Hello and welcome to another how to cook eat YouTube coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan to Rockefeller Center, joined a newsstand studios joined as usual with Anastasia hammer Lopez, how're you doing? So good? You're good? Yeah. Got Joe Hayes and rocking the panels Joe. What's up? Hey, how you doing, man? Great to see you. I'm doing alright, we don't have John's not here today. And our West Coast crew because we're taping at a special time. So if you happen to be listening live on the Patreon. You can call your questions in 2917410 1507. That's 917-410-1507. And I'm assuming a lot of our listeners are going to have good questions. Maybe they're not here to listen, you know, dial in right now. But we got some good questions for our main or only guest today. By the way, I feel really bad. I was late. This is like old school me. This is like Roberta's error. Me coming in late. Because we changed the time. Joe, you kind of slapped the lateness out of me somewhat. It used to be I would always show up at 1210 for a 12 o'clock show. Yeah. And I was told that that's a poor form. Penalty penalty by fine. Wow.

Is that for the nanny

that's like, paid for? For the nanny pay for the nanny.com That's my next. Yo. I'm not gonna go into any stories because otherwise we'll go we'll go forever, but like, yeah, like childcare paying extra for childcare is a freaking nightmare. And Anastasia has some great stories, but we're going to either get to him at the very end or next week, right? Yeah, so that means that you and I aren't gonna be able to talk to each other for a week. We're gonna see each other tonight. I have to go whatever we'll talk about. The Rock hasn't booze apparently.

Oh, yes.

I don't know what it is.

It's the top selling booze I think like maybe of all time really three in its first year was doing triple the sales that casamigos did like at its height. Wow. Wow, I didn't work for him. I'm just you know,

well, that was the that those were the dulcet tones. You have very good radio voice of I'm gonna try not to put your name he talked about a foreign Jorge Gaviria, NACA viewer, as I said before, Gaviria, who I met many, many years ago, the folks at cosmi. Were doing a demo at the star chefs when it was at the opening in the Hudson River. Yeah. And you're doing a great that was the one where they were demoing, I think that's the one where they put a A, the horizontal leaf on the inside of the of the tortilla and flattened it down and cooked it real pretty great demo. The Stasi will remember that as the demo where I said, I hope I get stabbed in the back. Yeah, I want to stab myself in the back was the worst demo ever. That was the demo at star chefs when the AV guy was so high that he was laying on it was hung over. He was laying on his back staring at the ceiling. Instead of running the panels. Yeah. Anyway. So aura is the founder of mossy panda. And if you guys don't know, it's the only real place to buy good corn. Like anywhere. Is that true? You say? I mean? I mean, people sell some American corn, but like if you want like, if you want like, do you also do one a mile or just Mexican? I can

just Mexico. Yeah, yeah. Which is like, you know, it's a lot still a lot of ground to cover.

I'm not saying that you need to branch out but I'm saying like there are good places to buy, like American old American style.

Totally where I'd like to say we're sort of a we're a one stop shop for masa supplies, like right as high, you know, as high geek is you need to go or is sort of like introductory, we kind of we meet you at whatever level you're at.

So me so you have it. The reason you're here is you have a new book out. There's been you had a pamphlet for a number of years on an external. Oh, but let's just do this. Let's just do this.

Can we go back?

Let's go way back. Well, back in time, we're back in what we're talking about vast majority of the people listening to this show are down with an externalization. So far they are but for people who aren't, let's just be completely inclusive and explain. You explain. Give me an externalization in Nutshell.

externalization is an alchemy process that imbues corn not not the sweet kind, but like the field corn heart kind that doesn't really taste for like very much. It's kind of like an edible. It makes it nutritious, workable elastic. And yeah, it just it becomes a superfood. So it's literally just the process of cooking corn in water that has a little bit of some kind of alkaline agent, calcium hydroxide, and it renders it into like a workable, you know, form to grind into a workable dough.

Right. Right. So, you know, in the, you know, for a long, long time, people in America and even in Mexico frankly, right who made tortillas they were using a product called Maceda you want to describe

Yeah, like my second is like the proprietary eponym of Masada you know, right so like band aids are advantages jello is I don't know like red gelatin snack. You know, my silica is the most well known brand of Medina which is the dehydrated version of masa. You know masa is the finished product of corn that's been mixed analyzed ground. And then it's it's dehydrated and Masek as case it's dehydrated at a really, really high temperature. So it kind of just denatured the product. It's pretty flat flavor. It's kind of like the Chieko pasta. You know, like Oh, alright, love.

