When Norbert Martinez fell in love with Lorna Sabbe, he knew they would have some differences, and he knew he would have to keep an open mind. Martinez, a member of a Spanish pioneer family that settled in the Sangre de Cristo mountains above Santa Fe, N.M., was as dark as Sabbe was fair. His New Mexican family moved to the Salt Lake Valley more than half a century ago, to find jobs in the copper mine.
Sabbe had grown up in Montana and Arizona, the daughter of Dutch ranchers.
When they met, differing heritages didn't matter, Martinez remembered. Big deals were not made over ethnicity.
"Growing up in Bingham, I didn't know I was Mexican or Spanish. I didn't know the Greeks were Greeks or the Italians were Italians. When someone had a party, we all went," he said. "Our parents spoke different languages, but that didn't matter to us kids. We all ate at each other's houses.
"We didn't know we were poor either," Martinez added, "because we were all the same. The only differences between us was that some people drove Fords and others had Chevys."
Norbert's and Lorna's families shared the same faith, which proved more important than their ethnic backgrounds. "We were both Catholic," said Martinez.
The couple discovered one variation in the way they'd been brought up. This difference involved a smooth, delicious disc — a food they would later turn into their own family's livelihood.
"Before I met her, I'd never tasted a corn tortilla, never even seen one," Martinez said. Soft, light flour tortillas had been his family's staple of life. He also didn't know some of Lorna's Arizonan culinary terms.
"On our honeymoon, I took her to a fine restaurant in Monterrey, Mexico. She ordered a 'green burro.' To me, that's a green donkey," Martinez recalled. But if his new bride wanted a green donkey, he'd find her one. Fortunately, Lorna clarified: She simply preferred a burrito with green chili sauce.
Before long, the couple adopted each other's food names and cooking styles so well that together they started Mama Maria's Tortilla Factory. The Midvale plant shapes, presses, bakes and air-dries 360,000 flour tortillas a day.
"In 1981, when we first started, we were so happy if we made 50 dozen a day," said Martinez. Those tortillas were tucked around meat and sold from his Senor Taco truck, which appeared outside Salt Lake office buildings at lunch time.
Martinez mass-produced the traditional Latin American flat bread about a decade before tens of thousands of Latinos relocated to the Salt Lake Valley. "The majority of our clientele have been Anglos," he said.
The market for Mama Maria's has since ignored ethnic and cultural borders, and now Martinez's four trucks deliver to Sam's Club, Albertson's and Smith's stores from Ogden to Provo. The success of the factory helped Martinez move into a new home in Draper, and to indulge in his hobby: sports cars. One morning he brought several of them out for a washing in his driveway.
He credits his wife with teaching him a couple of things about running an empire.
Men and women cannot live by flour alone, Lorna believed, so Martinez has cases of corn tortillas, salsa and tostadas shipped daily from his cousin's factory in Los Angeles.
Those sell along with the thick, thin, fajita-style and whole-wheat versions that emerge from the Austrian tortilla shaper.
The machine sends batches of 180 dough balls down the assembly line, and until they travel through the enormous blow-dryers, each dough ball is 600 degrees on the inside. "They have to stay hot or the dough will crystallize," Martinez said. As for the warm temperatures the machines generate — the factory's temperature hovers around 110 — "it's a dry heat," according to Martinez.
"After a couple of hours, you don't even feel it."
Martinez strives for modernity in all but a couple of ways. First, he uses his mother's recipe, a secret formula for a supple flour circle.
"This tortilla will not break," Martinez promises, folding and throwing a package hard onto his desktop. He is not about to subject his customers to filling falling out of his tortillas.
Martinez believes in skimping on preservatives. Too many chemical additives are deadly, he said, adding that his motto is: "If you read the ingredients and you can't understand them, don't eat that food."
One small, but key, change has been made in the original recipe: Martinez replaced lard with vegetable shortening.
Animal fat gave old-fashioned tortillas a wonderful flavor. But if people saw that word on a package of tortillas, "nobody would buy it," Martinez said.
Martinez's mother, 79-year-old Mama Maria of the company name, doesn't feel the need to visit her son's factory often.
"She lives down the street, but she's been here four times in her life." She runs her own tortilla factory in her kitchen, where she's always cooked for her family of 13. Now she feeds an even bigger crowd of grandchildren, said her grandson Ron Martinez.
Both Ron and his younger brother Kenny were inspired early.
"I grew up on them. I'd grab me a fresh, hot tortilla at my grandmother's house" as often as possible, said Ron. "I do the same thing here." Since he came to work at Mama Maria's after graduating from Hillcrest High School, Ron has been proud to watch the company flourish. "I have the satisfaction of helping build this place up."
But this summer, both Ron and his father say, life at the factory turned difficult. Lorna Sabbe Martinez, who worked alongside her husband and sons at Mama Maria's, died June 23 of cancer that had spread from her spine to her brain. She was 57.
"She was sick for 18 months, but she always looked as beautiful as this picture," said Martinez. His wife's blue eyes, bright smile and blonde hair shine out from the photo.
"This is so hard. You can't believe how hard it is," he said of the past weeks. "We were together for 40 years. We worked so well together. That's why it's so hard for me to let her go." Their 39th wedding anniversary would have been July 28.
Martinez, 60, could retire and his sons could run Mama Maria's.
But he still works a full day, starting between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., making deliveries and chatting with people who stop in to buy fresh tortillas, chips and salsa. His 5-year-old granddaughter, Kylie, helps keep spirits up in the office, bringing paper cups of water to the workers.
"I'm not going to retire. Hey, I'm a young 60," Martinez said. "I like working. It keeps me in touch with people."
MAMA MARIA'S ENCHILADAS
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 pound ground beef
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 small package creem cheese, cut into pieces
Mama Maria's Salsa
Mama Maria's Homestyle Tortillas
Sour cream
Chopped olives
Brown meat, drain well. Add grated cheese and cream cheese. Stir so cheeses melt. Add onions, salsa to taste and sour cream. Mix well. Spoon into tortilla shells and roll up. Lightly grease pan and place filled shells in pan. Spoon any leftover meat mixture over the top. Bake at 350 F. for about 15 minutes. Add more grated cheese on top and return to oven until cheese melts. Garnish with Mama Maria's salsa, sour cream and olives.
CHILI VERDE
2 pounds of chopped pork
10 green chili peppers roasted and peeled
5 fresh or canned whole tomatoes, cut into heavy chunks
Salt, pepper and garlic to taste
Chopped onions (optional)
Cook pork in frying pan until brown. Add a little flour to drippings and make a gravy. Mix gravy, cooked pork, green chilies and tomatoes, bring to a boil. Season to taste with salt, pepper and garlic. Add onions (optional). Serve with Mama Maria's Tortillas.
Other options: Fajitas (soft tacos) and burritos are also easy to prepare with tortillas.
For fajitas, warm flour tortillas in an ungreased skillet or hot oven for 2-3 minutes.
Slice steak or chicken strips, Marinate or season the meat. Saute onions and peppers; add to meat. Squeeze lemon over finished platter.
Place meat and vegetables on warm tortilla. Garnish with lettuce, tomatoes, olives, sour cream and grated cheese.
To make burritos, warm flour tortillas in ungreased skillet or hot oven for 2-3 minutes.
Burritos can be made with any kind of filling — meat, refried beans, even scrambled eggs. Add cheese or onion for variety. Place heated filling on warm tortilla.
Turn one end over filling, turn up the bottom, and roll tortilla into a tube with the filling inside.
E-MAIL: durbani@desnews.com