History of the corn tortilla[edit]
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It has been suggested that this article be merged into Corn tortilla. (Discuss) Proposed since April 2014.
According to Maya legend, tortillas were invented by a peasant for his hungry king in ancient times[citation needed]. The first tortillas discovered, which date back to approximately 10,000 BC, were made of native maize with dried kernel[citation needed]. The Aztecs used a lot of maize, both eaten straight from the cob and in recipes. They ground the maize, and used the cornmeal to make a dough called masa.[1]
On 22 April 1519, Spaniards led by Hernán Cortés, also known as Hernando Cortez, arrived in what is now Mexico. They found that the inhabitants (Aztecs and other native Mexican peoples) made flat maize bread. The native Nahuatl name for this was tlaxcalli.[2]
In Cortés' 1520 second letter to King Charles V of Spain, he described the public markets: