Pressed into savoury service Mexican-Canadian couple conjures up authentic corn tortillas for Prairie palates By: David Sanderson Posted: 5:22 PM CST Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024

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This article was published 01/02/2024 (675 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

According to a food-industry report, worldwide sales of tortillas totalled close to $50 billion in 2023, and are expected to rise to $70 billion by the end of the decade, a heady amount that has married couple Eduardo and Helena Morales dreaming about what could be.

Eduardo and Helena are the founders of Los Comales Morales, a months-old venture that offers gluten-free, artisanal corn tortillas, the sort one would expect to find at bona fide street-taco stands in their native Mexico.

Given that Canada boasts the second-largest number of Mexican emigrants in the world, and that Mexico is the second-most visited country by Canadians, the Moraleses are hoping to net a slice of that multi-billion-dollar pie, by appealing to expats who grew up eating Mexican-style tortillas, as well as local travellers looking for a taste of what they enjoyed in the Land of the Sun.

“A number of our friends are also from Mexico, and when we were getting together, the conversation almost always turned to how difficult it was to find good Mexican cuisine here,” Helena says, seated next to Eduardo in a southeast Winnipeg café, 25 minutes from their home in Dufresne.

What’s that old saying, Eduardo interjects; if you want something done right, you should do it yourself? Yeah, that pretty much sums up the story behind Los Comales Morales, they say, practically in unison.

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Helena was born in Monterrey, in northeastern Mexico. She moved to Manitoba, where her mother is from, when she was an infant, but she was exposed to Mexican culture on an annual basis, during extended trips south to visit relatives on her father’s side.

Eduardo was born and raised in Mexico City. He was in Mazatlán in 2003, when he met a Winnipegger named Matt who was vacationing at the same resort. The pair hit it off lounging around the pool, and kept in touch in the ensuing months.

In the fall of 2004, Matt sent Eduardo an email that included a snapshot taken at Red River College Polytechnic, where he held a position with the students’ association. Forget about the goings-on there; all Eduardo wanted to know was who Matt’s co-worker was, the one shown in the attached photo.

“Matt might have mentioned later that Helena was born in Mexico, but honestly, I couldn’t have cared less. The moment I saw her, it was simply a case of having to be introduced to this absolutely beautiful woman,” he states, ignoring his wife’s animated eye roll.

A year after Matt put the two in touch, Eduardo and Helena finally met face-to-face, when he boarded a flight bound for Winnipeg, ahead of Christmas 2005. The couple tied the knot in Winnipeg nine months later. Eduardo, an industrial engineer, was able to find a job in his field rather quickly. Meanwhile, Helena, who completed a culinary arts course before studying business administration, was hired by an architectural firm.

Like they mentioned earlier, food was always top of mind whenever they hooked up with their Mexican pals. And sure, tortillas were readily available in the grocery aisle, but had anybody ever checked the list of ingredients, especially the amount of preservatives, Eduardo would ask?

“The other thing was, almost all the tortillas you could buy — including ones in the Latino markets — were brought in frozen from the States, from as far away as California,” Eduardo says. “Even though I had no cooking background, whatsoever, I was like, that’s it, I’m going to start making fresh tortillas for our family, ones that don’t contain a bunch of things we can’t pronounce.”

In 2018 Eduardo invested in a press along with a gas-powered griddle capable of turning out a dozen soft-shell tortillas, per batch. Next, he reached out to a supplier in Iowa, who sold organic, non-GMO corn flour. There was one problem: the minimum order was a metric ton, close to 2,200 pounds — more than enough to feed a small army, let alone them and their four children.

Several of their friends offered to buy bags of flour from them, to attempt to fashion tortillas of their own. Except when they compared their output with Eduardo’s, their mindset switched to, ‘wouldn’t it be far easier to pay him do all the work, por favor?’ As word of his expertise spread, and as people outside of the Moraleses’ immediate circle started to ask about tortillas, too, he and Helena began entertaining the idea of a home-based enterprise.

The Moraleses’ original plan was to operate a food truck. A certain worldwide pandemic kiboshed that notion, but last August, after a couple of years of tinkering with their recipe and settling on a suitable tag, a comal being a type of cast-iron pan typically used to cook tortillas, they made their official debut at a Wolseley-area farmers’ market.

Pop-up sales and markets such as the weekly, Saturday affair in St. Norbert continue to be their preferred method of introducing Manitobans to their line of products, which now includes a spicy, chili-oil-based salsa and an array of ultra-colourful, Mexican-inspired apparel. That said, they have begun branching out, slowly but surely, by establishing relationships with retailers and restaurateurs, alike.

Alana Fiks and Angela Farkas are the co-owners of Black Market Provisions, a boutique grocery mart located at 550 Osborne St. The Moraleses shop there occasionally and one afternoon, they brought along a package of tortillas for the women to sample.

“We love Mexico and authentic Mexican food, and it’s hard to find a great, authentic tortilla locally, but theirs hit the mark,” says Fiks, mentioning her and Farkas’s initial venture, a gourmet frozen-treat biz called Pop Cart, was inspired by a trip the two of them took to Mexico, years ago.

“They are so reminiscent of the corn tortillas you get in Mexico, so we were thrilled to be able to carry them. Plus, we love when folks are pursuing something that is authentic to their culture,” Fiks says.

Roberto Cano is the “Berto” behind Berto’s Taqueria, which dishes out loaded tacos and burritos, prepared in a Corydon Avenue ghost kitchen on Sundays and Mondays.

Cano, who moved to Winnipeg from Peru, had been up and running for nine months, when Eduardo visited him a few months ago. Eduardo told Cano he had tried his tacos and as delectable as they were, he had a suggestion for how they could be even better.

“He brought us his tortillas and immediately we were all, ‘wow, these are really, really good,’” says Cano, a chef at Tommy’s Pizzeria the other five days of the week. “Throw in the fact they’re a small local business, the same as me, and it was an easy decision to partner with them.”

Cano mentions that the Moraleses’ tortillas are so fresh they’re often still warm to the touch when Eduardo drops off an order.

“He makes them the day of, and our customers have definitely been able to tell the difference.”

Going forward, the Moraleses are putting the finishing touches on a website where parties will be able to order their products with the click of a mouse. They’re also in the final stages of building a commercial kitchen at their premises, and are anxious to work with area farmers who grow the type of organic, non-GMO corn they currently use.

“The goal is to do the whole process, start to finish, here in Manitoba,” Helena says, adding their nine-year-old daughter is such a fan that a few weeks ago she announced she was going to pool her money to buy her own salsa and tortillas. (“Uh, you don’t have to save up, you can have them any time you like,” her mom let her know.)

Helena smiles, saying the local food landscape has definitely changed since they purchased their tortilla equipment five years ago.

“It used to be you’d say taco and everybody would automatically think Taco Bell,” she continues. “I don’t know if everybody headed to Mexico after the travel restrictions were lifted, or if everybody watches that show Taco Chronicles on Netflix, but more and more, people seem to understand what real tacos are, and that’s where we’re hoping to come in.”

For more information, go to loscomalesmorales.com

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca