Taste of Mexico: Tlayuda

In different articles, I’ve written astir the enthusiasm my enactment sparks among those astir me. Friends and relatives are ever suggesting thing — a fruit, a vegetable, a look — that they see indispensable to our gastronomy and worthy sharing with you.

But the idiosyncratic who has turned retired to beryllium my astir improbable muse is my boyfriend’s nana, Sabina. “Nana” whitethorn dependable infantilizing — remainder assured, he’s perfectly susceptible of tying his ain shoes — but the sanction has stayed, and truthful has she. These days, she runs our household with brisk efficiency, cooking and keeping order, each portion lasting scarcely taller than the room counter. Yet her beingness is formidable, the benignant of authorization you’d expect from a Oaxacan wide successful civilian disguise. She is not speedy to connection affection, and for months I misread her soundlessness arsenic disdain, convinced she had softly declared maine unworthy.

The large, durable tlayuda, a staple of Oaxacan cuisine. (Instagram)

Then 1 afternoon, she overheard maine connected the telephone with my mother, asking wherever I mightiness find antithetic varieties of beans for an nonfiction and video I was readying connected Mexico’s heavy narration with frijoles. When I hung up, Sabina simply asked, “When bash you request them?” A week later, she placed successful my hands a tiny stash of beans she had carried from location — the precise beans she saves each twelvemonth to works again successful her ain soil.

That was the beginning. Last month, for her town’s fiesta, she prepared a mole and softly acceptable speech a generous information for us. More recently, erstwhile she returned from Oaxaca, she brought backmost tlayudas arsenic a souvenir. She asked me, with a uncommon glint of mischief, if I thought you mightiness beryllium funny successful learning astir them. Which is however I find myself staring astatine 3 oversized tortillas she had been redeeming with large attraction for her ain family.

Tlayuda. Isn’t that a Mexican pizza?

(Sighs successful discomfort) Well, no. Not exactly. If 1 wants to beryllium orthodox, the examination is simply a small crude. But I recognize wherever it comes from.

Strictly speaking, tlayuda refers to the tortilla itself — enormous, durable, designed for sustenance connected agelong journeys. Much arsenic the burrito tortilla evolved successful bluish Mexico to service the needs of ranch hands and travelers, the Oaxacan tortilla was engineered to beryllium filling and resilient. The precise sanction suggests spot and endurance.

Etymology, though, is wherever things get tricky. The communal assertion is that tlayuda derives from the Nahuatl tlao-li (shelled corn). This, however, is inaccurate. Shelled maize successful Nahuatl is tlayolsiuali. Wouldn’t tlaxcalli — the connection for tortilla — beryllium a much logical connection? Beyond that, the “ll–y” dependable astatine the bosom of tlayuda did not beryllium successful pre-Hispanic languages, which makes the Nahuatl root dubious astatine best.

There is different crushed to beryllium skeptical. Oaxacans are famously protective of their culture, and with thirteen Indigenous groups successful the authorities — each with its ain language, customs, and rivalries — it is hard to ideate them embracing a Nahuatl sanction for a distinctly Mixtec-Zapotec dish. In Mixtec, tortilla is xita; successful Zapotec, eta or gueta. The linguistic puzzle remains unsolved, but Nahuatl seems similar the slightest apt candidate.

A 3rd hint lies successful Spanish itself. In the 19th and aboriginal 20th centuries, the word tlayudo was utilized arsenic an adjective to picture idiosyncratic strong, resistant and enduring. “Did you spot however tlayudo Juanito is? He trimmed each the trees arsenic if it were nothing.” The word apt derived from talludo, meaning idiosyncratic mature, adjacent beyond maturity. This, to me, feels similar the astir elegant fit. The tortilla that resists, that endures.

And truthful the sanction carries its ain definition: a pugnacious tortilla, meant to beryllium reheated, meant to last. Enormous capable to service arsenic a implicit meal, designed for question oregon a agelong day’s labor. Which brings america backmost to the crockery itself.

The accepted tlayuda

We whitethorn ne'er cognize the precise infinitesimal the tlayuda emerged, but its lineage surely stretches backmost to the aboriginal days of nixtamalization, erstwhile Indigenous peoples needed nutrient that could question and was portable, resilient and nourishing. The earliest versions astir apt included beans, chapulines, quelites, and different endemic plants, each adding some spirit and nutrition.

The aboriginal additions of chorizo, cecina, tasajo, and chickenhearted were unmistakably products of the Spanish conquest and the centuries of culinary mestizaje that followed.

By the 1920s and ’30s, novels described the tlayuda arsenic being utilized similar flatbreads elsewhere successful the world. Torn isolated to enactment arsenic edible utensils, similar pita successful the Middle East, naan successful India, Greek barley bread, Turkey’s bazlama, the tortillas of the Americas, oregon Ethiopia’s injera. Around the aforesaid time, different statement surfaced. It was a ample tortilla, reheated successful lard, topped with legume paste, chili, food or quesillo, and cabbage.

From there, the modern signifier was inevitable. Today, a due tlayuda is crisped with lard, dispersed with beans, layered with cecina and chorizo, crowned with avocado, preferably a greenish salsa, possibly a seasonal quelite, chapulines for crunch, and, of course, cheese. It is astatine erstwhile rustic and baroque. A crockery that tin transportation a day’s worthy of sustenance.

Oaxaca is the ancestral location of the tlayuda. (Unsplash / Ryan Doyle)

Nutritionally, it mightiness adjacent beryllium 1 of Mexico’s astir implicit meals. If that is, 1 applies moderation to the chorizo and cheese. I can’t supply technological proof, but I’d wager it tastes 50% amended erstwhile shared, and 100% amended with a acold beer.

And if you’d alternatively not navigator your tlayuda successful lard, enactment tuned for the video. I’ll stock a extremity Sabina herself taught me.

Friends, if you don’t hap to unrecorded adjacent a store that sells Oaxacan ingredients and tlayudas, you person lone 2 options. Either publication a travel to Oaxaca and devour them caller astatine the market, oregon commune devoutly that a Sabina volition 1 time look successful your life.

María Meléndez is a Mexico City nutrient blogger and influencer.