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| Place of origin | Mexico |
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| Region or state | Oaxaca |
| Created by | Zapotec peoples |
| Main ingredients | Cornmasa, salt |
Totopo, inMexican cuisine, is a flat, round, or triangularcorn item similar to atortilla, that has been toasted, fried or baked, but it may be prepared withnixtamalized cornmasa. Totopos are best known as originating fromZapotec peoples of theIsthmus of Tehuantepec region of theMexican state ofOaxaca. There, the Zapotec women bake totopos in a clay oven known as acomixcal. Totopos resemble a round, bakedtortilla chip or certain types of Scandinavianflat bread; however, unlike tortillas, salt is added to the masa and holes are made in the disk prior to baking.[1]
Totopo may also refer to triangular fried tortillas (totopos de maíz), which are essentially tortilla chips. When the whole round tortilla is baked or fried it is generally known as atostada.
An important feature of thebaking and salting process ispreservation. To prevent the decomposition of the corn and growth ofmold, regular tortillas generally need to be eaten the same day as they are made (or stored cold) due to the moisture content, whereas totopos may be stored for future consumption, in the same manner as drycrackers.
In some cases,fried tortilla chips commercially made both inMexico and theUnited States are labeled as or referred to astotopos, although they are not made in the manner of the Oaxacan totopo and are more akin to tortilla chips.
The nametotopo comes from theAztec (orNahuatl)totopochtli, meaning 'toasted thing or thing that crunches when eaten', from the verbtotopotza 'to crunch or to toast'. To differentiate the word from other toasted things, sometimes the compoundtlaxcaltotopochtli was used, meaning 'toasted tortilla'. The combined word means, approximately, 'tortillas that are noisy to chew'.[2]
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