Okay, let's go in the, in the book you liking it the best QuickBASIC?

Yeah, it's like Betty Crocker. It's the best well actually,

it has a lot of has a lot of same problems. So like, masa harina, you know, whatever. I always call it by the brand name, whatever, even though I actually don't by mistake of brand. I don't think it's not what they carry in my store. Yeah, I have it in the house. I always have it in the house. Because it's It's simple. It's, it's you know, unlike making a biscuit or pancake where it's literally an extra 13 seconds to add the other stuff to it. Right. You know, in the case of making real masa, you know, Nick, symbolizing, you're talking about, like, 1012 hours sometimes. Yeah,

yeah. It's there's a reason why this product was created disrupted the sort of traditional, like, incredibly labor intensive process,

right. So let's go let's, our our people are very kind of like science minded people. So let's let Yeah, let's let's get into it. So corn as opposed to wheat, right. So you take wheat, you stick wheat in your mouth, Can Can Can you grind it up in your mouth, you can break it, it's hard. I wouldn't want to we'll mill wheat all day, but especially a lot of the older weeds are soft, right? And there are a lot of flowery corns, but corn is still rather difficult to grind. Right on its own. Also, corn doesn't have gluten in it. Right. And there were no staples in. In New Mexico, Guatemala or anywhere. You know, in this these two continents, there was no staple that had gluten, right. They also didn't have barley, right. They had corn and the the grinding technology. They never really were using less interesting. When do you think when did the rotary grinders come in for things like agave? Is that later? Was that early?

I mean, I'm not sure exactly the rotor grinders. I mean, I know that the whole nature of grinding as it relates to nixtamal was around the turn of the century. 20th century, so like, early 1900s, the advent of electricity and it really was quite a quite a phenomenon, right? But

the animal powered like giant stone rotary Mills for like, a god they anyway, I don't think it's as ancient as they thought they might have some

skills like 400 years old tradition. Yeah,

I don't know. Yeah. Like I didn't bother looking it up. And that's not the kind of thing that I studied too much. But Nick civilization, you go back 1000s of years and you have pictures of you know, sculptures of you know, women on their knees on the ground leaning over the metadata, which is the grinding block and with the mono which is you know, hand writing. Boop, boop, granny, incredibly difficult work. Oh, my gosh, incredibly difficult would be impossible to do dry.

Yeah, not pleasant. You could, but why?

Right? Well, but like all of these amazing things that we love, chocolate, moly, right? Masa, right are all built around this idea of taking something paste like and over and over and over grinding it until it's very fine. Right? So you can't do that unless you do this process. externalization Yeah, basically. So mean do you want to go into kind of the nitty like, nitty gritty what you do take you take raw corn, you take an alkali, you want to describe the alkali that you use?

Yeah, I mean, calcium hydroxide is the most readily available. It's derived from calcium oxide. This isn't going to nail the science right now. Just wait. Calcium oxide, which then comes from limestone. It's calcified limestone. So you could use that you could use ash. I know that. Did you ever experiment with ash?

Yeah, we talked about it maybe 10 years, like right when you're starting, and I started I had a house in Connecticut at the time and I started saving. I started saving my ashes in a bucket. And then but I never I never never tasted right to me. Did you ever get a good one? You said we're getting really really good results. I don't know whether I was using the wrong word or I was just being impatient. I don't know. I never boiled it. And maybe that's what you need to do definitely

need to boil it. Yeah, it has like a nice campfire quality to it. Yeah, it was it's lovely. I do it again.

I'll try all that mean I don't have a source of wood ashes anymore I gotta get someone to send some to me but the you know, I mean, I do know from you know from later research that you know, up these parts when people were taking corn and making like whole soup and stuff like that. It was all it was all ashes and I'm assuming that because the thing I always wondered maybe you've done some research is is that a cow which is what you know, I think is universally used. So it's calcium hydroxide. Yeah, right. But like to make it from shells you need to heat To like astronomical temperature I tried, I wasn't able to do it in my house even with a blowtorch, right, because I made like a killing situation. But I gathered I think from reading your book, I don't think it was something else that there are natural deposits of it in Mexico. Is that true? Yeah.

