Tortillas in Phoenix
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010Phoenix is a fantastic, exciting, and very funny little town. It’s probably not quite right to say it’s little, when it’s the same size geographically as Los Angeles. It also seems to keep getting bigger, even though that measurement has already been decided long ago, but the spread of the city into the surrounding desert keeps getting more expansive and there’s less space between here and Tucson now. It’s also not a town, but has the 5th largest population in the U.S. There are many things that make it feel like a city, but there are also plenty of things that make it seem like a town.
There are many different populations that live in Phoenix, different cultures, subcultures, and lifestyles. It’s not easily apparent on the first visit, perhaps because the beauty of the hotels is so stunning, that it’s hard to notice anything else. But there are many layers here, making it a vastly complex place, and one that keeps getting more complex every day, as if the roots beneath the ground were starting to twine together in ways we can’t quite imagine. Some of these complexities, however, do melt away when you have a fresh tortilla in your hands.
At that moment, things really do change, and the deep meaning of the southwest starts to come to life in your hands. To get a taste of the best, lots of people like Carolina’s, and there’s also Mama Lola’s, and there are hundreds more, some that come and go fairly quickly. A tortilleria is one of the central icons of social life, and will be like that for a long time. It’s a daily chore for many people, and it’s the place where some would argue the most important part of the meal gets made. It’s absolutely worth it to get to know some of the local places, especially if you’re here a lot, because a good tortilla is the stuff that dreams are made on, and the stuff that people’s dreams depend on.
