic way: on an open fire pit with a comal. The wood from the fire gave the tortillas a smoky taste.
“She made them by hand, so the shape wasn't perfectly rounded, you know,” she said. “They were thick. I would eat one or two tortillas and that was it.”
The tortillas had a smokey taste from the fire, and depending on the corn used, they’d have a purple, blue or yellow hue. When the tortillas were finished, Benita would often invite neighbors over for tacos.
“She loved to cook whatever was in season and I learned so much from her,” Luz said. “She would cook quesadillas with the zucchini flowers and fresh cheese. People would bring her things as presents from their fields, like very nice veggies and cactus that she would cut and cook with beans.”
Luz learned the art of flour tortillas from her paternal grandmother, who lived south of the Texas border. Though her grandmother passed away when Luz was only 11, she has fond memories of fresh flour tortillas cooked on a cast-iron skillet, along with gorditas de azucar – a sweet griddle cake made of flour, cinnamon, sugar and milk.
“From both of them, I learned from the love for tortillas,” Luz said, of her two grandmothers.
A recipe and a ritual
After she married and became a mother, Luz found the flour tortillas to be a bit more practical for her lifestyle. When her children were young, Luz started her mornings by making flour tortillas for her five kids.
“It’s very nice when you make them by hand because you can relax. It’s like a ritual,” she said.
To make the tortillas, she mixes flour, water, oil, salt and baking soda into a sticky dough. Then she forms them into smooth balls and lets them rest for at least an hour before rolling them out and cooking them into a cast-iron pan.
When Luz and her husband Martin moved the family to Asheville more than 20 years ago, they carried the tradition of making tortillas with them. Luz would wake up early in the morning to make dough and roll out tortillas one by one, before the kitchen got too hot.
Much like Luz as a child, Lucita, their youngest daughter, took a special interest in the tortillas. Many mornings, Lucita would join her mother in the kitchen.
“She would come downstairs with me and sit by the countertop next to me waiting – you know, just wiggling her feet and waiting for the tortillas to come out,” Luz recalled. “I would offer her a little hot chocolate or something. And then I would be like, 'Lucita, leave some for your sister and for your brother. You're finishing them.'”
These memories are especially important to Luz now. Three years ago, Lucita was swept away by flood waters from Tropical Storm Nora. Though her car turned up a few days after the storm, the family was unable to find any other traces of Lucita. The family searched for months to no avail.
Luz knows it is only “a very small possibility” that Lucita is alive somewhere, but she always keeps the hope that she is alive and safe, she said.
The loss was devastating. Luz’s vibrant day-to-day life became a struggle of guilt-ridden survival.
“I really honestly didn't have energy for nothing,” she said. “I was just feeling guilty for everything. If I ate well, I would feel guilty because what if my daughter is not eating well.”
‘This is her tortilleria’
After wading through years of grief, Martín pitched an idea to Luz: a family-owned tortilleria.
Luz was skeptical at first, but she eventually came around to the idea.
In May, they opened ‘Tortillas La Regia’ in Woodfin where they sell both flour and corn tortillas. Drawings and photos of Lucita grace the store, which is painted in her favorite color: yellow.
Every member of the family contributes to the shop in some way, whether by answering phones, making business plans or ordering t-shirts.
“My mom, when we opened, she was here. Her duty was to be praying for it,” Luz laughed.
The shop has given the family a path forward in their grief, centering the memory of Lucita. It has also shown Luz that, despite experiencing a great grief, “there are still good things that we can enjoy.”
“When we started with the tortilleria, I made it all about [Lucita] because it was like the way for us as a family to re-energize, to reunite, to be alive again. To really feel like we are living, not just surviving.”
Luz said she feels extra connected to Lucita when she makes the tortillas.
“This is her tortilleria. She's the boss. She's always here. She’s always here supervising,” she said. “I think after all, wherever she is, she would be happy and proud of us.”
Have a chef you’d like us to interview? Send an email to lhackett@bpr.org.
Luz Maldonado’s Flour Tortillas
Ingredients
- 2 lbs of white, unbleached flour
-500 ml warm water
- 200 ml vegetable oil
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon of salt
Directions
- Mix the flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl with a spoon.
- Build up the dry ingredients into the shape of a volcano and make a well in the center. Pour the warm water and oil into the center. Stir it together until
- Stir the dough until it forms a sticky ball and then knead it until it gets nice and silky.
- Cover the dough with a cloth and let it rest for one hour.
- Form the dough into small balls that are of equal sizes and put them in a container to keep them from drying out.
- Roll each ball from the center out a few times and then turn the tortilla counterclockwise and roll again. Keep rolling and twisting until the tortilla is a few millimeters thick.
- Heat up a cast-iron pan. Cook each tortilla for about one minute, or until lightly browned. Then flip over the tortilla and cook for about 20 seconds on the other side.
- Store the tortillas in a covered container to keep them soft.
