Gorditas de Horno Potosinas para Desayuno

San Luis Potosi, the capital and the road north toward the Altiplano, is where these gorditas de horno belong. They are morning food from panaderias and mercado counters: thick corn masa rounds baked hot, split open, and filled with whatever the cook made before the sun got high. Chicharron prensado in chile ancho. Frijoles bayos with epazote. Queso fresco wrapped in the heat of the masa. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

This is not the fried gordita from another state and it is not a flour tortilla situation. Flour tortillas have their northern place. Here the base is nixtamalized corn masa, manteca de cerdo, salt, and a hot oven. The women who perfected this know the oven floor by the smell of toasted corn and the color of the edge, not because an app told them. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.

I learned this version from a senora near the Mercado Hidalgo in San Luis Potosi who kept the baked gorditas under a cotton servilleta and opened them with a knife so thin it looked like it had worked harder than most people. My mother would have approved of the economy: one masa, three fillings, breakfast for a table, nothing wasted. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.