Tortilla
Tortilla is the name of a town in Northern Mexico. The ubiquitous Mexican flatbread takes its name from this town.
Tortilla, Mexico[edit]
Tortilla (pop. 5,822 (2004)) is a town in Baja California Sur, Mexico. The town is named after Tortilla Barilla Catrina Samina "La Niña" Gutiérrez.
The town was founded in 1842 after turmoil in the neighboring town, Chimichanga, led to an implosion at the corn mines that employ many of its workers. Today, such an implosion would propel hundreds of Mexicans northward into the namesake U.S. state of California.
The pride of the town is the fountain. A sculpture in the center of the fountain features a jackrabbit doing the cha-cha with David Bowie. Municipal officials claim their predecessors specified a sculpture of the seal in the middle of the national flag, where a vulture does business with a rattlesnake, but the sculptor under contract claimed he had exercised "creative license."
Tortillas[edit]
A tortilla is also the Mexican bread, made of corn or wheat flour. A Super-ball-sized ball of dough is flattened and then fried on a griddle or stove-top. This makes it adequately greasy for Mexicans to eat. Depending on how much grease is available, the tortilla may be rigid and brittle, or it may be floppy. This determines whether the tortilla will break or tear. Either way, the tortilla's destiny is to disintegrate in the hands and disgorge a variety of tasty fillings into the wearer's diner's lap.
Long before the United States dallied with declaring health care a human right, Mexico declared tortillas a human right. Consequently, every few blocks in Mexican cities is a stand where residents of the neighborhood can pick up subsidized tortillas. The more you eat, the cheaper it is--except when There Isn't Any. The price never rises, because such an act would have to be voted on by the Mexican Congress and would be made out as an attempt to starve the poor.
If your Mexican host offers you a grilled-cheese sandwich (sanguche), the different concept of bread means that what you will get is a quesadilla. (This is a damn sight better than in England, where candies that seem to be of grape flavor turn out to taste like black currants.) Oddly, when Mexicans arrive in the United States and encounter bread in loaves, they know exactly what to do with it: Bitch about the price.