Restaurants

On a Whim

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Masa harina is a flour made out of dried masa fresca, which can be kept indefinitely. By adding water to it, you get reconstituted masa, which is a little grittier and not quite as sticky and flavorful as the fresh stuff. I called Mario Ramirez, owner of Gorditas Aguascalientes, and asked him if he ever uses fresh masa. "Sometimes we do," he said. "But it is very hard to work with. It goes bad within a few hours." I asked him where you can find fresh masa in Houston. "There are some small tortilla factories that still make it," he said. "Especially around the holidays, for tamales. But it's just not practical for us." I asked him what kind of masa harina he uses. "Maseca," he said.

I first became aware of Maseca and the Mexican masa situation a few years ago when I read an essay by Carlos Fuentes complaining about how bad the tortillas in Mexico City had become. Fuentes said that the corner tortilla makers were being driven out of business by big corporations, thanks to some questionable government scheme. I didn't pay that much attention until the far-reaching tentacles of the global tortilla octopus reached my dinner table.

The director of Grupo Industrial Maseca is Roberto Gonzalez Barrera, better known as the "King of Tortillas." Before the election of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Maseca was an average-sized company that made mass-market tortillas for grocery stores. Instead of using fresh corn masa, like the smaller producers, Maseca made tortillas from masa harina. The large factories could make tortillas more cheaply than the corner tortillerias. Unfortunately their products weren't as good.

Tortillas have long been subsidized in Mexico. In fact, if the subsidies were removed, consumer expenditures on tortillas would double, from around $2.5 billion a year to about $5 billion. Removal of the subsidies also would put small producers out of business. But as part of its economic recovery and free-market liberalization, the Mexican government made it a goal to cut the tortilla subsidy.

Barrera was a close friend of Salinas's, and Barrera persuaded the government that Maseca's modern factories were turning out the tortillas of the future. They used corn more efficiently than the fresh masa process did, an important point since Mexico was importing a third of its corn at the time. The factories also were environmentally cleaner, Barrera argued, which would help pollution-plagued Mexico City. And they produced cheaper tortillas, which meant less government assistance. As a result, the Mexican government began to enact policies that favored the tortilla giants.

By 1994 government subsidies totaled 43 percent of Maseca's revenues, according to articles in the business press. Maseca became the leading tortilla maker in Mexico, and Barrera became a billionaire. Today Maseca has factories all over Mexico, and several in the United States. Its factory-style tortillas have become the standard, which means, of course, that fresh masa is disappearing everywhere.

One morning after breakfast at Gorditas Aguascalientes, I ordered a large atole, which I split with my daughter Julia. The place didn't have the plain variety, only atole champurrado, the chocolate-flavored kind. It tasted thick and sweet, somewhere between chocolate Malt-O-Meal and a cup of hot cocoa. I tried to explain to Julia how unique this hot masa-based beverage was, and how it had been the breakfast of Mesoamericans for hundreds and hundreds of years. But she couldn't understand how a drink could contain tortilla dough.

"It just tastes like really good hot chocolate," she said with a shrug.

Maybe I should follow her example and concentrate on the wonderful flavors instead of obsessing on the pedigree of the ingredients. Gorditas Aguascalientes is one of my favorite restaurants. I have never seen so many great antojitos in one place. And I doubt that I will ever find a restaurant in Houston that makes antojitos with the fresh fluffy masa you used to get before Maseca conquered Mexico. But I can dream, can't I?

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