This Detroit Taco Truck and Urban Farm Are Joining Forces to Spotlight Masa #DetroitFood
Learn how to make the most of this harvest season, from preserving and nixtamalizing corn to making tortillas
Earlier this year, Diana Gomez, owner of Eater Award-winning norteño-style taco truck Tacos Hernandez, embarked on a journey to learn the ancient method of nixtamalization used to make handmade corn tortillas. Come Saturday, October 12, Gomez will join Rosebud Bear Schneider, a farmer, producer, and community organizer with the nonprofit food sovereignty organization Keep Growing Detroit to explore Indigenous farming techniques for home gardeners and cooks alike.
In this hands-on workshop, visitors can familiarize themselves with the Three Sisters planting method — a practice adopted by Native Americans some 3,000 years ago that calls for planting corn, beans, and squash together in groups to assist in nourishing soil and promote a self-sustaining ecosystem. In addition, Gomez will lead a demonstration about nixtamalization — the traditional process used by pre-Hispanic peoples like the Aztecs and the Maya — that transforms dried corn kernels into masa. Using flint corn grown on the Keep Growing Detroit farm in Eastern Market, Gomez will recreate the process for participants.
This spring, Gomez worked with Rachel Nahan, co-founder of the east side Crane Street Garden, to plant hundreds of stalks of heirloom dent corn in a variety called tuxapeño — utilizing a practice similar to Three Sisters — with the hope that she would be able to use the harvest for tortillas. Since launching her food truck in 2022, Gomez has been making her own flour and corn tortillas, the latter of which have been prepared by using masa harina produced by Maseca — a convenience product invented decades ago by tortilla manufacturing company Gruma to dehydrate corn dough into flour. Critics of tortillas made with Maseca say the final product lacks in taste and texture; however, its invention has allowed thousands of independent cooks, who may not have had access to nixtamalization training, mentorship, or resources, to launch their own businesses.
Schneider has been involved in the Indigenous food sovereignty space for 15 years, having worked as a farmer and nutrition educator with Sacred Roots, a project of American Indian Family Health and Family Services; a community health worker and home visitor with Healthy Start and WIC; and a market manager, farmer, and food producer for Mackinaw City-based tribally owned Indigenous food hub called Minogin and Ziibimijwang. Schneider is an enrolled Citizen of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and a recognized descendant of the Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewas and Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and Purepecha peoples.
Schneider tells Eater that the October 12 event is the third in a series of presentations on the Three Sisters method, the first two sessions having been focused on planting corn, followed by beans and squash. “This class is meant to showcase what happens after we harvest everything,” she says. Participants will also learn the basics behind the art of corn braiding.
Gomez and Schneider are among a growing number of individuals throughout North America who are turning to Indigenous growing and food preservation practices such as Three Sisters and nixtamalization as means to combat cultural erasure and create a more sustainable food system in light of the rapidly growing impacts of climate change. The work is being highlighted in restaurants, molinos, and bakeries across the country, with chefs increasingly embracing nixtamalization, sourcing ingredients from Indigenous communities in parts of Mexico and Central America, and working with food producers stateside to grow crops like heirloom corn for restaurant use.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, as a heightened awareness around the gaps in the U.S.’s food systems emerged, Schneider says she also witnessed a growing community interested in local food sovereignty to build resilient food systems close to home. Part of this work, she says, is also about unlearning the harmful effects of colonialism.
“I really want to continue to create more spaces that celebrate foodways,” says Schneider. “Our grandparents unlearned all this stuff so they could live in the city and assimilate and live the American dream, right? And then then we lost some of [our traditions]. That’s been big piece of my work — this healing that I’m doing is for my ancestors, for my grandparents, and their parents.”
from Eater Detroit - All
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