I mean, definitely. I mean, all sorts of shells were used in mussel shells, you know, all throughout and all throughout North America as well. I mean, this isn't just limited to Mexico. Mesoamerica covered, you know, modern day Central America and parts of North America. I think what's interesting is the, you know, even what's it called thick, escaped dead. And if you've ever

tried, I've never had someone next to me who was like, This is what you're doing. You know what I mean? So hopefully, the book gets you there. Yeah. So I bought it. And then I was like,

yeah, it's more, it's used more now as sort of like a flavoring agent, but you can actually maximize corn with it. But I actually remember you had the only deep dive I could find on the internet, which is saying something. I mean, this is great. It was like 10 years ago, but like a more you did did a deep dive into customization where I think you did right, among other things. And I and I want to say you put calcium hydroxide in your mouth to taste it and burn, lie,

lie by mistake I ate so when we were packing up the French Culinary Institute. So like so my, I think the nixtamal post was right after Anastasia came on board, arrest us. And no, it was a couple of months after I came up compared to our relationship now. That's right after happy 13 years. He never acknowledged. Please, why would I acknowledge so much pain for both of us, not for me, both of us. So the reason I think that Anastasia, enjoyed working is because I was a cavalcade of idiocy, so I bought a what would you call that? Like? What's something that isn't meant to do anything? Like a fake like a tchotchke? What is that? tchotchke tchotchke remember, I bought I went to like a souvenir shop in on 100 and 16th street and like Lex, and I bought like a Matata? Yeah, like a show Matata? Now like a full KZ? Yeah, exactly. There you go. And it was like, it was like, I'm holding my hands. It was like a foot and something long, you know what I mean? And it was real rough. Like mocha hit a rough, right. And I was like, want done. And so I got it back to the French Culinary Institute. Remember this stuff? And I was like, this doesn't work. This sucks. And then slowly, I started grinding it with a grinder to kind of like try to like, imitate that. I've been using it for 30 years. Yeah. And then it's I still couldn't get it to work and then started you remember, you duct taped it to my back? Yeah, what else did I take home that I you duct tape like 100 pounds. I ship stuff to my back. And he refuses to take taxis. Oh my money.

Yeah. I mean, we don't know each other that well.

Yeah, I never I never got it to work and then bought a Corona. Oh my god, do they suck?

In fact, not the beer. Just tell you that

beer is fine. I mean, it's great. If you know if you if you you know want to drink Seltzer, but instead you want beer Corona is I know. Wow. It's the seltzer of the South. You don't you disagree?

I mean, it's, there's nostalgia there. For me. It was the first beer I tasted at the age of two. You know, like, you gotta you gotta there's a place for it. Yeah,

I guess. But then, you know, you move up to the especially All right, you get them? Yeah,

they're all owned by InBev. It doesn't matter. It's always I was gonna say it's all it's all the

same. All the same people anyway. So it's always been kind of grinding. That was the problem. But I was really struck. You know, because unlike, you know, you know, we were just testing out because there was nobody, there was only two Tyria nixtamal in in New York City that was at that time who was making they're doing the externalization. Yeah. And, you know, it was, it was just I didn't understand why there wasn't good. Why there weren't good tortillas here.

Am I saying I

didn't get it, but you actually did

something about it. Yeah, I mean, honestly, so I read your article at that time. I remember connecting I dropped off like six bags of corn. Oh, they're

great. I mix them all. Yeah, we next analyzed them. But then the problem is, is that like, it still is I bought the next ematic which I know you're not a huge fan of because you know the folks over Rancho Gordo. That's the one whatever. Yeah, whatever it takes. But I think in in your book, you gave the actual reasonable solution, by the way, if I hope somebody is listening to this that has money, because if you have money, right, just you you're bringing in a good grinder now we

we actually, we were inspired I was telling this to Stasi earlier we saw the series and I was like my god if they can make a sizzle and not kill anyone, you know, we can we can make a really, really heavy duty grinder and do the same thing. That's tabletop. So yeah, we made it's called when we need to. And it's it's kind of a revolution. The stones were pretty sick. They're real. Yeah, they're hand etched in Puebla. They're from a quarry there and it's legit. I mean, it's basically what used to be 10 grand, you know, and like require three phase electricity like you could not start any kind of nixtamal operation without a pretty significant you know, investment and it's not to say It's cheap, right? Like, we make it work.

