Masa, the important thing to tortillas and tamales, evokes an award-winning documentary sequence
Enlarge this picture toggle caption Michael Graydon and Nikole Herriott/Masienda Michael Graydon and Nikole Herriott/Masienda
Creator Jorge Gaviria considers masa – dough made out of stone-ground corn – to be one of many biggest human achievements, up there with taming hearth and inventing the wheel. His enthusiasm for the standard ingredient has led to his crew profitable a high culinary prize.
On Jun. 3, Gaviria and his colleagues received a 2023 James Beard award for his or her YouTube documentary sequence celebrating masa and the communities who cook dinner with it.
Masienda Presents exhibits how ranchers, residence cooks {and professional} cooks from around the globe all use this historical staple.
Masa is on the basis of many Latin American cuisines. It takes on many various shapes and textures, permitting it for use for the flat disks of tortillas, the thick instances of tamales, and plenty of different meals.
“What I liked in regards to the sequence was that every part actually did hit on a distinct side of id,” Gaviria mentioned. “Mexican-American id, Mexican id, Latin id at massive.”
Masa and id
Within the first episode, Arturo Enciso talks about Gusto Bread, the artisanal bakery he owns with Ana Belén Salatino in Lengthy Seaside, California. They’re recognized for utilizing masa in bread and pastries.
“Having baked all these European-style breads, I nonetheless felt like ‘OK nicely that does not translate to love my different id, my true id,” Enciso says.
YouTube
One other episode follows Tony Ortiz on their grandparents’ Northern California ranch as they cook dinner lamb birria in an outside oven.
“After I’m within the kitchen with my grandmother, issues that I’m making, for me, they really feel extra smooth,” Ortiz says. “Then after I’m cooking with my grandfather it is slightly bit extra intense…I’ve needed to learn to, like, exist in these two areas — female and masculine — as a queer individual.”
After hours of cooking, the Ortiz household come collectively and serve the birria on contemporary, heat tortillas.
Why masa? Why now?
In accordance with Gaviria, tortillas promote extra, pound for pound, than hamburger buns.
He based his firm Masienda in 2014, supplying cooks with masa components and kitchen instruments. Along with Masienda Presents, its YouTube channel has cooking tutorials and tales in regards to the craftspeople behind Masienda’s merchandise.
Gaviria beforehand labored at farms and high-end eating places, together with Blue Hill at Stone Barns.
“And as I began to essentially sort of dive deeper into the meals that I liked, I noticed that they lacked the identical sort of illustration that, you realize, French and New American meals had within the culinary canon,” Gaviria mentioned. “I wished to see, you realize, rice and beans elevated in a means, and celebrated for simply the deliciousness and, you realize, the consolation that they supply.”
For a style of that deliciousness, he has some recommendation.
“When you have a taco,” Gaviria mentioned, “take into account perhaps making that tortilla from scratch.”
And an awesome tortilla, he says, begins with masa.
The digital model of this story was edited by Lisa Lambert. The published model was edited by Reena Advani.