The Corn in a Tortilla Is Different from Corn on the Cob

Sweet corn varieties are grown for the sweetness and tenderness we enjoy fresh. They are picked at the milk stage, when the developing kernels are filled with milky liquid. That is the stage behind the juicy bite of a freshly cooked ear.

Timing matters because the kernels continue to change as they mature. The grower is looking for the moment when the corn is ready for that particular eating experience. At the table, we meet the result as a vegetable: an ear to hold in both hands, kernels tossed into a salad, or a spoonful of corn alongside the rest of dinner.

The variety matters, too. Letting sweet corn dry does not turn it into a different type of corn. To understand the grain that becomes a tortilla, we need to consider what was planted as well as when it was picked.

Picture a bowl of dried corn kernels. They are firm, separate pieces of grain, quite different to handle from the juicy kernels you cut from a fresh ear. This is the starting point for traditional corn masa.

Corn grown for grain is allowed to mature, developing the starch-rich kernels that will be gathered and dried. The harvest can then become the beginning of many foods. Cornmeal, grits, and the grain prepared for masa all belong to this wider part of corn's life in the kitchen.

You may hear dent corn called “field corn.” That name can make it sound distant from dinner, but its uses include familiar foods. The useful question is what the grain is suited to and how it will be prepared.

For the two foods we started with, the difference looks like this:

Within grain corn, there is plenty of variety. Names such as dent, flint, and flour corn describe characteristics of the kernels and help explain their different uses.

Dent corn develops a small indentation at the top of the kernel as it dries. The softer starch in its center shrinks, leaving the dent that gives it its name. It is one of the corn types used to make masa.

Flint corn has a harder kernel structure surrounding a smaller portion of soft starch. It can also be prepared for masa. Flour corn has a largely soft, starchy interior and grinds readily; its culinary uses include tortillas. Here, “flour corn” names a type of corn, rather than the prepared flour called masa harina.

These names help us begin to understand the ingredient. A tortilla maker gets to know it further through preparation: how the kernels cook, how they grind, and how the resulting dough feels. The qualities of the grain and the work done with it meet in the finished tortilla.

At Vermont Tortilla Company, we begin this work by cooking whole corn with water and food-grade lime, then allowing it to steep. The preparation is called nixtamalization, a technique with deep roots in Mesoamerican food traditions.

During cooking and steeping, the kernels soften and their outer covering loosens. After washing, we stone-grind the prepared corn into fresh masa. What began as separate, firm kernels has become moist dough that can be formed and cooked.

That preparation explains why a bag of ordinary cornmeal and a portion of fresh masa behave differently in the kitchen. Cornmeal comes from milling dried corn. Masa has gone through the additional cooking and alkaline treatment that makes it suitable for this kind of tortilla making. Our guide to fresh masa, masa harina, and cornmeal takes a closer look at those ingredients.

Now the tortilla becomes easier to picture. The corn has been prepared, the masa is ready, and the dough can be shaped into rounds. Cooking brings those rounds to the food we recognize: a tortilla with its own aroma, texture, and flavor, ready to become part of a meal.

Our corn comes from Adirondack Hay and Grains in Essex, New York. We turn that whole organic grain into tortillas in Essex, Vermont. The shared town name is a small pleasure in a relationship that connects the field to our daily work.

Our story of the two Essexes introduces the people behind that connection. Here, it gives the ingredient a place we can name. The corn arriving at our door carries the grower's work into the next part of its preparation.

Working from whole kernels lets us carry the corn through cooking, steeping, washing, and grinding into fresh masa. We follow that with forming and cooking the tortillas, keeping the finished food in mind throughout. You can see those stages in our tortilla-making process.

We begin with corn because we want its flavor to have a place in the meal. Even once the tortilla is filled, its corn flavor belongs alongside everything tucked inside.