Here you can see all the ingredients laid out on my aunt Char's dining room table. From top to bottom there's the masa (with lots and lots of lard in it--yum!), shredded pork with red chile, and corn husks. Dave was put in charge of the vegetarian tamales (squash and cheese, with and without chile) while my aunt and I primarily made the meat ones.
Char did all the prep work (Thanks, Char!), which is considerable, but next year I want to help out with that so I can learn all the steps. That probably means that tamale making day will turn into tamale making weekend.
That picture shows the test batch (the smaller pan on the left side of the stove) we used to check the cooking time for the tamales. Those were finished after about one hour and fifty minutes.
We did several things differently this year than from past years: We bought a tamale spreader--a little plastic device that kind of resembles a "float" (the kind of tool used for mudding or drywall finishing). I was a little sceptical, but it worked pretty well. Next year, we'll have one for everyone! We also didn't tie up our tamales at both ends, something that is a little bit heretical in my family. (That's not how Grandma did it!), but it streamlined the process something fierce. We also steamed the tamales on their ends--also not how Grandma did it, but it cut the cooking time down considerably.
Of course we had to test the test batch!
You can see that the squash with cheese tamale on the left leaked. That's cheese all over it and the tamale on the right. While they were hot, they were a bit mushy still, but when they cooled down a bit, they were perfect. That first tamale from a new batch is always the best one. But tamales are like potato chips, you can't eat just one. We ate that batch, then munched on tamales throughout the day. Then we sat down and each had a plate of tamales with red chile, cheese, lettuce and tomato for an early dinner.
It's funny, but while we were divvying up the spoils at the end, Dave remarked that we should divide the vegetarian ones somewhat unevenly because he had eaten so many throughout the day. Poor Dave. He didn't know the rule that the ones you eat while making them don't count toward your final total. Those are just gimmes. (Gimmales!) You need a little something to keep your strength up while you're making tamales!
After our snack, we went right back to making tamales.
There's Char and Dave, slaving away while I document the moment.
You can see the growing piles of tamales at the front of the table. (You can also see the coffee cup Char made at the studio. Her first coffee cup!)
There's my little work station and the tamale spreader and a finished tamale, ready to be put in the steamer.
Chicken Break!
We took a break to go outside and meet my aunt's chickens.
They had a snack, too.
Then it was back to tamale making.
Char is the most competent and fastest at tamale making, but Dave's tamales were the prettiest. He has made tamales in the past, but there's probably been an almost twenty year gap since his last tamale making experience. Since he's vegetarian, we put him in charge of the vegetarian tamales. He made the majority of the squash ones.
It's funny: We made tamales for the vegetarians (with beans and squash) and for the kids (with no chile), but I remember when I was growing up, there was one and only one kind of tamale. You got pork with red chile and you liked it. When I was very little and couldn't eat hot chile, I would get a tamale and eat the masa and then give the pork filling to an adult, usually my mom or dad. I was allowed to do that with as many tamales as I wanted, but there were never tamales made without chile. And there were never vegetarian tamales, either. (Of course as a kid I had probably never even considered that there were such things as people who didn't eat meat!)
We kept the two big steamers (and one little one) going pretty continuously through the morning.
By early afternoon, we had enough tamales to start the divvying process.
The divvying process continued. You can see the foil wrapped tamales in there, too. We do that when we run out of corn husks. And don't get me started on the price of corn husks this year. Six dollars a pound! Ridiculous. Where's my corn subsidy, President Obama?!
Anyway, the foil works just fine though it's not as pretty as the corn husks.
At the end of the day, Dave and I took home these two big pans of tamales and a box of sweets (biscochitos, Mexican wedding cookies, and peanut brittle) that my aunt had made a couple of days before.
And that was Tamale Day 2011.
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