But even like the like, I know people I think wasn't stupid that brought in like a grinder. He still paid a lot of money. But it wasn't it wasn't good for the US market. And so like, you have to like, Judge no jury rigged and all that. So

I don't I mean, that we had the same issue. It's like we had at that time is 2014, we had right around the corner from there. Rosies was opening up. Who else I mean, there was like a, it was just a moment 2014 There's so many places that were opening up and trying to do next of all, and now we had this source of corn, right, that they could all tap into. And I'll never forget like opening day, they're all of their all of their grinders went down like they just they didn't they weren't built to last, you know, so we spent a lot of time trying to figure that out because nobody could buy the corn we were offering if they didn't have the way to grind it.

Right. Right. Well, that's so how big are the stones on yours?

They're five inch stones. It's a countertop, I mean, it's the size of this little you know, this this interview table. It's about like it's like the size of a small microwave. And I mean, small microwave. It's like a 80 pounds though, because the stones?

Well, that's the thing, right? So I mean, the the issue with the mean, the next ematic the issue with the next dramatic is that the stones, they're not stones, they're steel plates, they're not as good. I think you can get a stone. I've never actually seen it, but I've heard you can get a stone afterwards. I've never seen I haven't seen it and the motor is troublesome. The motor will I burnt it out, it somehow came back to life once I don't know how I got it to come back to life, but grinding it. Okay, so. So you gotta mentally separate people between like a single pass grinding situation which moss is either single or double, but it's not continuous, right? The way you're grinding it by machine, whereas traditionally, it was attrition grinding over time. So like the woman would would grind and pull back and same thing again. And again. She got multiple cracks at it, right. And it backbreaking labor. Yeah. But in a single pass or double pass situation. You have to put a lot of power into it. But yeah, yeah, it sees a real motor not like a garbage can motor you need like a real motor. And that's I think we're probably a lot of the money is right is the motor and the stone to make it.

Yeah, I mean, stainless steel ain't cheap. You know, inflation. That's crazy.

Yeah. Oh, my God. So you know, so how many pounds an hour? How do you rate

it? It's about 60 pounds and masa an hour, which is, which is I mean, like, for all things good. We had a party there last night. Thanks for coming, Dave. Great to see you.

I was I was I was working another party. You know, how was working? I wasn't working unless they're like by his bar. I was really worried. I wasn't going to a party. I was working it. I was behind the bar.

Thank you, Joe. Yeah, but we were I mean, it was what we're even talking about. You didn't come to the party. One of the one of the things

I've been talking about how much power

it's about 60. So for all things good. You know, that was one of the we did a class in 2019. Just before the pandemic, Matt Diaz came over his partner, Carlos. They hadn't quite launched the restaurant yet. And like, it helped launch their restaurant. Now they've got another restaurant in Williamsburg. And it's like, this has been a recurring story across the country in the world. Like everybody is now opening up a restaurant and diving deeper into it because it's such an accessible piece of equipment. Yeah, well,

and okay, so I know this is gonna sound ridiculous to people who are at home but for $1,800 If you're building a program around masa by three, yeah, used to Yeah, by three have the spare and then I'm sure you'll fix it. If there's ever a problem and then they get it fixed, then that's how that's how you do a program. That's the whole thing with the centrifuge to you make it cheap enough to the restaurant can buy three us two, right? It's like no one, you know, no one's like, well, I guess we're going to show the voter perhaps broke. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, and I think if people don't get as it you know, when you're selling something hits Nish, it costs a lot more, but it looks beefy. As as all hell it's a little it's a lot for a home to have.

You know, I was surprised like, there are a lot of home cooks who've been buying it, you know, and it Look, just to go back. If you are home cook, I actually I've been corrected. I put out there. And of course, the tribe responded and was really, really quite upset about it. You can get a puff a tortilla puff from a hand grinder with one pass in a Corona in a Corona or Victoria. Yeah, you can do it.

All the same molds, right. They're all the same. They're all out of Colombia strangely.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe like by Wait, yeah. By way of Colombia from China. Probably. Yeah.

Pass through Colombia.

Just like the Chili's.

