Trader Joe's Handmade Flour Tortillas

Day 4 of Mexican Week. The first three have been not so good. Time for a winner! 



Perhaps I had seen these at Trader Joe's before. It seems likely, since they're right next to two other kinds of tortillas I have bought there (see here and here). But if I did, I would have instantly rejected them, for the simple reason that they're too big. I had fixed in my mind that tortillas should be about five inches in diameter, so that I can fit two of them onto a dinner plate. Narrow-minded? Guilty. But that's how I was thinking.

Then somebody raved on Twitter about these TJ's handmade tortillas, and how they will make you realize that all the other ones you've been buying are pathetic. (I've done a couple of searches trying to find that tweet, but can't. I'm sorry that I can't give appropriate credit.) Well, that certainly sounded like a gauntlet being thrown down. I had to give them a try.

I am soooooo glad that I did. The tweeter was right. These things have rapidly transformed my view of what tortillas should be. They are thicker than the average commercial tortilla. The shapes are irregular--almost as if they were made by hand. (Gee, ya think?) They bear little scorch marks where they were cooked. They have actual substance to them--thick and chewy. Most importantly, they have flavor.

I used to view the tortilla--and flour tortillas even more so than corn tortillas--as being just the vehicle for carrying some combination of Mexicanish components that I would layer on top of it. If it succeeded in transporting those ingredients to my mouth without falling apart and without detracting from my enjoyment of them, it had served its purpose. But I see now that I was missing out on how the tortilla could positively contribute its own excellence of taste and texture to the final product.

My Top Ten list (which, as regular readers surely know by now, is in no way limited to just ten members) is heavily populated with highly processed food products, such as cherry-pomegranate toaster pastries and raspberry tartes and gingerbread-molasses cookie dough. Which is, I think, as it should be. Those are the kinds of products that TJ's is famous for, the kind that people rave about, saying, "You have got to try this!"

But I'm also pleased to include in that list a few things that are extraordinarily simple, quiet products, mostly unheralded, but executed so perfectly that they have set for me a new standard in how good each kind of thing can be. These have included an applesauce, toilet paper, dried apricots, grapefruit juice, and tomato soup.

In that spirit, I'm adding these tortillas to my list. They are much more expensive per tortilla than the mass-produced ones that I've been eating all my life. (They're $2.99 for a pack of eight, to be exact.) But they are so much superior that after having eaten just four of them, I'm on the verge of saying I'll never buy any other kind again.

Will I buy it again? 

Oh, you and your silly questions!


Addendum 

I have bought and used these probably half a dozen times since writing the above, and I stand by it. Except to experiment with other TJ's tortillas for the sake of blogging about them, I have not bought any other kind of tortilla since discovering these.