Sonoran flour tortillas want in on our Tortilla Tournament

Sonoratown, Salazar and El Cholo helped popularize flour tortillas in Southern California but they're a staple in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Photo by Micheile Henderson/Unsplash

In case you haven't been paying attention, Sonora-style flour tortillas have been having a moment in Southern California for years. What is a Sonora-style flour tortilla? You'll have to wait for my ¡Ask a Tortilla Expert! column later this week, but briefly: thin masterpieces.

The pioneers that started the trend were Sonoratown, which took home the Golden Tortilla in 2018, and Salazar. (Actually, the real pioneer is El Cholo's handmade tortillas, made from Sonora-born founders Alejandro and Rosa Borquez's recipe, which hasn't changed in a century.) Hipster chains like Loqui and Sonoritas make them. Delicious taco trucks like El Ruso and Asadero Chikali do, too. Even supermarket chains good (Northgate Gonzalez) and old-school (et tu, Stater Brothers?) are in the game.

The demand is so big, in fact, that I'm beginning to see Sonora-style tortillas from — would you believe it? — Sonora popping up in marquetas across Southern California.

A woman makes a flour tortilla by hand. Photo credit: Dennis Schrader/Unsplash

As long as immigrants have lived in the United States, they've imported goodies from their home regions. But the push by consumers for actual Sonoran tortillas is purely market driven. Despite our relative proximity to the northern Mexican state, sonorenses don't make up as large a community in Southern California as, say, folks from Oaxaca or Mexico City or basically any Mexican state south of Zacatecas. Most Sonorans end up in Arizona. In Southern California, the big enclave has always been the Coachella Valley, where people have stocked Sonoran products for generations and their flour tortillas have always defaulted to the type.

So if there are Sonora-style tortillas popping up in Los Angeles and Orange County, it's because non-sonorenses want them. They're now a common enough sight that I was able to pick up three packets at three separate Latino markets. How were they? Glad you asked!

Packages of flour tortillas from Tortilleria Sonora, Doña Manuelita and Mama Licha's. Photo by Gustavo Arellano

The best one was easily Tortilleria Sonora. It was as translucent as a napkin, and I was afraid it wouldn't hold up on my comal. But once I placed it, the tortilla began to sizzle, the noise you want to hear when heating up a flour tortilla. It was sweet and wonderful and delicious.

Not too far behind was Doña Manuelita, which was a tad thicker and slightly bigger. Here was the interesting thing about both of them: Their binding agent was vegetable shortening, which usually doesn't taste this good as a binding agent, as opposed to lard or butter. Not only that, but both Tortilleria Sonora and Doña Manuelita use preservatives. The former actually uses way more than Manuelita yet tastes better. They go against the mantra that we here at #TortillaTournament have preached for years: the fewer ingredients, the tastier the tortilla.

In fact, I dare say that I had never tasted a great flour tortilla with a bunch of preservatives until I tasted Tortilleria Sonora's and Doña Manuelita flaky treats.

I wish I could say the same about Mama Licha, which only had four ingredients, like Doña Manuelita. But these simply weren't good because of a lingering bitterness, the type I associate with most machine-manufactured tortillas.

There is one other Sonoran tortilla I've bought in SoCal. Earlier this year, I went to Sinaloa Market (1701 E. McFadden Ave., Santa Ana, 714-834-1095) after passing it for years and wondering if it stocked culichi wonders like chilorio and seafood. Not only did they not, but the tortilla shelf to the back was mostly Guerrero… and a palm-sized tortilla from Sonora that was incredible. I posted a photo to my IG Stories, and my brother-in-law messaged me that he had loved them as well. Foolishly, I didn't save the photo on my smartphone.

I've gone back twice to Sinaloa Market in the past two weeks. They've been out every time.

"I know what tortillas you're talking about," a Sinaloa Market worker told me when I asked. "They're delicious. That's why they sell so fast. We won't get them again until one of us goes back to Sonora."

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