Tortilla

Corn tortilla

Type	Flatbread
Main ingredients	Maize flour

In Mexico and Central America, a tortilla is a type of thin, unleavened flat bread, made from finely ground maize (corn). In Guatemala and Mexico, there are three colors of maize dough for making tortillas: white maize, yellow maize and blue maize (or black maize).

A similar bread from South America, called arepa (though arepas are typically much thicker than tortillas), predates the arrival of Europeans to America, and was called tortilla by the Spanish from its resemblance to the traditional Spanish round, unleavened cakes and omelettes (originally made without potatoes, which are native to South America). The Aztecs and other Nahuatl-speakers call tortillas tlaxcalli [t͡ɬaʃˈkalli]; these have become the prototypical tortillas.

Maize kernels naturally occur in many colors, depending on the cultivar: from pale white, to yellow, to red and bluish purple. Likewise, corn meal and the tortillas made from it may be similarly colored. White and yellow tortillas are by far the most common, however.

Tortilla, from Spanish torta, cake, plus the diminutive -illa, literally means "little cake". Nahuatl tlaxcalli is derived from the verb (i)xca "to bake" with the help of the prefix tla- and two common suffixes -l- and -li (<-tli), that is "something baked".

The corn tortilla, with many variants, has been a staple food in North American and Mesoamerican cultures since pre-Columbian times. It predates the alternative wheat flour version of the tortilla (tortilla de harina or tortilla de trigo) in all such cultures, as wheat was not grown in the Americas prior to European contact.

In Aztec times, two or three corn tortillas would be eaten with each meal, either plain or dipped in mole or a chili pepper and water sauce. Tortillas were also sold at Aztec marketplaces filled with turkey meat, turkey eggs, beans, honey, squash, tuna (a type of cactus fruit) and chili pepper.

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Wikipedia