Coast Packing Returns to Sponsor KCRW & Gustavo's Great Tortilla Tournament with Good Food's Evan Kleiman

At Smorgasburg LA on October 8, Who Will Take Home the Golden Tortilla This Year? Inquiring Palates Want to Know (With Tubs of Lard on the Line)

VERNON, Calif., Sept. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Just ahead of the busiest cooking season of the year, Coast Packing, one of the nation’s premier suppliers of animal fat shortenings, returns as a corporate sponsor of the popular fall ritual, KCRW and Gustavo’s Great Tortilla Tournament, slated for Sunday, October 8, at Smorgasburg, downtown L.A’s eclectic outdoor food emporium.

To the familiar autumn rites – tailgating, trick-or-treating, leaf-raking (even in L.A.) – add a mega-exercise in tortilla judging. Los Angeles Times writer/taco maven Gustavo Arellano and KCRW’s Good Food host Evan Kleiman have again put together an eclectic list of 64 tortillas found around Southern California — 32 corn + 32 flour, in four brackets of 16. The top 4 finalists will receive 4-pound tubs of lard from Coast Packing.

“We’re delighted to mark our fourth year as a sponsor of what has quickly become an L.A. institution,” said Greg Hozinsky, Coast’s Corporate Chef. “Not only is the tournament an opportunity to showcase a hugely popular local artisanal specialty, it gives up-and-coming and established tortilla makers alike access to an audience that truly loves this Southern California staple.”

To cite Gustavo: “Trivia time! How many six-inch tortillas, laid side by side, would it take to reach the moon? That’s the best way I can think of to announce the return of KCRW and Gustavo’s Great Tortilla Tournament, which keeps getting bigger and better with every year and deserves to reach the stars. Because while the moon may be made of cheese, you still need some tortillas to make it into one hell of a celestial quesadilla, you know? But should it be corn or flour?

“That’s where #TortillaTournament comes in. For the past six years, COVID-19 be damned, we have celebrated tortilla culture in Southern California with clashes between restaurants and tortillerias, mom-and-pop operations and… Jeff Bezos? This year, yes!”