Tortilla

Masa is sweet and blunt. Every taquero puts a wedge on the plate for a reason.

Raw green over charred corn. Chopped with onion, nothing else needed.

Marinated, spit-roasted, shaved onto hot corn with the fat still running.

Green acid salsa against toasted alkaline corn: the whole pH argument again.

Refried in lard, smeared on. Starch, pulse, fat: the complete cheap plate.

Nixtamalised corn and cooked pulse make a complete protein. Also they taste right.

Grilled and chopped small so the corn stays the structural element.

Smoked chilli and char from the comal are the same note twice over.

Pickled pink in lime, it does the acid and the crunch in one move.

Fried briefly, it turns pliable to crisp. Every tostada starts here.

Green grassy heat sits closer to raw corn than any dried chilli does.

Toasted and blended into the braise; fruity heat soaks into the corn from inside.

Bromelain and sugar against pork fat. The char on both is the link.

Standing in for queso fresco: salt and crumble, no melt wanted.

Grilled cactus is sour and slippery, which is exactly what dry corn wants.

Roasted and spooned straight onto the tortilla. Fat with no structure of its own.

Mole is bitter bean thickening chilli, and the corn takes it without sweetening.

Both were held over fire. Shared phenols, and neither one hides it.

Braise the spent calyces; they shred like meat and keep every bit of the sour.

Baja does it with a tostada: iodine cream on alkaline corn, salt in between.