What Comal means
Comal is a Mexican ingredient name of Nahuatl origin meaning "flat clay griddle". It comes from comālli (flat griddle). It is pronounced koh-MAL, and it is most associated with the whole country.
Not from comitl, pot, as is often claimed: it goes back to Proto-Uto-Aztecan, making the word thousands of years older than the Mexica.
Comal is one of the many Mexican food words formed in Nahuatl. Spanish borrowed it, and in several cases English borrowed it again from Spanish. See how Nahuatl builds words and the full list of Mexican food names.
This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: The words that appear inside dish names: the chiles (ancho, guajillo, pasilla, chipotle), the corn words (nixtamal, masa, tortilla, elote), and the tools (comal, molcajete, metate). Learn these and most menu items decode themselves.
