This is part of a special series, presented by Thrivent Financial, that focuses on a diversity of American inventors and innovations.
Because you can never have just one taco, we’re very pleased that inventor and innovator Elliot Benitez has devised a tortilla toaster that can warm up to 6 tortillas in 60 seconds.
As the story goes, Benitez was catching up with his mother over a home-cooked meal when he noticed what was actually happening at the dining table. His mother kept stepping away — missing conversation — in order to keep up with the familia’s appetite for hot tortillas during meals.
It led him to actually do some math about how much time his mother had been warming tortillas at home since he was a young boy. "By determining the amount of time it takes to warm a single tortilla, I was able to calculate my mother had spent 60 days over a 20-year period to warming batches of tortillas for our family," said Benitez.
The Nuni toaster idea took off a few years ago when they launched a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGogo. The innovative kitchen electronic comes with five toaster heat settings and a one-touch start auto shut off; there’s no flipping necessary, and it can easily warm up corn, wheat and flour tortillas. We’ll have to put it to the test with coconut flour tortillas soon. Fun fact: Its parallel heating slots are inspired by the grille of the classic 1957 Bel Air.
Check it out in action:
With this safer, faster, and more efficient way to prepare tortillas to enjoy with tacos and meals, America will never need to cook tortillas on a pan or in the microwave again.
