Making Tortillas

We were utterly spoiled when we lived in Chicago. We had our choice of great tasting tortillas - and some not so great ones as well. David likes tortillas, but I love them. I eat them instead of bread for grilled cheese sandwiches, breakfast (with peanut butter), desert (with yummy chocolate spread!), a snack (with peanut butter and yummy chocolate spread), not to mention in their more expected place around tacos and enchiladas.

I had learned to make my own tortillas in Tokyo when I discovered how difficult they were to find, and just how expensive they were after finally locating them. A flour tortilla recipe only called for flour, salt, shortening of some sort, and water. It was much easier just to make them myself. And they tasted better than any I had ever bought.

Cooking up some flatbread goodness!

When I moved to Chicago, however, the opposite happened. They were locally made, delicious, and cheap, so I stopped making my own. By the time David came around, I had long since believed my tortilla making days were over.

Then we moved to Tokushima. 

Somedays I am not sure what prompted a move back to a country that doesn’t value the tortilla as a staple food. Japan has many good qualities, but undervaluing the tortilla is not one I understand.

Tonight I tracked down a new recipe for flour tortillas - mine was long ago rejected from the recycle bin for being too well-used and covered in oil, and like a pizza box, my recipe was consigned to the trash. I found a new recipe, a better one than before, and I made tortillas for the first time in four years

Heavenly: warm and soft. Fresh. 

Just the way a tortilla should be.