Yeah. You did it. You did okay. Listen, I had we had a group. We had a we had a an intern who ended up going to work at French Laundry and then opened his own place in winters. He was in Taiwan or Hong Kong and can't remember and we had a Corona hand grinder at my house, and we had all the interns from the SEI come over. And we were doing masa for like, what was that like? 30 people? Yeah, yeah. And hand right. And interns injured and he was the only guy he just stood there going Weighing at it like it, how many hours? How many hours? Was he grinding that that Corona? If you want to make one tortilla, I'm sure you can get the corona to work. If you break it in forever. That's nothing. I'm sure your thing comes ready to grind out of the box, right? You betcha. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing like even the next ematic it takes a lot of wear down to get the things to work properly. Yeah,

I didn't think I'm really happy. We're plugging Molly. Anita today. It was totally unexpected. Thank you. Well, it's the

it's the problem. So the other solution that you pose in your book to grinding and I guess, today, we're out today. Oh, today, congratulations.

Happy. September 13 is Hispanic Heritage Month, which is why we're here. That's right. You couldn't come to the party. But you did want to make sure we celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month in the right way. So you came Correct.

I did. Yeah. I was. I was really thinking about that. A lot. No, I just I saw you're coming out with a book. And I was like, Holy crap. We haven't talked in a long time. And obviously, it's a subject I love. Let me back up one second. So when you Nick symbolize right, they needed to grind, right. And so when you you, steeping it with the alkalis doing is softening the outside of the of the corn because it's hard, right? Yeah. And also turning it into this amazing goo. Yeah, it takes the place of gluten, right? That along with the fact that you're partially cooking some of the starch and so that also holds water. So that's why masa, when you grind it is, you know, stiff, but it has a lot of water. And if you grind fine enough, that's why it can puff you need, you need to need to hold enough water but still be stiff enough, right? That it it does depuff now you make a bunch of interesting kinds of things you have like a table tortilla versus a like a frying tortilla versus all these different things, it basically comes down to texture, you want to talk about those, like grind styles, how many easier to make one as opposed to the other

totally. And for anyone who's listening, I do think that like the meat of this book, you're gonna want to do the colonel Tomasa process, it's like a lot of people have been talking about this book sort of reminds them of Tartine bakery and that like 40 Page country loaf approach, like, we go deep on that, too, though, you have to otherwise, like, you just don't know, the variables that you're playing with here. But yeah, there's two. And this is sort of more of a product of like modern day, you know, industrialization of food we work with, you know, at the very sort of beginning of the supply chain farmers families who have been doing this and open air beautiful, you know, Komal fueled kitchens for a long time. And then we also work with tortillas around the country. And in fact, el milagro, which is one of the biggest in the country that really kind of still does things this traditional way at a huge scale. Billions of tortillas made, you know, the old fashioned way a year. They were you know, the first time I went over there to ask them if they'd make a tortilla for us for this whole foods thing we were doing. He's like, Yeah, what kind of tortilla you want to have like 180 recipes for tortillas. Sounds like for corn tortilla like what could be so different. And he kind of just broke it down along to kind of a very, very basic like binary system, you have a table tortilla, which is the kind of puffs usually, it's soft, it's like, as the name implies, it's meant to kind of be shared around the table, you make a taco out of it. If you're Mexican, you will not start a meal until that's on the table. Like it's like utensils, you know, and then you've got a fried tortilla, you know, which is really it's it's low moisture, so that it can it can just fry and crisp up really nicely. And it kind of a more coarse texture, which sort of helps with that moisture issue. So that it has like just a nice snap to it. And I think that that was basically just trying to replicate at the end of the day a stale tortilla, right like steel tortillas just like loses a little bit of moisture, it's kind of cracking a little bit.

Those are easier to grind for people though, was that like the coarser wants to fry once you're easier as your first thing to try to make although it's not as worth it, because once you fry it it's not it's not the Godsend thing. My

first tortilla was garbage, you know, but like there was some magic and having gone through that whole process and realizing this is it like you're close, you know, like, you can see that the flavor at least to develop the texture,

right? That's a good way to put it because as soon as you start boiling it and you pick it up out of this soaking solution, you're like, oh,

it's wild. Yeah, it's magic. It literally is alchemy. You know, so I think not literally it's not turning to gold. Yeah, but actually it does it kind of starts glowing. It's like a whole new color to it. But yeah,

okay, so I'll just say this. Don't let that quipment hold you back in the in the book you get very good instructions and you're also like You're like listen, just get to it how you can get to it, you know what I mean? And so the food processor, obviously the problem with it is the grinds to wet and so you're like listen, just add a little masa Halina to it to get the texture back where it needs to be

you could do the oven but like just just cut it with some good muscle you know you know if we're going to do it by as a muscle in the muscle you know, which we also offer but there you go.

