Thank you all for continuing to support Bolita. I appreciate it! Remember to tell your friends about us. We will be raising money for our brick and mortar later this year, so get the word out. Follow us on IG, share our newsletter. It all helps!
Unfortunately, we won’t have an Oakland pop-up this week. We have a big inspection this week, if all goes well, will allow us to be in more grocery stores. Soon, you will be able to get Bolita any day of the week!
Our last two masa classes are coming up. We will hopefully have more in the future, but as we get ready for the farmer’s market season and as our kitchen overlords began to take back their event space, Saturday 2/26 and Monday 2/28 are our last two scheduled classes for now.
Pop-Up / Market Dates and Group Masa Classes
THU 2/24/22 - POP-UP Market, SAN FRANCISCO. Preorder for pickup at Gemini Bottle Co. 2801 22nd Street SF, 5:30-7:00 pm. Pre-Ordersare live until Wednesday 2/23 12:00pm.
SAT 2/26/2022 - Oakland, CLASS will be held at 272 14th Street Oakland 10:00am-12:00 pm. Limited to 6 people, must be vaccinated & boosted, and masks are required. We will make tortillas, tetelas, tlacoyos, sopes, and gorditas. You will get to taste all of these masa forms and take 2 lbs of masa home. Sign up HERE
MON 2/28/2022 - Oakland, CLASS will be held at 272 14th Street Oakland 10:00am-12:00 pm. Limited to 6 people, must be vaccinated & boosted, and masks are required. We will make tortillas, tetelas, tlacoyos, sopes, and gorditas. You will get to taste all of these masa forms and take 2 lbs of masa home. Sign up HERE
More to come…
March 2019 experiments: Masa harina from dehydrated masa. L: Milling Bolita Belatove, R: Milled Conico Azul & Bolita Belatove
Nixtamal and Masa Harina
"Can you just sell me some of the masa flour?"
I am asked this question at least seven times every week. A lot of people are intimated by the shelf life of masa. Or want to make masa on their own timeline. Or just don’t know how I make my product. The simple answer is, “No. I do not use any sort of masa harina (flour) in my masa. If, you like, you can buy my masa. Dehydrate it, and make your own masa harina.”
Like most of the world, I grew up on commercial tortillas. Mission, Guererro, Mi Rancho, etc. For most of us, a “fresh” tortilla was a tortilla made from “scratch.” This meant mixing warm water with some masa harina, usually Maseca1 flour, and making tortillas. This is still how a majority of tortillas are still made— mixing water with a pre-made masa harina.
I understand why we all had a bag of Maseca at home. It’s easy to use, it’s reliable, it seemingly doesn’t spoil, it’s dirt cheap. Also, there is very little access to higher quality flours or fresh masa. Masa flour was a step in the right direction. It allowed people, like my mother, to produce a warm, supple tortilla at home.
We should understand what masa harina is and how it is made. In its most basic form, masa harina is fresh masa that has been dehydrated and pulverized to make a very fine masa flour. I’ve made this product before; in fact, Bolita started years ago as a project named “Mancha Manteles”. A mouthful of a name, but also a project making masa harina. I would take whole corn kernels, cook them in calcium hydroxide, nixtamalize/soak them over night, grind into masa, dehydrate it and then mill it again. I was doing this on a scale so small, every 1 lb of masa harina would have to sell for about $15 just to break even. But, I also noticed that you lost all the subtle flavors present in each varietal of masa. The dehydration process, regardless of how it is done, eliminates a lot of the nuance and flavors that makes heirloom corn varietals so remarkable.
On a commercial level, masa flour is made in a similar manner. From what I’ve gathered, GRUMA and other large corporations essentially use the same process but in one ton batches. And not much is actually known about their process because corporations spend a lot of money to hide their processes and equipment from their curious customers. Corn, usually commodity or large scale “organic” certified2, is cooked in giant vats with calcium hydroxide. The corn is milled and made into a dry masa, that is then processed and dried. After drying, the masa flour is stabilized with guar gum (“organic” gums are also available) and sometimes preservatives. Usually, the preservatives exist as more calcium hydroxide— which, consumed in large quantities, as is present in a lot of commercial products, can lead to calcium buildup and other health issues. Have you every opened a pack of tortillas and it smells very musky or sulphur-y? Odds are this product had an addition of calcium hydroxide to help extend its shelf life.
