Tortilleria Nixtamal

So today, as a group, we went to Corona to visit a restaurant that Girelle reserved for us. It was a small restaurant that was called Tortilleria Nixtamal. The restaurant had its Mexican traditions with the food, the music, and the people. The front of the restaurant was very noticeable in the neighborhood. It was just full of bright colors. When we went inside, we were welcomed by a lovely person who worked there, Shawna. She wasn't like all the other workers there but she knew what was going on and what was being said for the most part. When we entered the small place, the first thing I heard was, "IT SMELLS LIKE MEXICO!" by Laura Lopez and Stephanie Hernandez. That just made me feel like Mexico. Anyways, the very first thing we noticed was a big green machine which I didn't know what it was called but I knew what it did. It made the famous TORTILLAS!! There was a guy by the machine who made them. What he had to do was insert some dough into the machine and then the machine itself would make the dough into a tortilla shape. Then, that would cook or warm up and the tortilla shaped dough would come out to be ... TORTILLAS. We took one and the tortillas were delicious.

After observing how they made the tortillas and tasting them, we went straight to the basement. Downstairs was the kitchen. This was where tortillas are used for making tostadas, nachos, tacos, and last but not least, TAMALES!! The kitchen was where the dough was being made to begin with. Shawna showed us the corn that they use to make the dough for tortillas. What they do it they put the dry corn into this huge sink. Inside that sink is where they wet the dried and corn and make them soften. Afterwards, they put it into a huge "funnel" where it makes the corn into dough. The dough is then ready to be used to make the foods. The ladies that were there already, taught us how to make the dough into tortillas. What they do is they make the dough into a round circle and then they place it into this "squisher". They use the "squisher" to flatten out the dough. We each took turns making one and it was fun.

The tortillas were delicious, but we had to move on. We moved on to what we have arrived for. TAMALES!! That's right! We finally made our own tamales. The dough that they had used to make the tamales was very unique, in my point of view. For these tamales that we were going to make, was going to be sweet. It had no chicken or any other meats involved. Just fruits and its sweetness. The lady that was there with us taught us how they make Tamales de Dulce (Sweet Tamales). She had a rectangular container where it contained the dough that was going to used. In order for her to make into the way she had to have it, she included milk, butter, food coloring (pink), pineapples, and raisins. It looked very good even though she was still making it. It looked very exhausting by the way she was mixing it because she was mixing it with her hands and it makes her arms move a lot. Anyways, after mixing it fully, she put the pink dough into two other containers for each of us to put into a "hard peel". It was an exciting experience making our own sweet tamales.

After making our tamales, we stayed and we munched on delicious Mexican dishes. We had people order tostadas, nachos, the famous tacos, tamales, and quesadillas. It was the best lunch we've ever had and this was a fun experience. Overall, this entire trip taught me a lesson:

DO NOT IGNORE TORTILLERIA NIXTAMAL EVER AGAIN!

 =) Jennifer (=