Tortilla elaboration from dried corn kernels began when Pre-Hispanic man kept the harvested grain to transform it into something edible. Thus, he changed the dried, hard kernels into dough from which the first tortillas were made.

Perhaps the first system that was used to make tortillas was grinding the corn kernels to obtain a powder (flour) that, if water was added, could be easily kneaded into dough that cooked very easily and from which tortillas could be made. Pre-Hispanic man might be surprised to find out that his "powder" decomposed easily and acquired a bad odor after 3 or 4 days.

The cause of this decomposition is the oxidation of the bud's fats due to the enzymes that produce it. So the Pre-Hispanic experimenter had no choice but to use fire to break up the grains by cooking and removing the hull.

Later, it was found that the ashes produced by the firewood used to cook the food were to be very useful, since the ashes, sodium and potassium oxides, mixed with water become an alkaline lye that softens and destroys the kernel's husk.

When lime was discovered, when combined with water forms lime hydroxide or hydraulic lime, the first chemical element tested in the nixtamal process was found.

Once the corn was cleaned, it was cooked with lime, let to rest in hot water overnight and the next day it was cleaned again, making the dough using the "metate", a Pre-Hispanic crusher made from volcanic rock. Once the dough was made, discs of different diameter and thickness were made by hand: the tortillas, which were then cooked on a hot clay surface called "comal".