Photo by Billy McGinnis
Reaching for the Ring
by Emily Kovach
Jam and Ashley Murray are avid home cooks who love to make things from scratch. They moved to Philly from Doylestown last year, and started realizing that they missed the handmade corn tortillas they “were really in love with,” as Jam says, that they’d been able to buy in their old-old neighborhood in Brooklyn. After searching for something comparable in Fishtown, where they reside, the couple began to make tortillas themselves.
They started small, making batches of 70 tortillas at a time from their home kitchen, based off of classic Mexican recipes. Now, they make closer to 300 per batch. They source non-GMO yellow whole dried dent corn from Castle Valley Mill in Doylestown. The corn itself comes from Meadowbrook Farm, also in Bucks County. Jam says he would classify their tortilla style as “definitively Pennsylvanian.”
“While I’ve spent hours and hours honing my craft, I am neither a tortilla master nor do I come from a Mexican heritage,” he notes. “Rather, I’m a very meticulous taco fiend who is zealous about food origins and sourcing… so, I think ‘Pennsylvania-style tortillas’ fits the bill.”
For now, slinging tortillas is just a side gig for Jam and Ashley. Jam works as a manager at Riverwards Produce in Fishtown (currently the only retail outlet where Gold Rings Tortillas are available for sale) and Ashley is a web developer. However, Jam reports that the young company will soon be scaling up its operation, with hopes to expand distribution to more markets and grocers across Philadelphia.
