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Wheat tortillas have been used in Western cuisine since the 1500s, soon after the Columbian Exchange brought wheat to the west. What, exactly, does it take for
by randomdata 4y ago
Wheat tortillas have been used in Western cuisine since the 1500s, soon after the Columbian Exchange brought wheat to the west. What, exactly, does it take for something to become tradition?
Also, wouldn't the expansion of tortillas to use other grain products push for exactly the kind of move away from monocultures that you want? As a grain farmer myself, having a market for both corn and wheat means that we can rotate our crops, to not have to rely on monocultures.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoPffft 1500s? Corn tortillas have been eaten since prehistory and wheat wasn't grown in the Americas until European colonisation. Give it another few hundred years (to be fair I was not aware that wheat tortillas were that old). I would welcome tortillas made using other grains, but the majority of them available in shops just use wheat which is problematic to some people. How about mixing them up with some buckwheat or millet? As well as varying the type of grain crop, I'd like to see greater variety of the types of grain used e.g. blue corn
- randomdata 4y agoBe the change you want to see in the world, I suppose. But if you don't want to get into the buckwheat tortilla business we shouldn't be surprised if nobody else wants to either.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoI'm not really positioned to get into the food production business, so I choose to complain about it instead. There is at least a small market for more unusual products and certainly there's quite a few gluten-free products that use inventive ingredients that are easy to pick up from supermarkets so there is at least some demand for them.
- randomdata 4y agoWhat do you need to get yourself positioned? I am in the food production business, both as a farmer and as an operator of a commercial kitchen, so if you have something compelling here I am listening.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoPretty much everything. I have zero experience in food production, although I am experienced at eating food. I don't know about compelling ideas, but I would like to see more products using grains such as amaranth, buckwheat, chia, teff, millet etc. Also, grains aren't the only source of carbohydrates, so there's also the possibility of using beetroot, sweet potatoes or other vegetables to introduce a greater variety of nutrition.
- randomdata 4y agoAre you currently producing these at home for personal consumption?
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoNo. I usually buy similar things from the gluten free section in supermarkets or specialist delicatessens.
- randomdata 4y agoSeems the market is already met, then? It is unlikely these alternative grains will ever see mass appeal. While such history is hard to validate, legend has it that wheat tortillas became popular soon after wheat became available in the Americas because a lot of people preferred it. I think there is little question that wheat tortillas are the preferred form in modern times.