A simple dough made of ground hominy, salt and water is then formed into flat discs and cooked on a very hot surface, generally an iron griddle called a comal.

A similar flatbread from South America, called an arepa (made with ground maize, not hominy, and typically much thicker than tortillas), predates the arrival of Europeans to America, and was called tortilla by the Spanish from its resemblance to traditional Spanish round, unleavened cakes and omelettes.

Maize kernels naturally occur in many colors, depending on cultivar: from pale white, to yellow, to red and bluish purple.

Tortilla is a common food in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

In Aztec times two or three corn tortillas would be eaten with each meal, either plain or dipped in mole or a chili pepper and water sauce.

[5] Analogous staple carbohydrates in New World cultures, all made from hominy and serving a similar nutritional function, include the sope, the totopo, the gordita, the tlacoyo of Mexico, and the pupusa of Central America.

In Mexico, the primary use of maize is the tortilla, but it is also a principal ingredient in other foods including tamales and atole.

Tortilla production starts in the early morning as lunch is the main meal of the day for most people.

Mexican and, more generally, Latin American dishes made with maize tortillas include: A tortilla is made by curing maize in limewater in the nixtamalization process, which causes the skin of the corn kernels to peel off (the waste material is typically fed to poultry), then grinding and cooking it, kneading it into a dough called masa nixtamalera, pressing it flat into thin patties using a rolling pin, tortilla press or by hand, and cooking it on a very hot comal (originally a flat terra cotta griddle, now usually made of light sheet-metal instead).

[7] The process, called nixtamalization, was developed indigenously by pre-Columbian cultures and predates European contact by many centuries, if not millennia.

[7] Soaking the maize in limewater is important because it makes available the B vitamin niacin and the amino acid tryptophan.

Those whose diet consisted mostly of corn meal often became sick — because of the lack of niacin and tryptophan — with the deficiency disease pellagra, which was common in Spain, Northern Italy, and the southern United States.

Corn tortillas are customarily served and eaten warm; when cool, they often become rubbery or grainy as the cooked starches stale.

These tortillas are very similar to the unleavened bread popular in Arab, eastern Mediterranean and southern Asian countries, though thinner and smaller in diameter.

They are generally saltier, made from wheat or corn flour, and roasted in the ashes of a traditional adobe oven.