By Christine Sherk
When Agustin Galvan of Springfield was a boy in Guadalajara, Mexico, his mother owned a Tortilleria, making and selling fresh tortillas. Galvan had a job, too; he brought the nixtamal — corn soaked in an alkaline solution and then washed and hulled — to be ground into corn flour at the local molina, or mill, before bringing the masa back to his mother’s shop, where her many women workers hand-pressed it into tortillas. As an adult living in New Mexico, Galvan and a business partner opened a Tortilleria, only this time Galvan would use an authentic tortilla-making machine purchased in Mexico and brought to the United States. That same machine now works five days a week at Galvan’s Tortilleria El Metate in Springfield, pressing and baking fresh corn tortillas for sale to the public. Galvan’s daughter, Elda, a Spanish teacher at the Academy of Arts and Academics in Springfield, occasionally helps out.
La Poderosa. Inside Tortilleria El Metate, the tortilla-making machine has a name, La Poderosa, painted in red across its front. It’s a reference to Che Guevara’s book “The Motorcycle Diaries,” a memoir of Guevara’s travels through South America on a motorcycle he named La Poderosa, or, as Elda translates, “the powerful one.” Agustin drops balls of corn flour mixed with water into a chute, where mixers press the dough down through a channel into just the right-sized flattened discs. The tortillas then travel through three layers of conveyor track where they are baked to perfection before dropping onto a metal mesh ramp up to where Adela Murillo or Elda stacks them and wraps them while still warm. In the beginning, Elda says, “my Dad didn’t know how to run the machine when he bought it. The company that sells these sent a technician to teach my dad how to work it.”
Journey to Oregon. The business partnership in New Mexico didn’t work out, but Agustin kept La Poderosa. In the early 2000s, Elda became ill where she was living in California with her sister. Elda’s parents moved to California so the family could be together. For a couple of years, they all lived in an apartment, and then “one day we were watching the Spanish news,” Elda recalls. “The report was about how at the beginning of 2004 that a lot of Mexicans who lived in California were moving out to Oregon. We had the tortilla machine already, and so we started talking about taking it to a place with a new Mexican community. We thought a Tortilleria would be a good business.” The family searched throughout Oregon and even Washington for the right spot, finally settling in Springfield, opening in late 2004 first at a location in downtown Springfield for two years, and then moving to its current location, 1124 Main St. #B, 13 years ago. “We wanted to stay in Springfield,” Elda says.
Carnitas and salsas. Every Saturday morning, Agustin rises early to make carnitas, which is slow-cooked pork. He also makes fresh salsa, including a green salsa that’s very popular. “It’s green because of the jalapeños,” Elda says, “not because of tomatillos.” On Saturdays, she adds, “a lot of people buy the carnitas, the tortillas and the salsa verde. They run out quickly.”
Local restaurants supplied. Tortilleria El Metate supplies tortillas to a few local restaurants, Plank Town Brewing Co., just down the street, one of its larger customers. “We also supply tortillas to La Granada Latin Kitchen and to Jazzy Ladies in Eugene,” Elda adds. “It’s been through word of mouth, and the restaurants have come to us. We do get foot traffic. We have people who have been loyal customers since we opened.”
Effects of the pandemic. The pandemic has been hard on business, Elda says. The fact that events can’t be held has been one of the biggest factors. “Saturdays, people would buy a lot of tortillas for a wedding, or for a Quinceañera, or for Mother’s Day. Some would buy hundreds. So that has been the hardest. Without those events, business has gone down a whole lot. We still don’t know how far lasting this will be. Thankfully, right now, we’re able to ride the wave. But if it stays like this for too much longer, it’s going to be hard.”
Favorite foods to make. The tortilla, Elda says, is the cornerstone of Mexican cooking, “and we eat tortillas with every meal. In the morning, I like to warm up a tortilla, add a slice of queso fresco and then salsa verde. That is my breakfast. I also love to make chilaquiles and enchiladas.” She recommends Tortilleria El Metate’s tortillas for making fresh chips. “Chips with the salsa verde is so good,” she says. Agustin and Elda also like to make a potato taco. “We fry those,” she says. “They taste really delicious.” Agustin adds, “You won’t find those tacos anywhere like at a restaurant. It’s made at home.”
Being his own boss. Agustin may like to sleep in his free time, he jokes, but he does like setting his own schedule. “If he wants to go home early,” Elda says, “he does. He doesn’t have to ask anybody.” Agustin makes the tortillas Tuesday through Saturday, starting at about 10 a.m. to mix the dough and then operating the machine, finishing up usually around 11 a.m. when the shop opens. It gets pretty warm inside the Tortilleria when things are up and running, so the front door to the shop is propped open and a fan runs to circulate the air. “In the summer it can be 105 or 110 degrees in here,” Elda says. “It’s not dry heat. It’s humid. We have to stay hydrated!”