Lines of corn tortilla chips and tortillas flow with systematic purpose at Raquelitas Tortillas factory in Denver’s River North Art District. Once the chips have been fried and seasoned, a conveyor belt delivers them into a chute, where 6 lbs are automatically weighed out and dropped into a pink and green Raquelitas box, ready to be shipped out to one of 1,800 wholesale customers. But not every aspect of the 25,000-square-foot factory’s assembly line comes with its own set of rules.
Since the family-owned business started in 1959, Raquelitas has been using an ancient, pre-Columbian process to make its chips and a portion of its tortillas. It’s why the corner of 31st and Larimer streets always smells distinctly like freshly husked corn. “Usually somebody’s gotta be about 50 or older to remember the smell of traditional nixtamalized corn,” said Raquelitas’ co-owner Rich Schneider.
“Even though it’s gone out of fashion, we’ve stuck to it. That’s the heart and soul of our business and what makes us different. It’s an homage to our roots of this business — and of tortillas.
” Nixtamalization is a Mesoamerican technique in which dried corn kernels are soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution. Raquelitas uses slaked lime (no, not the fruit), a form of food-grade calcium hydroxide, like the Aztec and Mayan civilizations. This breaks down the outer shell of the kernel, releasing more nutrients from the corn and making it more digestible.
After it’s been w.