Talk:Masa

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The primary way masa is made (in Central America at least) is directly from corn boiled with lime. Making masa from masa harina is considered inferior, much as one might consider instant potatoes or powdered milk to be an inferior product to the "real thing". I added pupusas to the list of foods made with masa.

See Tortillas a mano: One cook's quest for fresh tortillas leads her to learn the art of making them at home' for a citation. RiFraS

[edit] Molino

"Masa nixtamalera is maize dough, made from corn boiled with lime and ground in a molino (a mill dedicated to that purpose)[1] or on a metate (flat grinding stone). Thus, it is made from wet hominy, reduced to a dough by grinding, and not from corn flour."

Is molino a millstone, or a gristmill, or some other type of mill. BlankVerse 11:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Commercially, nixtamal is made with an electrically powered mill, much like a meat grinder. I will add an external link, with pictures, to this article. At home, an ordinary sausage grinder works quite well.
Wugo 14:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
It looks like Mill (grinding) is the closest I can find from the mill disambiguation page, but from what I can remember from looking at some of the other mill articles, I think that there are several more food mill articles that need to be added to the mill page. I'll leave that task to one of the more ambitious members of WikiProject Disambiguation. ;-) BlankVerse 15:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lime and Lime

Nice article so far. But I wonder if some explanation should be added so that readers unfamiliar with Masa and corn-flour based foods understand that the "lime" being referred to is not the citrus fruit (which happens to also figure prominently in some americanized versions of "Mexican" food). The typical reader might not immediately associate "lime" with the chemical that is added to the masa. The confusion might arise because lime is in some ways unique to this cuisine; many readers might know lime better from its industrial applications (a box of lime is usually kept handy when welding, for example, because it has good thermal properties).

Also, in one of the opening passages, there's a reference to the benefits of lime. But the specific benefits (mainly nutrition, taste) aren't really explained until much later in the article. C d h 13:53, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

C d h, When lime is first mentioned it is linked internally to calcium hydroxide. That should be enough to distinguish from the fruit. Wugo 17:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)