Hard Choices: Tortillas de Maiz or Tortillas de Maseca
The NY Times today had an article on (finally) a place in New York that is making tortillas from maize not from Maseca.
If that sounds like double dutch to you, here’s a two sentence primer. Tortillas made of maize are made by heating the maize with alkali, then wet grinding the result, called nixtamal. The lovely smooth masa is then shaped into tortillas. Tortillas made from Maseca are made from dehyradated nixtamal (Maseca is the name of the company). Because they are not so flexible, wheat flour is usually added. The taste and texture is generally judged inferior. OK, five sentences.
In the fifteen years I have lived here, tortillas de maseca have gained enormous ground so I commented on Betsy McNair‘s Facebook link to this article that it was not always easy to find tortillas de maiz anymore even in Mexico.
This prompted two well-informed comments from Juan Marquez, suggesting that the twin causes were US maize and Mexican inflation. Here they are. Quoting them is probably contravening all kinds of conventions. So Juan if you want to squawk, I’ll delete them immediately.
Rachel, I understand why you would perceive a scarcity of masa tortillas. There is an economic double whammy where the big 3 producers of masa harina import subsidized U.S. corn & then receive an additional subsidy from the Mexican government. On top of this.. inflation in urban Mexico has been relatively high over the the last 15 years making … Read Morelabor intensive products like fresh masa tortillas even more expensive.
However, in rural cash poor Mexico.. fresh masa still makes sense. For example, the last time we were in the Yucatan a few years back I observed that in every little non-touristy town we entered the Abarrotes store had a large scale food mill and the locals would bring in their home grown slaked maize for grinding on a daily basis.
And in Mexico City… Bill Esparza & Alex LaPierre confirmed that there is still an absolute proliferation of blue corn masa used in antojitos amongs the street food vendors outside of the touristy areas.
The importance of blue corn masa in antojitos is that it is practically a guarantee that they are made from fresh masa and not masa harina. It is heartening (and not that surprising) to hear that people in the Southern 1/3 of the country still care enough to spend a little extra.
I’d just like to supplement this by adding a third cause. That means talking about the hard choices I see people around here (the city of Guanajuato in the center of the country).
Much of the country is dry hillside. Rains fail on average one year every seven (though that may mean two in a row or ten good years). If we don’t get rains this weekend they will fail this year and every rural Mexican who has planted will lose the investment.
So lots of people no longer plant but work as bricklayers, the main alternative short of the increasingly unappealing option of going north.
A bricklayer earns about MN$1000 a week (about $75 US).
Wife stays at home, buys maize, nixtamalizes it, takes it to the mill, gathers twigs for firewood, makes her own tortillas. Cost for a family of four. MN$15 a week for about 12-14 lbs.
Two children now go to school, officially free, but they have to buy uniforms, pens and pencils, etc. plus special outfits for school events, plus medicine etc.
Wife goes to work to pay for this, and other necessities. No time to make tortillas. Buying tortillas (made of a mixture of maiz and maseca to keep the price down) MN $60 a week for the same quantity. Husband complains. She wants her children to become professionals.
Net gain in family income after paying bus fares. $800, an 80% jump.
Rising expectations are one reason why tortillas de maiz are losing ground.
In the end… I do believe fresh masa will prevail… Mexico is an economy in transition. In Mexico City… Gen X & Gen Y kids are the first generation to purchase town houses on credit to form their families (as oppossed to getting married then moving in with one of the parents, buying or subdividing the lot and then building a home slowly over time). Young adults are often making the decision to take on credit to purchase the town houses, take extra employment opportunities etc., and do a little less of their own cooking, cleaning etc., In the transition period… we see more mass convenience products like Masa Harina.
Barring a huge weather / climate change driven debacle… Mexico’s economic & fiscal reforms will take no more than 2 decades to increase the urban standard of living to where Spain & Portugal are today… and at that point the middle class discretionary income will be such that “chic” shops selling tortillas made from fresh masa & trendy add ins like ground Amaranth etc. will be viable & popular in the big cities.
Yes, Juan, with luck masa is now where bread was a generation ago in the US. And I’, corrsing my fingers that the huge increase in well-being that I have seen in Guanajuato in the last fifteen years will continue.
Interesting post and comment from EatNopales
I don’t share his/her optimism that Mexico in two decades will achieve the urban standard of living that now exists in Portugal and Spain
Apart from what is likely to happen with climate change, and by its nature this is unpredictable, (though I think we are already seeing the first signs of climate change), there are other factors at work.
Simply put, unless we have a radical change of economic development and energy use, there are just not enough resources on the planet to furnish this kind of consumerist life style for so many people. At some point and it is already happening, the model of continuous economic growth has to come up against the natural resource limits
In addition in Mexico, corruption and inequality are so deeply ingrained that i find it hard to imagine a more equitable society distributing its resources more fairly.
Then in addition we might have to imagine a scenario in which the narcos have (even more) serious political and economic power,
Apropos of this discussion about increases in well-being in Mexico and the possibility of this continuing in the future, I came across an interesting editorial in the local paper, which I read this morning whilst awaiting for two tyres to be replaced.
