Cooking in Comunidad Copapayo

Rosa's family oven.  Her mom bakes killer sweet bread each meal.  It's made from their corn or rice, sugar, and water.  Simple ingredient list but complex flavor!  Love it!  Interestingly, they serve it with sugar-saturated coffee or orange soda.

This is where we cooked our dinner.  Sanitary enough for your restaurant?

Our beating the dry kernels off the cob, we were left with this.

And threw them behind the oven, here, for the free range chickens and pig who wonder their way around the house/yard.

First we dried the kernels more on the cement patio and in the sun.  Then we boiled the kernels in water and let them soak for hours to do away with the rough part of the kernel.  Then we washed the kernels and strained their tough shells out.  We let the kernels cool.

Then Rosa's sisters Morena and Marisol ground the kernals on this rock slab and with the rock to the left.  They used the orange wacal to transport water from the pila to the grounds and made masa.

We used bits of masa to make Salvadoran tortillas, which are much thicker than the ones we are used to.  Their diameter is similar to that of a corn tortilla though.  Rosa's sisters crafted them in perfect circles and quickly, without focusing.  Mine were feo (ugly) and I was diligent.  Oh well, I guess I need to practice.  Oh!  This is their grill on which we cooked the tortillas!