Masa, Mexico’s Iconic Corn Dough, Is Having a Second within the U.S.

“Sin maíz, no hay país.”

“With out corn, there isn’t any nation.”

It’s a battle cry that yow will discover emblazoned on shirts and hats and listen to from many Mexicans and members of that diaspora — together with an ever-expanding throng of cooks, bakers, and restaurateurs. 

Corn is key to Mexican identification. In truth, in response to one Mayan fable, Mexicans are thought-about to be created instantly from corn — a plant that symbolizes fertility, life, and sustenance. And you can’t discuss corn in Mexican tradition with out speaking about nixtamalization, a millennia-old course of during which kernels are soaked in an alkaline answer after which peeled. Nixtamalization not solely transforms the laborious corn kernels right into a comfortable, pliable grain, but it surely additionally will increase the dietary worth of the corn, releasing up important vitamins. Masa, the dough constituted of floor nixtamalized corn, is the bedrock of Mexican delicacies, utilized in every little thing from tortillas and tamales to drinks like atole.

For many individuals, masa all the time meant Maseca, an industrial masa harina (actually, “dough flour”) invented in Mexico in 1949. Whereas Maseca is handy — simply add water, and you’ve got your masa prepared for making tortillas in mere minutes — and a staple in lots of dwelling and restaurant kitchens, it doesn’t obtain the dynamic aromas and toasty taste that masa constituted of heirloom varieties offers. 2023 F&W Greatest New Chef Isabel Coss of Pascual in Washington, D.C., says that when she was rising up in Mexico Metropolis, she primarily noticed pale white corn and tortillas except she visited household in additional rural areas. Discovering heirloom varieties, which are available in a spread of colours, was a problem. 

Coss is amongst a rising era of Mexican and Mexican American cooks round america and throughout Mexico who are actually prioritizing heirloom corn and high-quality masa on their menus. At Pascual, Coss turns to masa as the bottom for the super-crispy batter for her fish tacos, as a thickening agent, and for tuiles and syrups within the pastry kitchen. “Masa can do all of it,” she says. “Within the pastry chef mind, masa is the proper starch. You don’t have to fret about gluten, and it’s so versatile.”

Then there are the extra conventional functions: In Brooklyn, chef Matt Diaz of For All Issues Good makes piles of contemporary masa that he turns into attractive quesadillas filled with contemporary squash blossoms, massive tlayudas topped with creamy black beans, and comforting tamales.

Many cooks are nixtamalizing corn in-house, together with 2021 F&W Greatest New Chef Fermín Núñez, of the eating places Suerte and Este in Austin. He soaks the corn he sources from farms throughout Texas for eight to 12 hours earlier than grinding it into the masa that he transforms into 3,000 tortillas every day. Only a few miles away at Nixta Taqueria, 2023 F&W Greatest New Chef Edgar Rico and his group prove sturdier tortillas from their housemade masa for dishes like a carrot tostada, which holds chewy roasted carrots on a mattress of whipped herb ricotta. At Tatemó in Houston, 2023 F&W Greatest New Chef Emmanuel Chavez makes use of housemade masa in almost each a part of his tasting menu, from gorditas to quesadillas, in addition to the restaurant’s extra informal brunch menu. The star? A stack of fluffy masa pancakes with crispy caramelized edges and a easy corn taste, due to a flour constituted of dehydrated masa.

Even bakers are getting in on the motion. At Gusto Bread in Lengthy Seashore, California, clients line up for the bakery’s Nixtamal Queen, a tackle a kouign amann, during which masa sourdough is laminated with a beneficiant quantity of butter and natural cane sugar and baked right into a superbly caramelized pastry that tastes of Frosted Flakes. Pastry and savory cooks alike agree that not solely is masa straightforward to work with, it’s redolent with taste, making every little thing style higher.

The roots of the masa revolution started, as masa itself does, within the fields. Many of those eating places supply their heirloom corn from Tamoa, a Mexico Metropolis–based mostly firm main the cost to protect quite a few Mexico’s heirloom crops — particularly the nation’s 59 native landrace corn varieties. “Corn goes so deep and means a lot to the Mexican identification; it’s virtually laborious to clarify,” says Tamoa cofounder Francisco Musi. “It’s simply a part of the very fiber of our being.”

Musi, the son of a Mexico Metropolis taquero, based Tamoa almost eight years in the past along with his associate, Sofia Casarin, whereas he was serving to a London restaurant arrange an in-house nixtamalization program. At the moment, Tamoa works with 84 household farms stretching throughout central and southern Mexico (a quantity that’s rising steadily), which give the 25 styles of heirloom corn the corporate presently sells. Amongst their choices are blue Cónico Azul corn, which has a comfortable texture and a gently candy taste, and Bolita Amarillo, with its starch-dense yellow kernels which are good for making tortillas. 

Tamoa’s dedication to the preservation of heirloom Mexican corn is revolutionary in some ways. Because the passage of the North American Free Commerce Settlement in 1994 (now the USMCA), which created a free-trade zone between Canada, america, and Mexico, the Mexican market has been flooded with low-cost commodity corn from the U.S. — corn that’s usually decrease in high quality and grown for scale and worth fairly than style. Because of this, over the previous 30 years, the standard of corn accessible has steadily plummeted, and the small farmers who nonetheless develop Mexico’s heirloom corn, usually often known as subsistence farmers, have been struggling to outlive. However, due to corporations like Tamoa, the tide is popping. 

The corporate is a part of a rising motion in Mexico and the U.S. that’s championing Mexico’s heirloom corn farmers and supporting self-reliance and truthful market costs. So as to not harm fragile meals techniques, Tamoa sells solely the surplus corn a farmer harvests; this fashion, they don’t deplete the corn provides that feed the communities they work with. “Corn transcends financial and spiritual obstacles. It’s important to Mexican survival,” says Musi. Becoming a member of in Tamoa’s efforts is Jorge Gaviria’s Masienda, based in Los Angeles in 2014. Masienda works with greater than 2,000 small farmers all through Mexico and sells single-origin masa harina constituted of heirloom corn in a rainbow of colours.  

Whereas corporations like Tamoa and Masienda work to help small-scale corn farmers in Mexico, there’s additionally a rising motion that focuses on nixtamalizing corn grown within the U.S. Chef Cristina Martinez of South Philly Barbacoa in Philadelphia is on the forefront of this motion with the worker-owned collective that she helped create, Masa Cooperativa. As a substitute of importing corn from Mexico, the collective works to domesticate lesser-known corn varieties grown and preserved by the mid-Atlantic’s Indigenous tribes, just like the Mohawk and the Lenape. Fermín Núñez in Austin has an analogous philosophy: “For me, it was essential to indicate which you could apply Mexican cooking strategies to the highest-quality native components.” 

Whether or not constituted of corn from the U.S. or Mexico, the standard and number of masa in attain of dwelling cooks and cooks, in all of its earthy, aromatic goodness, is probably one of the best it has ever been; there’s by no means been a greater time to get to know this ingredient. And also you don’t want any particular tools to take action — high-quality masa harina can simply be ordered from corporations like Masienda. 

There’s nonetheless loads of educating to be carried out. Coss retains uncooked corn kernels available at Pascual in order that employees can clarify to visitors that the pink and blue masa used on the restaurant will not be faux — and that corn does really are available in many colours. “We now have clients asking if the tortillas and corn have been painted,” she says. Nonetheless, she’s optimistic about what lies forward: “Corn could have began in Mexico, however now it belongs to everybody. It’s as much as us to eat it so we might help protect it.”