What Tortilla means
Tortilla is a Mexican ingredient name of Spanish origin meaning "little round cake". It is built from Spanish torta (round flat cake) and -illa (diminutive). It is pronounced tor-TEE-yah, and it is most associated with the whole country.
The Spanish named it after their own flat cake. The Nahuatl word was tlaxcalli, from tla- + ixca, to bake, plus -lli: the baked thing.
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.
