FoodBanter.com - View Single Post

In article >,
(JeanineAlyse in 29 Palms) wrote:

> >In part, jmcquown wrote:
> >searched high and low for flour tortillas
> >to make quesadillas...found them with
> >the bread. Okay, bread... tortillas; I
> >suppose it makes sense, kinda.
>
> >A bit of adavid.smith adding:
> >The three grocery stores where I do
> >most of my shopping keep their tortillas
> >in different places.
> On each of the three immediate Sundays preceding the Marine Corps Ball
> each year, and should you care to travel, you could have bought your
> tortillas right here in my Twentynine Palms, California patio.
>
> While enjoying cooking with a dear Mexican family for several years in
> Tucson, Arizona, I learned to roast fresh made tortillas atop their
> (still in use today) wood stove. The torts that this 4'8" mother made
> were a good two feet in diameter, and were done without a rolling pin,
> stretched round entirely by hand. Being good with my hands, this
> "forming" of the torts did come easy to me, and the family of 12 enjoyed
> watching this "gringa" learn quickly the task that none of their
> siblings could be bothered with. A few years went by before one of my
> Marines wanting those huge tortillas he'd grown up with came up with a
> solution for the "griddle" a common kitchen stove could use. He made me
> two "comals" with welded on side handles, using the tops of some sort of
> 55 gallon metal containers that are about 3/8" thick. With putting each
> comal covering two burners stovetop, and having one of the Marines
> roasting with the patio's then extra stove, we could make many dozens
> throughout a weekend marathon, with the insistence of a "switch places"
> to come about so that I was in the patio stretching the last of the
> dough during sales on Sunday afternoons while more were roasted.
>
> Because of the funding reasoning, "it was no problem at all to sell
> these puppies for $12 per dozen, with all proceeds going to the Marine's
> funding pot used to help out the lower ranked youngsters purchase their
> USMC Ball tickets. Then, come Ball night, my "Nana's House" home was
> freely packed with more than a dozen kids to spend the night while their
> USMC parents enjoyed the always several miles away Ball. The only sort
> of restriction to my no-charge caring for the kids overnight was to have
> no children still in diapers.
>
> I did this for seven years each September/November, and do still have
> one of the comals hanging out in the garage. But it's been well over a
> dozen years since I've used it, or even made one single tortilla. Now I
> buy them, but only from a wee store that sells just fresh made ones,
> along with tamales, and the menudo (my mouth will never feel, much less
> chew!).
>
> Picky ~JA~
>

What a great story, JeanineAlyse!! Thanks -- I can picture all of it.
Tucson, eh? My favorite son lives there. Works at TUoA.

--
-Barb, <www.jamlady.eboard.com> Trip Report and pics added 1-13-05
"I read recipes the way I read science fiction: I get to the end and
say,'Well, that's not going to happen.'" - Comedian Rita Rudner,
performance at New York, New York, January 10, 2005.