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Tortillas are the soul of Mexican cooking

At top, the finished product, tortillas made by hand by Elena Salvatores of Restaurant Macri in Barra de Colotepec. Middle, Elena forms the masa into balls before pressing them flat in the tortilla press. Bottom, tortillas cooking on the wood-fired comal.

BY THE TIME OF COLUMBUS, there were at least 150 plants domesticated in the New World. It's hard to conceive of a world without corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, chilis, peppers, potatoes, peanuts, pineapples, avocados, papaya, not to mention chocolate, tobacco, chewing gum, rubber and cochineal. These are just some of the wonders that Europeans found in America and which changed their world.

Finally acknowledged as one of the great cuisines of the world, Mexican cooking must also rank as one of the oldest. By 2000 B.C., the Meso America societies were primarily agricultural, but 5,000 years earlier, the hunter-gatherers had began cultivating the crops which remain the staples of the Mexican diet today.

Nothing represents the soul of Mexican cooking more than the tortilla. As old as Mexico itself, the tortilla is versatile enough to define most facets of the cuisine.

Used fresh, stale, or dried to a crisp, the essential tortilla begins as corn kernels briefly cooked in a solution of slaked lime and water, then left to soak until they are soft enough to be ground to a smooth dough, or masa.

The tortilla is formed by hand, press or machine and cooked on a hot, ungreased griddle, comal, until slightly speckled with brown, but still soft and pliable. At this point, it is eaten as a bread, or used as an edible spoon.

Wrapped around small pieces of meat, vegetables, or cheese, it becomes a taco in its simplest form. Slightly stale, cut into triangles and fried crisp, it becomes a scoop - totópo or tostadita - for guacamole or fried beans.

Stale and dried, cut into pieces and lightly fried, tossed into a sauce and garnished lavishly, it becomes chilaquiles - literally, pieces of broken up old sombrero. Or, use like pasta in a casserole; as the basis for a dry soup (sopa seca) or a pudding (budín).

Whole tortillas can be fried flat and covered with a paste of fried beans, topped with meat and salad to become an edible plate - a tostada.

Even when the tortilla is dried out to a crisp, it can be ground to a rough textured meal and moistened to form a dough for little round, fat cakes - gordas, sopes or chalupas, or savory balls - bolitos - to drop into soup. Then, to take the tortilla at every stage, the raw corn dough can be used alone, or mixed with cheese, potatoes or chiles, and transformed to produce any of the antojitos (little fancies or snacks) such as quesadillas or empanadas.

Oaxaca is justly renowned for its antojitos. You will see these snacks almost everywhere. They are almost invariably made of masa (corn dough) stuffed or topped with cheese, beans, salsas, meat, potatoes, etc. Unlike the greasy antojitos of other parts of Mexico, a majority of those made in Oaxaca are cooked on an ungreased griddle, a comal, not fried.

The most traditionally Oaxacan, and one of the most popular, of these delicious snacks, is called a tlayuda. This is a giant tortilla prepared like a Mexican pizza. Others are sopes, chalupas, picadas, molotes, tostadas and empanadas.

Tacos are also popular here, but most taquerías (taco shops) have a variety of tacos with fanciful names such as alambre (wire), sincronizadas (synchronized), gringas, mula terca (stubborn mule), among others.

Most taquerías also serve pozole, a hearty pork or sometimes chicken based soup with tender hominy corn and other vegetables. It's served fairly bland with a plate of seasonings that you add according to your taste: onions, oregano, lime, chili, chili powder.

How corny can you get?

• atole: a sweetish corn gruel
• chalupas or huaraches: oval-shaped tortilla dough topped with cheese and sauce
• champurrado: chocolate-flavored atole
• chilaquiles: pieces of day-old tortilla, fried and tossed in a rich sauce and garnished with various toppings.
• elote: ear of corn
• enchilada: sauteed tortillas filled and drenched in chili sauce.
• empanada: turnover, corn dough stuffed with sweet or savory filling and fried or baked
• flautas: torillas, tightly rolled around a meat filling, then fried.
• gordas: fat, round and stuffed tortilla dough
• molotes: corn dough stuffed with potato and chorizo deep-fried and topped with beans, cheese and salsa
• pozole: rich, satisfying soup made from either pork or chicken and hominy corn.
• quesadilla: tortilla filled with cheese, and sometimes other ingredients, and melted on the comal
• sincronizadas: 2 flour tortillas stuffed with cheese and ham
• sopes: small gorda, with pinched edge, various toppings plus lettuce, cheese and cream
• tacos al pastor: tacos filled with meat carved from grilled slices of tender beef or pork, often garnished with pineapple
• tamales: corn dough stuffed and steamed in banana or corn leaves
• tlayudas: large corn tortilla cooked on a charcoal grill to a chewy texture and topped with beans, tasajo, pork, cheese and sauce
• tostada: crunchy tortilla with choice of toppings
• totopo or tostadita: tostada cut into sections

—Warren Sharpe