Sal's Historic Mural
Sal Salazar always wanted a mural depicting the field Corn or Maize harvesting and processing in the early days well before the Spanish arrived. After his passing it was decided to honor his memory by creating the murals in the early 1980’s. All can be seen on the wall in the main dining room of the Selma Restaurant location.
THE HARVEST In this picture, a Mexican farm laborer is shown with his burro as they are harvested the corn. Each load is brought into the village or family home. Corn was widely used for making of flour for baked goods and was often used as feed for the animals.
THE NIXTAMAL Once the corn is picked it is laid out for drying. The picture below shows how families endured the long process of preparing corn. After the corn is dried, it is boiled using a “cal” or slaked lime. The kernels are often left to soak in the water for 1 hour to 24 hours depending on how the corn will be used. The cooked and soaked corn is called Nixtamal.
The kernels are rinsed thoroughly and rubbed together to remove the skins. For hominy, the little brown tips called “hulls” are picked off which allows the corn to expand when cooked. The Nixtamal can also be ground into corn dough known as Masa
THE METATE This picture depicts the process of grinding the corn on a Metate. Corn that has been dried is ground to coarse flour. If the hulls (skins) and germs (brown tips) are removed, the corn meal will have a long shelf life. If the hulls and germs remain in the corn meal, it is more nutritious but won’t last as long.
THE TORTILLERIA In this picture, corn is ground to a very fine flour producing corn flour and is used in many of the same ways as wheat flour. In this picture, corn flour is used to make tortillas and cooked on a clay comal by a young woman prepping for a traditional meal.