Figures have recently been published by INEGI (the National Institute of Information and Statistics) – though I gather, like all statistics, that there is some controversy about their validity due to the methodology used to generate them – which show that the number of poor people in Mexico have actually increased significantly in the years 2006-2008 – so this is before the current economic crisis.
Specifically, the figures say that in the category of “pobres patrimoniales” which is defined as not having enough income to meet basic needs of food, shelter, health, transport and education (less than 1905 pesos per month in cities and less than 1282 pesos in rural areas), there has been an increase from 44.7 million to 50.5 million people between 2006-08, that is from 42.6% to 47.4% of the overall population.
Similarly, in the category of “pobres alimentarios” which is defined as not having enough food to eat, there has been an increase from 14.4 million to 19.5 million people , that is from 13.8% to 18.2% of the overall population.
The other startling figure produced by INEGI concerns inequality. In Mexico 10% of the population possess 36.3% of the overall wealth and 60% of the population possess 27.6%
Inequality is without a doubt problem in Mexico… much of it race related. But, I do see things improving on a couple of fronts:
1) Calderon IS going to push Tax reform.. I am confident.. and that will be just the start of having a more professional government.
2) Govt. Programs to help rural indigenous people transition to modernity in a way that maintains dignity and still keeps remnants of their culture alive seem to be more successful then ever.
3) Immigration reform in the U.S. WILL happen. I am starting to see evidence that those who whored out NAFTA in favor of greater trading relationships with China are starting to really regret their decisions. It is evident that surpassing this tough recession… U.S. will distance itself from China a bit, and with the U.S. out of Iraq… we can get back to building the North American Union that has been in the works since the late 70’s
4) Science research is finally getting funding in Mexico… and the next 5 years we should see some technologies jump from the University labs to industry. There is consensus from PRD & PAN leaders on a plan to sort of mimic the Indian miracle.. but instead of focusing on IT… the technology bet will be on climate change engineering. This is key… if Mexico could use its heightened vulnerability to climate change (and I do believe that the Late Classic Maya were done in by the same climatological factors that crushed Angkor Wat indicating that the sub-tropics are particularly vulnerable)… as an advantage in the next advanced industry then Mexico will be okay.
5) I am just optimistic of possibilities in the 6th Sun / 6th Creation =)
I just got back from Mexico and one of my tasks was interning in a tortilleria in Actopan, Hidlago. What brutal work! I was a purist and insisted on nixtamal just because. After a day, I could see why a tortilleria would use masa harina. But I’m lazy! The citizens of Actopan demand nixtamalized corn and they get it from every tortilleria in town. I asked if a Maseca tortilleria could make it there and they laughed. And because of the competition, they are mostly all open 7 days a week. What a life!
I actually dislike Maseca because it’s not worse. It’s not as good as masa but it’s not bad, even I have to admit!
And just to throw a wrench in things, I saw blue corn masa harina here in Napa once!
My overall impression was that things were changing in Mexico and for the better. It’s such a big place there’s room for all sorts of markets.
A long and disheartening article in yesterday’s La Voz de Michoacán about the cost of tortillas quoted the female head of a family in Apatzingán, Michoacán:
“There are nine of us family members living in the same house. I’m the chief breadwinner for all of us. At 4.30 in the morning, two or three days a week, those of us who can do the work have to be at the place where jornaleros (day workers) are picked up to be taken to pick limones. They pay us sometimes 200 pesos a day all together, sometimes less.”
(Minimum wage for this kind of unskilled day work in Mexico is approximately 45 pesos per day per worker.)
She goes on to say, “The nine of us need 9 kilos of tortillas a day to fill our stomachs. This includes breakfast, comida [the main meal], and supper. Tortillas cost 12 pesos a kilo right now in Apatzingán. Of our 200 pesos or less per day, 108 pesos is spent to fill our stomachs. Many times we have to go begging to the neighbors for their leftover tortillas so we have enough to eat. We can’t make it on what we earn, now that the cost of tortillas is so high.”
Like Paul Roberts, I see no near end to the cycle of poverty in Mexico. The cost of the Canasta Básica (the basic and staple foods used in almost every Mexican kitchen) has doubled or nearly doubled in the last 18 months. Eggs, once an accessible source of protein for the poor, now cost more than 20 pesos for a half kilo–about 8 eggs. Dried beans–the Central Mexican peruano–cost more than 20 pesos the kilo. Rice, another staple of the Mexican diet, is currently at 20 pesos. Avocados (not part of the Canasta Básica, but part of the diet) cost 60 pesos the kilo last week.
As Paul reports, poverty has not lessened; it has increased dramatically during the last 2 to 3 years–i.e., since Mexico’s current President has been in office. The ‘huge increase in well-being’ that you see in Guanajuato during the last 15 years is a facade propped up by debt, which was once unknown in Mexico and has in the last 10 to 15 years been promoted heavily by institutions both financial and commercial. Most of what appears to be the middle class is caught in the inability to pay its debt. Payments, according to banks, are lagging three to six months behind. Mexico’s expected PNB shortfall this year is PUBLISHED to be 7.5%. In reality, that figure should be revised radically upward.
