Photo of the day: corn tortilla making

It is still dark and Deyanira is already cooking the first tortillas of the day: they are an important part of the daily diet in Central America and must be ready by breakfast. She started by curing corn in limewater to easily peel off the skin of the corn kernels she will later feed her chickens with. By the time I woke up, she is using her grinding machine to make the dough with only a bit of water. Pressing the dough flat into a perfect disc is a technique that requires practicing! Deyanira flattens the dough by tapping it with her right hand while shaping it with her left on a plastic sheet which is on the table. In Guatemala, women on markets clap their hands together to flatten the dough in a very fast rotating movement. When the tortilla has the appropriate shape and thickness, it is thrown onto a hot griddle made of a sheet-metal above a wood-fuelled stove.

Accompanying every meal, maize tortillas are healthy, containing fibres, iron, potassium, calcium and B vitamins. Low in fat and sodium, they are also quite filling and we have been appreciating them in all of their colors: white, yellow or even blue!