Tamales

My Experience With Tamales

Before I started to do this project I wanted to know the history and background of the tamale. I found that the tamale was recorded as early as 5000 BC, possibly 7000 BC in Pre-Columbian history. Initially, women were taken along in battle as army cooks to make the masa for the tortillas and the meats, stews, drinks, etc. As the warring tribes of the Aztec, Mayan, and Inca cultures grew, the demand of readying the nixtamal (corn) itself became very overwhelming process. A need arose to have a more portable sustaining source of food.

Tamales could be pre-made ahead of time and packed, to be warmed as needed. They were steamed, grilled on the comal (grill) over the fire, or put directly on top of the coals to warm, or they were eaten cold. While searching the web I found no record of which culture actually created the tamale but believe that the snowball effect where one tribe or culture started and the others soon followed after and so on and so on.

The tamale caught on very fast and eventually grew in variety and diversity unknown in today's culture. There were plain tamales, tamales with red, green, yellow and black chile, tamales with chocolate, fish tamales, frog, tadpole, mushroom, rabbit, gopher, turkey, bee, egg, squash blossom, honey, ox, seed and nut tamales. There were white and red fruit tamales, white tamales, yellow tamales, dried meat tamales, roasted meat, stewed meat, bean and rice tamales. There were sweet sugar, pineapple, raisin, cinnamon, berry, banana and pumpkin tamales. There were hard and soft cheese tamales, roasted quail tamales, ant, potato, goat, wild boar, lamb and tomato tamales. Of course you get the idea, there's a lot of varieties and inventive ways of preparing and making tamales.

The sizes, colors and shapes varied almost as much as the fillings. They were steamed, oven-roasted, fire-roasted, toasted, grilled, barbecued, fried and boiled. The wrappings are made of corn husks, banana leaves, fabric, avocado leaves, soft tree bark, and other edible, non-toxic leaves. The most commonly used were corn husks, banana and avocado leaves. I also found that many other cultures have their own version of the tamale such as Nicaragua where they call their tamales nacatamal, Guatemala calls theirs paches or chuchitos, Bolivia and Ecuador call theirs humita, Veracruz calls it zacahull and Venezuela call their tamales hallaca. As you can see the tamale is very well known across sea to shining sea.

Over the millennium, the varieties were minimized to the most common now being red and green chile, chicken, pork, beef, sweet, cheese, and of late, vegetables. Also changed was the every day occurrence of making the tamales. With the preparation taking so much labor and time consuming, tamales became holiday fare, made for special occasions. This tradition remained for thousands of years, with the women of the family working together to make the sauces and meats, preparing the masa, and finally assembling and wrapping the tamales before steaming them in large pots on the stove. This process takes all day, the preparation often starting one of two days in advance. It is virtually unheard of to make a few tamales, I found that out the hard working way. In most cases, when they are made, hundreds are made at a time. Everyone, young, old, family and friends, is invited to tamale feasts where they are enjoyed by all. They have become known and loved by all cultures as much as sushi and dim-sum, which were, in the past, also holiday and celebration foods.

Now that I did my background information and history of the tamale I was ready to dig-in and give tamales a shot. I was ready to work like the hard working women back in the past, hopefully I made them proud for my first time! The first thing we prepared was the Molina. We used chicken in our Molina where we cooked it in a pot of water for a couple of hours - until the meat is so tender it almost falls apart. I found in tamale making that the dried chiles really have a special place within the tamale. Dried chiles where soaked in a flavored broth, which is then used to moisten the tamale dough. The meat was shredded and seasoned with dried, red "pequin" chili peppers, garlic, and other spices to make the filling that we rolled inside the tamales the next day. We did not throw away the broth from the chicken it was set aside to use in mixing the masa dough the next day.

The following day, was tamale-making day. We heated the Molina in the crock pot so that it would stay nice and warm. Then we proceeded by making the masa dough. We placed the corn flour in a large bowl and added the extra chicken broth from the day before. We then mixed the dough with our hands until the dough was smooth. We use a little more broth because we didn't want the mixture loose. Then we beat the lard in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed about three minutes, until it was fluffy. I also read that Lard, rather than vegetable shortening, is the time-honored ingredient for making the best tamales. A page on the web also explained to me that, "Tamale specialists who have been making tamales say that the prepared dough will be light, fluffy and most flavorful only when lard is used." Oringinally we where going to use shortening but the web sight said, "If you do so, remember that flavor and texture will be altered.." So when doing homework before making tamales we all thought that it would be more authentic if we used what they used back in the day, which was lard. Then the masa dough mixture was added, a handful at a time. When we where done, the mixture was very light and delicate, the texture was kind of