Yeah, well that's so like so you offer that you also you see you have a collaboration with Hayden flour mills. Yeah, we didn't know did a 5050

You know, just a taste. I

haven't tried that yet. It

seems great. Some people are confused by it. You know, I was talking to Rick Bayless. He's like, I appreciate it. I just I want one or the other lard in it too. I put a little bit of coconut milk coconut if like coconut oil depending on what I've got. Sen throw I can use sometimes too, but yes I'm kind of fat, your call.

Right? Right. It's as much fat as I would put into a flour tortilla. Because that's a great week for straight flour tortillas. It's

great. Like, it really is a perfect mashup of like to have, you know, the world's greatest grains. You know, when I

wrote The that original, like years ago that Nixon while I got a smackdown from a bunch of people from that area, all the way up to like, you know, the old you know, how, like, you know how like, old Mexican culture goes all the way to like Colorado basic. Yes, Southern Colorado. So one of my good friends is from that culture, and he's like, he's like, he's like, flour tortillas aren't tortillas? He's like, they're good. My family's been making the film. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Suck it. I was like, sorry, man. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, the flour tortillas we get in the supermarket are not good, you know, compared to compared to like, anyone that his grandma Of course,

of course, yeah. But like, you know, I think what I go into this book, it's like you understand once you understand the history, like there's a there's a place for this stuff. Convenience, has helped us all, you know, navigate having kids, you know, make more time, like we just went a little too far in that direction. So it's just good to kind of reconnect with, like, the true essence of what these foods are, you know, which is, which is tradition.

And I think corn tortillas, the ones that we typically eat are more more even debased in the flour tortillas are

i Yeah, they they're both pretty good. Both pretty, pretty bad.

Yeah. So when you make masa How long do you think you can keep it before you have to make a tortilla within have it be good because you used to buy the used to buy the masa right? When you were a kid growing up, you could buy the masa?

Yes, it depends. I mean, like a lot of folks will put, you know, additional cow and it which acts as a natural preservative. It's a basic agent. So you know, Mexico City, for example, what I noticed about the masa there is that there's a lot more calcium hydroxide, it usually has a little bit more that yellow tint as a result, and it's it tastes more like cow, but it does kind of extend that shelf life. You know, if maybe if it's just like masa unrefrigerated maybe for like 12 hours, but if not, it's it's high moisture, right? So maybe 75% moisture, and it's going to it's going to ferment really quickly. So you got to put in a refrigerator, but like any starch, it starts to degrade, you know, so it really is something you want to enjoy as soon as possible, especially if you're going through all that effort, you know?

Yeah, have you noticed that? Like, as people start doing their own stuff, they tend to overkill it, just to prove that they've killed it. Yeah,

let's just let's get this out of the way 1% Calcium hydroxide to corn is a foolproof way it's going to give you the the flavor of the corn that you want, it's going to really, really kind of accentuate it in all the right ways. It's going to be the perfect balance, so that it's not going too overboard tasting too much like calcium hydroxide, which can taste like bile, you know, when it's overdone, it's

unpleasant.

It's really not not tasty.

What do you think about the idea, and you mentioned a little bit about starting with blue varieties, just so you get a feeling for the pH because you can get used it as a color test. Do you like that?

I think it's super cool. I mean, I do, there's a page in the book where I kind of show you like if you go too much in either direction, in either the acidic or the basic range, like you just get the totally different color, like it's a huge lever for color. So you got to be careful to really kind of treat that nicely. But you start to actually also realize that a lot of these colors that you see on the on the store shelves that are not refrigerated, that are just sort of sitting there for months at a time, like those are all manipulated with like, acids, you know, like bleach, basically, which is

it look, if you've ever done it yourself, it's like it's kind of crazy and addictive. And it makes you sad when you look at a storm. But so, you so you put the corn with it with the cow, you bring it up to the boil. And now when when am I pulling it out? What do you like to look for, for when it's done?

