NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — There's nothing like homemade tortillas, but Chef Julio Hernandez will be the first one to tell you that the process of making them is not an easy task.
"You peel away, you come back, and then you peel away," he said as he made one.
He's completed the process thousands of times. Rolling masa and hand pressing it.
Some might say Hernandez is corn obsessed. He's fallen in love with corn so much that he said he can hear it speak.
"It'll start lifting on the sides, the edges. So it starts talking to you. It's telling you to 'flip me,'" he said.
For Hernandez, who prefers the title of tortillero, maiz is special. It honors the history and tradition of his home state.
"The process of making a tortilla begins for us by exporting pallets of thousands of pounds of corn from different states in Mexico," he said.
He's studied maiz all over the U.S and Mexico and now introduces it to Nashvillians. Making food using techniques from hundreds of years ago.
During the pandemic, Hernandez decided to bet on himself. He used his stimulus check to start Maiz De La Vida.
"This was my way of freaking out. I have four kids, so I had to depend on myself and not somebody else," he said.
At first, he delivered his tortillas to anyone that would buy them, then he set up shop at the East Nashville Farmers Market, next he opened a food truck.
"This is the one thing that I hold close to my heart so I went for it," Hernandez said.
Now he's serving up food at his new shop located at 3101 Clarksville Pike. And Hernandez is just getting started.
"We're opening a brick-and-mortar in the Gulch in the winter. A full-blown tequila and mezcal service, and we won't talk about the food just yet," he said.
And while the menu is still a surprise, one this is certain, Hernandez will be staying true to his roots.
"We're not going to try to be anything we're not, so we're bringing ourselves," he said.