The country is a house of cards waiting for a strong puff of air. The financial crisis of 1994-95 could easily repeat itself.
This is what Bill and I snacked on steps from the Templo Mayor in the Zócalo.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2443/3616177560_964e725916.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3337/3615357843_ff512cab7f.jpg
They were calling them Tlayudas.
And here in the nearby Pine Forest on the Border with the state of Mexico:
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http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2464/3619141995_3b89e9e5c0.jpg
Hope no one thinks I was talking about Mexico’s economy, a subject I’m completely unable to address, even casually. When I said things we’re getting better, I was talking about the market for tortillas made with nixtamalized corn along with masa harina.
Some further comments to add to this interesting post and comments.
I hope EatNopales is right about the govt programmes he mentions. There has just surfaced enormous and it seems well founded criticism of another Govt programme, Procampo that was meant to help the rural poor.
For some good comments on this see:
http://ganchoblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/procampo-scandal.html
This blog post quotes an editorial from the Universal saying that:
“Procampo has been a subsidy program directed to the wealthiest and most influential producers in the country. Around 80 billion of the 171 billion handed out during a decade and a half were given to the most powerful ten percent of land owners in rural Mexico. ”
Here is a more recent post on the same blog about the Procampo scandal
http://ganchoblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-on-procampo.html
As for tax reform, I wish I shared EatNopales optimism. All the PAN reforms made so far just seem to encourage tax evasion by adding layers of bureaucracy. Now if Calderon were really to try and tackle inequality through tax reform that would be something but I just don’t see it happening
PS EatNopales – if you have any more info on the Mexican ‘bet’ for climate change technology, I would be very interested to see that. My email is:
surdejalisco@gmail.com
Cris… its always stormiest before the calm.
I am no PANista but you can’t blame Calderon for the surge in poverty which has been caused by the global increase in food prices, and the government’s inability to temporarily subsidize the effects away. (Hence why taxation is so important). While the economy stagnated in the last 15 years (without a doubt mostly caused by the dramatic influx of artificially cheap Chinese goods)… cheap agricultural commodities from the U.S. and the very same cheap Chinese goods actually expanded the average Mexican purchase power a little so # of impoverished people dropped… but those gains have been lost.
Mexico is not a terminal case… compared to much of the developing world it has so much going for it.. including a grassroots entrepreneurial spirit & ability. All great civilizations have developed in response to challenges… provided that the challenges aren’t too overwhelming and I trust they are not. Mexico will emerge from its food & security crisis much stronger with a renewed moral compass. The next two decades will be somewhat similar to the post-revolution industrialization..
As for the climate technologies… UNAM is suppossed fairly far along on two branches… underground water storage & advanced urban tubing. And UV has some interesting engineering solutions to flooding & hurricanes. Since Mexico has a heightened vulnerability to drought & flooding.. and because Mexico City is facing severe water shortages.. the political will is there… they just need to get the financing in order… I predict Mexico City will be the first in the world to completely revamp its waterworks with advanced technologies… tackling water sanitation in the process.
If the government can get a good deal for PEMEX (with a fair royalties scheme)… the final $500 barrels of oil will generate a substantial wealth transfer from China & Japan while unlocking cheap Natural Gas as a local alternative energy.
Also… I think in the next 3 decades we will see Mexico consolidate itself as a North American retiree haven (as Social Security & Pensions cut benefit amounts making retiree life in the U.S. not an option) as well as a tourism super power (particularly as other tropical destinations have an even harder time coping with more frequent, more intense hurricanes)… this will represent a substantial wealth transfer from North America to Mexico.
And I am pretty sure an immigration reform system that benefits all three countries will pass sooner or later. At some point the U.S. & Canada will realize they can’t milk the World Wars & Cold War generated wealth, they will need to counter the unstoppable emergence of China and consolidate a North American… and later a Western Hemishpheric block that keeps dollars within our geographic area… George Orwell was prophetic.
In any case… Mexico has viable platforms for wealth creation… its not guaranteed… but at this significant historical cross roads you have to place a bet… is Mexico a terminal case? Will we see the Africa-zation of Latin America? Or does Mexico and the region have enough fighting spirit & resources to use the impending significant crisis as an opportunity? I know many will think… there have been crisis before… why didn’t the Latin countries emerge & prosper from those? What has changed?
What has changed is that the regional empire has lost its footing, and a new world order is already in place. Sure it could devolve into one of those apocalyptic movies from the 1980’s… but I am optimistic that instead we will see an era of mutual benefit & cooperation… and the 22nd Century will be the Latin American century.
OK, I am firing up to comment on this whole line of responses. Much to address and some of it too far from the blog to deal with here. We need a round of beers (now where did I hear that?).
Pingback: How dried corn becomes masa, or nixtamal | The Mija Chronicles
Great article on how the Maseca monopoly was created: http://grist.org/article/masa/ “How Mexico’s iconic flatbread went industrial and lost its flavor”