Like a nice authentic quality through it? And like Italian identity sense? Not American sense, you know, right? Well, you

don't want it all the way through, there's still some starchy stuff in the center, right? Because it's going to it's going to create

kind of like this mortar, you know, like a cow actually is used as a mortar agent, right? Like it's used in segments and things like that. And it kind of has that same property when it comes to externalization. It's a binding agent, it through a process called crosslinking. Which again, those 40 pages you'll go you'll go deep into you I'm sure

well so when you're picking it up so cuz here's the thing, I think that it's easy to to mess up because I do think it makes some people have always like, what can I pressure cook? And I'm like, No, it doesn't really know. And they're trying to get a good I love pressure cookers but I wasn't able to get a decent repeatable result but because it's you don't really want to just take it to where it is. And then pull it right away, which is kind of the way pressure cooker stuff works. You want to cook it for not that long. I forget what I usually would do, but then you have to let it ride. You have to let it sit out. So the trick is right. How do you figure out when to stop it so that the carryover on the soak is the right amount? Like what's your what's your

Yeah, I mean, I honestly I go to the point where it's like it's still has a little bit of granularity in the center and actually took some photos of like the actual perfect Goldilocks state Yes.

And beautiful cross section of corn as well.

It's not fit for the show right now. Yeah. I heard this as a family. Yeah.

So I was I saw that corn. I was like,

oh, yeah, cool. And the photographers are like, Why are we doing this shot? I was like, just my Pete. For me, it's like,

I mean people. You got to buy it just for the corn crossing. Yes. And the different states. Yeah, you should have made it so that it folds out.

I a publisher, publisher,

Mecca next the next go around. I mean, like, you know, stars. We looked at this yet. No, I was like, Oh, wow.

All right. So can you for anyone who's going to end up buying this book? Please buy it wherever books are sold. Why to kitchen Arts and Letters? Yeah, I mean, I was gonna say I stopped by and that is just the loveliest. He's been. Thank you. Hey, Matt. But yeah, I think what's interesting if anybody can find some of the errors, you know, this happens in any cookbook, please let me know. We'll give you a millennial.

Don't do that. Don't do that. No, take it back. Right now. Take it back right now. No, cuz they're gonna find some little thing. You miss ways that come on, we should learn.

No, no, no, no, like syntax. no punctuation, just like true fact. Air. Let me know. Okay. Yeah.

Listen. He doesn't guarantee that it's going to be new. It's going to be when he scraped off.

It'll be the prototype. Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay.

So and then, like, do you on the first cook? Do you need that stuff to fully slip off when you pick it up? Like, yeah,

you definitely want to make sure that the the skins are coming off. So like the there is there are actually scientific like temperatures and sort of times that you can look at, which actually really depend on the size of the cook like you're doing at home is gonna be very different than a 2000 foot cooking a 2000 pound cooking tank at a tortilla area. So there are differences, but there is kind of like a sweet spot that I talked about. I think without going too much into kind of a technical piece, just if the skins are sliding off and it's starting to taste like a tortilla. That's when I turn it off. Okay, and like imagine that it's going to cook for another 10% Unless you shock it in ice, which is something actually the coasts May was eager to do in the early days.

I used to do it when I effed up. Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. Tell them I throw this stuff in, you know, I mean, yeah. And then how long do you let it soak?

You know? tortilleria will do it for like, honestly, four hours because that there's so much residual heat. That's, that's sitting in there. And it kind of accelerates that process. I do it now. Leave it overnight. I don't really think about it. Honestly. I mean, I make it's convenient, overnights, convenient. The science just kind of happens to

now here's the thing, here's where it gets, here's where it gets away. How much do you rub and rinse? Because to me, that's the thing. That's the whole thing. Besides from the grinding?

Yeah, yeah. How much do you rub, rub and grind? This is getting off off the rails right now. You know, I think like, it depends, there's so much because corn is not made of gluten in any way, you really have to make sure that you're controlling the skins that are that are kind of loosening in that process. And that kind of they are loosening in that process. I do about a 50% Wash off rate, right? Because you want to have some of those skins, it's where the natural gums of the corner, they're going to be what helps bind all of these different kinds of the sort of the network structure of masa together, it's really kind of the glue of it.