We have plenty of better options available to us. Alma Semillera makes great products right here in California. Masienda began making masa harina from heirloom maíz. And, I, with Bolita, have been selling fresh nixtamal masa since day one. Again, this requires some more information. Fresh masa can mean so many things. Plenty of stores and business sell “fresh masa,” but they are merely selling masa made with masa flour. Some places make nixtamal and add masa flour to help improve its life or texture. These products are technically not fresh masa, but are “Masa Made with Masa Flour.” “Fresh” is misleading because, if I make masa from Maseca today, it’s technically fresh masa, but the flour has been on the shelf for months. Is it fresh? It is still the same product as nixtamal masa?
So, what do I make? I’m happy to answer this question. I make freshly nixtamalized masa from heirloom Mexican maíz.
We purchase maíz from Tamoa and Masienda; these varietals are not a certified “organic” despite having been been grown or processed without the application of any herbicides, pesticides, fumigants, and fertilizers.3
We sort and clean the maíz, removing any husks, cob pieces or broken kernels.
We heat water with cal (slaked lime aka calcium hydroxide). The amount of cal varies depending on the density of the maíz, color, size, and varietal. I use anywhere from .6% to 1.25% of the maíz’s weight. I use 3 L of water per kilogram of maíz. We allow the water to simmer, and the cal to dissolve.
We cook the maíz in the alkaline cal water. Again, depending on the varietal, our cook time is anywhere from 20 minutes to 1 hour and 25 minutes. We never exceed 90°C.
Now the maíz nixtamalizes. Nixtamalization is the ancestral process of soaking maíz kernels in an alkaline solutions (before cal, there was ash and sea shells). Through this process, maíz softens, starches gelatinize, and the alkaline solution imparts calcium and activates amino acids and vitamin B3 naturally found in maíz. Again, each varietal varies, through testing and failing, we soak some varietals for 8 hours while others benefit from soaking for 24 hours.
We rinse the nixtamalized maíz, just lightly.
We grind the maíz in a small mill using volcanic stones that create heat and friction, breaking and kneading the maíz into a not quite homogenous dough. We add a little bit of water during grinding to help the process along and reduce heat.
We knead the masa with .75% salt. Kneading is crucial to making a pliable masa, and we knead for at least 15 minutes. We add a little bit of Mexican sea salt for seasoning, it should never be salty, but rather should taste seasoned.4
We use this masa for tortillas, tlacoyos, tetelas, sopes, and for sale.
Not once in my process do I use masa harina or flour. It’s not that I’m against this as a product, I love some tortillas made with masa flour, but that is not what I do. I have tried my best to make the same masa that was enjoyed in Mexico for thousands of years. Stubbornly, I continue to make my masa as it was meant to be made. I remind myself that just because we can extend the shelf-life of sometime and make it more user-friendly doesn’t mean we have to. Masa is labor intensive and finicky, and I love that.
"Can you just sell me some of the masa flour?"
“No, please read my newsletter titled February 2022: 2 of 2.”
“But, why don’t you just make masa flour?!?! Isn’t it easier?”
For more visual content, you can follow my Instagram @bolitamasa and subscribe to our posts. It really helps us get out there.
Like Mission and Guererro, Maseca is own by a massive conglomerate, GRUMA. GRUMA is the world’s largest masa, tortilla, and masa flour producer. I would avoid buying theses brands; GRUMA’s homogeneity and market dominance has been detrimental the the health and diets of Mexicans.
I put “organic” in quotes because we live in a world where USDA certification can be applied to almost any organic product so long as you have the resources to pay for the certification. “Organic” products are a $60 billion industry and there have been recorded cases of chemical tainting, misreported samples, and even fraud. In other words. I am skeptical that something being labeled “organic” is inherently better than meticulously sourced non-certified products.
Yields are small and farms are small. Tamao and Masienda work with dozens of farmer’s, each growing their specialty varietals, getting organic certification would require certifying each farmer individually. From Masienda’s website, “Yes, all Masienda corn is non-GMO (it’s technically illegal to grow genetically-modified corn in Mexico!) and grown with a diversity of regenerative practices. Unlike conventional treatment of non-GMO grains across the world, no pesticides or fumigants are used at any point in Masienda’s post-harvest handling.”
I told one of my masa mentors/heroes, Rafa Mier, director of La Fundación de Tortilla, that I add salt to my masa. He said this is incorrect and blasphemous, as masa on its own is never seasoned in Mexico. I hope he forgives me one day.
Educational and fun as always.. thanks!