Tortillas and the Limitations of Artificial Intelligence

Unusually, I am starting with a recipe, a basic staple, a ubiquitous bread, of which there are variations that stretch across continents and reach back through countless generations.

I give you - the humble, the basic, the has been made in plentiful abundance by many people everywhere with recipes all over the interweb - The Tortilla:

The Recipe (based on a lot of Google research!)

(makes around 6 - scale up as needed)

1 cup of plain/all-purpose flour

1/3 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt (any)

1/3 cup of oil (I prefer Olive oil)

2/3 cup of hot water (not boiling - hand hot)

All you have to do is put the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix with the wet. Bind. There is no need to knead. Just bring it together in a ball. Segment into 6 and rest for around 30 minutes. Roll each section out thinly, just a little less than the tortilla depth, and fry in a hot, greased pan or skillet. Flip when it starts to brown underneath. Around 20 seconds on each side.

Simple. Yes?

Errr... No.

The making of a tortilla sounds simple; on paper, it looks simple, in practice... I assure you it is a work of art comprising many minute considerations.

Now, I am a pretty seasoned cook. I can turn my hand to anything (other than toast, but that's a story for another day.) A quick tortilla for a light lunch would be easy, surely. All I have to do is look at a selection of recipes, read the methods and that would be it. Wouldn't it?

Well, all was going absolutely swimmingly in the kitchen; the dough had rested, my paprika-smoky, cumin-scented chickpeas were ready, and my homemade tzatziki was ready to smother the crunchy little morsels in a cooling minted dressing. All I had to do was fry off the tortilla, layer up the goodies, squeeze a drop of tangy lemon and serve.

Oh, how I laugh as I type this: "All I had to do!" Words that right here, right now, lounging on my sofa with my feet up and a hot cup of soothing tea beside me, still have the ability to set me on edge!

What was meant to be a quick meal turned into quite the saga, with nearly all of Google's collectively conscious culinary expertise thrown at it. I even had to BING!!

Each time I fried a tortilla, something went wrong. I could not fathom it. If I had wanted to make crispbread well, I would have been onto a winner, but I wanted a soft and rollable tortilla, not something that snapped! I could not get my head around it. I had followed the recipe to the letter and adhered to the advice in the methods. What was I missing?

I took to Google to help me.

This is the advice I discovered:

1. Keep your dough moist under a damp towel.

Check, I did that and still got crispbread.

2. If your dough pulls back against you as you roll it, it has not had enough time to rest. Give it longer.

Yep, I did that, still frying up crackers.

3. Stack your tortillas under a towel as you fry them off. The steam will keep them soft.

No, it won't, not if your first one is a piece of board.

4. Make sure you roll your dough out to the point it becomes translucently thin.

Ok. Did that. Got really thin crackers.

5. Get a tortilla warmer.

A what now? No chance of that one happening.

6. Don't fry your tortilla for any longer than 10 to 15 seconds per side.

Tried that. Guess what... Anaemic-looking crispbread.

I was beginning to think that tortillas had me beat. I stared at my last two conker-sized balls of long-rested dough and listened to the shrieks of a squillion Mexican maternal souls that I imagined were watching me from beyond the grave.

What the hell was I missing?

In desperation, I ChatGPT'd my problem.

Yeah, thanks for the Chat. Been there and done all that.

The tasty and simple lunch I had planned to eat had dissolved into a purgatory of AI frustration. I had two conker-sized balls of dough left. Whatever I had to change, I had to do it now, or I would have chickpeas and tzatziki for lunch sans anything to wrap them in.

I picked one of the waiting little balls, pressed it into the flour on my worktop with the palm of my hand, took my rolling pin, and rolled it into a plate-sized round. Lifting it gently, I draped it over the rolling pin and carried it to the frying pan.

I had done nothing different to the last time. To throw that beautifully rolled tortilla into the pan would be madness as it would have resulted in the same frustration as the four previous times.

There was something I was missing. Something that had not been noted in any of the recipes. As I stared at my rolling pin draped in its pre-fried finery, a thought struck me. It's all about moisture. Duh! I am not getting enough moisture into this, so they are coming out too dry.

But if I were to add more to the dough mix, it would not hold its shape. Then, I looked at the tap and thought, Why not sprinkle water on it before frying? Could that work?

Memories of supermarket tortilla packs that suggest sprinkling with water before warming circulated in affirmation. I walked to the tap, splashed my silky dough, and dropped it flat into the hot, greased pan.

Twenty seconds later, I flipped it, waited twenty seconds more and shuffled it out of the pan onto the plate like a pliable, rollable sheath of honied gold leaf. Unbelievable!

I quickly spooned some of the hot, crunchy, paprika-smoky cumin-scented chickpeas and some fresh, minty, cooling tzatziki, spritzed a little lemon over the top, and rolled it up joyfully. As I lifted the hugely fought-for simple meal to scoff in a nanosecond, I leaned against my kitchen counter and imagined all those Mexican mammas whose intrinsic wisdom had finally been realised, smiling down at me from heaven.

Hallelujah!

I breathed, and I thought.

So much fear revolves around AI but it could not connect the dots like I did, it could not trial and error like I did, it did not understand the limitations of its advice... I did. What it did was facilitate the opinions of a large pool of people, all of whom had encountered my problem, but within all of that collected knowledge, it still could not put its finger on the solution to my problem. I did that.

Had I been in a Mexican kitchen with a person who made tortillas regularly, I would not have experienced a single sniff of frustration. A guiding hand would have calmly shown me. AI cannot replace human experience. It can document, collate, facilitate, and share it, but it only knows what we humans tell it. Maybe we should ensure the voices of Mexican mommas are heard more comprehensively. Their advice and counsel would have certainly saved me from pulling my hair out today. As I devour my tortilla wrap, I think about how important it will be for diversity and inclusion to be a priority in the governance of AI and how much humanity stands to lose if it is not.

Additional Recipe Info:

Spiced Chickpeas:

One can of Chickpeas in water, drained.

A glug of olive oil.

1 tsp of each of these: cumin, smoked paprika, garlic powder

Salt and pepper to taste.

Heat the oil with the spices to hot but not smoking. Throw in the chickpeas, coat them in the oil and spice, and fry them until crunchy. Season to taste.

Tzatziki:

Two big tablespoons of unset Greek yoghurt.

Two grated baby cucumbers (I like the extra green from the skin, but a fully grown cucumber is fine. You need about a handful.) Extract as much water as possible by scrunching in a clean kitchen towel.

A small handful of chopped mint.

A clove of garlic crushed.

Mix all of the above in a small bowl.

Enjoy, and I hope you do not have the stress I did. When this goes well, it is soft, crunchy, spicy, and cooling - a delicious snack that can be made in just over half an hour (inc. resting the tortilla dough).

My fingers are crossed, and if it does go wrong, at least you will have some great crackers to accompany a cheeseboard.

Every cloud has a silver lining!

With love,

CJ xxx