More people tend to over rinse and more. People wash

it clean, because they think that like you know, because it's fun, you're just like, right?

Are they like a scab? You're gonna they're gonna make soup out of it or something. Yeah, scab and soup. Sorry. Okay, so like you rinse, and then the grinding so for the average home person who when they're just starting, they should probably don't do it and avoid it. Don't do it. If it makes people Yeah, food processor. small batches long, long time.

Yeah, food processor. You could do it for a long, long time. And you got to put a ton of water in there to actually let it spin. I mean, truly the Viktoria? Like I'm I'm now a convert. It's like the only reason we even sell it is because somebody was like, I look at the pump I'm getting on. It's like a detailing time. How many times did you roll that through? Once one? I

don't know, man, I don't believe it gave you okay,

I've done it. I'll see it. Okay, for like

two tortillas. Great. Have you people What about the meat grinder people

you know, people do it I haven't experienced I've done it out of a meat grinder and it was really not very tasty but like I think where there's a will there's a way whatever you can do to connect with this food in a more kind of deep meaningful level and like appreciate how much work goes into an actually really thoughtfully made tortilla. I don't I don't care how you do it. You know at the end of the day,

right here so here's a bullet. What I was

like a bullet like how you know that takes longer than it Yeah,

yeah. That point just you know get a cup and a mallet the the one that I did that the problem is it's still more equipment is I did it in one of the like, the elite grinders like the wet like you know, the ones that they used for for chocolate now. Yeah, like in Malaysia. Yeah. So you know, you blitz it in the food processor. You

have to pretreat it. Yeah, I made that mistake. Yeah, it's just like rolling.

You can't you can't like it can't go from corn to masa. But if you get it to that pre grind, you can do it pretty stiff. Yeah. And then for like hours, yeah, it mimics you know someone on limitata in many ways, so that's still the thing, but don't let that stop you from getting the book. But here's the cool thing, because unlike when I was doing those experiments, and you couldn't get decent corn. Now you Get God's corn, you want to talk about the different flavors of the corn and I gotta get some questions just like what people can look for in the like, because I think they're like, What am I gonna go? I'm not gonna go like white, yellow, or blue. That's all they're thinking to talk about, like, just like the variance in the corn what it does, that's what it is.

Yeah, I mean, I think that first moment, I realized that there was something really exceptional about corn. And you know, in the same way we think about tomatoes, or wheat or whatever, it's, you know, there was a farmer that I worked with him Wahaca and the very beginning and he were joined by an agronomist, he said, to take a bite of a kernel raw kernel, which is like, not exactly palatable. At that point. My dentists would really have a problem with this, take a bite of it. He's like, What do you taste and it was a yellow, really, really vibrant yellow corn. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, I don't have a sophisticated palate, just to be clear. So this is not me like waxing poetic. This is genuinely what a really unsophisticated person tasted, in that moment, it was like carrots and butternut squash. Like, yeah, beta carotene is something that is found in both this and, you know, butternut squash and carrots. It's like, Oh, my God, you know, like, it was a it was a revelation like there when you are not breeding something out of what sort of is naturally sort of imbued in this corn to begin with, for the purposes of yield, or, you know, shelf stability or whatever, you have an amazing array of flavors. So that was like my entry point. But every every variety has its own kind of distinct flavor. But also texture is really important. I think that's sort of to me, the one that I would start with is like, you know, is it a really, is it a really light starch? Is it something that's going to create a really airy tortilla, you know, the Bolita, that the variety that I first tried, which is what our yellow Medina is made of, is, you know, it's incredibly dense. And it actually is the only corn I've seen that can support those 14 inch value, those that you see in Wahaca, and specifically that Central Valley. And what's cool is you start to understand, like, that's why all of these tortillas throughout Mexico, Central America look different, they taste different, because the corn is different. And so it's, you know, we could go out, it's like 1000s of varieties of corn to choose from, but, you know, we offer about 20 on our site at any given time, and if you are not wanting to go through the kernel Tomasi process, there's no judgement, we, you can approach every recipe in this book with my sadena as well. And honestly, to me, there, it's never been a better time to kind of explored any editing angle at any level. You know, all that moss has to offer. You brought out a press too, right? Yeah, you know, so we were bringing out KOSPI, actually, they would ask us to bring back we gifted them a press from Wahaca