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Tamale time

Ancient offerings to gods adored by millions today

Remember eating your first great tamale?

For Bill Harod, director of deli operations for Food City stores, the taste of his first homemade tamale is seared in his brain like a bite of hot chile.

“It was when I first started working for Food City and one of the deli workers brought in his homemade tamales,” Harod recalls. “We sat down and ate about a half dozen each.”

For Harod, it is a serious mission to create the best tamale the store can sell. A self-described “gringo from Chicago,” Harod and his right-hand man, deli specialist Wilfredo Aragon, have honed their palates the old-fashioned way, by eating tamales.

The lessons learned: The thing about tasting a tamale is that one is never enough. And a personal search for the next great tamale never ends.

GETTING BASICS DOWN

For Latinos of all cultures − Cuban, Puerto Rican, Mexican, or other − tamales are a end-of -year holidays tradition. The ojas, or coverings, may vary culturally from corn husks to banana leaves, and the inside stuffings can be as infinite as the cook’s imagination.

However, essential tamale ingredients include lime-cured mixtamal, the corn kernels that form the basis for the masa; fat in the form of lard or shortening; a filling; a wrapper to steam it in; and most importantly, time. One cannot rush the making of great tamales.

Our grandmothers prepared mixtamal by hand. It was a long, tedious process involving soaking, rinsing, and several rounds of grinding until the masa was the right consistency. This is impractical today, with the availability of prepared masa sold in stores.

Long before there was reliable refrigeration available, making tamales meant starting before dawn and finishing late into the night. Although modern products have compressed the basic method, it still takes several hours to produce tamales, including hours spent steaming the tasty bundles. No wonder the tamale pie evolved as a culinary shortcut!
 

PAYING TRIBUTE

These delicious gems attained mythic status early in their existence, as ancient indigenous people in Mexico would offer tamales to their gods as tribute. Now, they are often considered valuable culinary gifts, deserving of giant feasts of their own.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest tamale festival was held in Indio, Calif., in December 2000, when 120,000 gathered to celebrate the annual Indio International Tamale Festival. This event also claims the Guinness 1999 record for making the world’s largest tamale: more than 1 foot in diameter and 40 feet in length. (The Indio International Tamale Festival is scheduled Dec. 4-5; for information, visit www.tamalefestival.net.)

The first Los Angeles International Tamale Festival on Nov. 11 in northeast downtown L.A. could steal those records from Indio. This new upstart threatens to break attendance and eating records, as well as vie for making the largest tamale and creating the largest tamale steamer. Who knew that good tamales could inspire such competition?

In Phoenix, the tamale’s rise in popularity has been fed by events such as the Friendly House Tamale Dinner, a fundraiser held annually in the spring. Another event featuring tamales is Tucson’s Meet Yourself culinary festival in early October. And there’s the annual Tamale Festival Dec. 10-11 in downtown Phoenix, sponsored by Food City.

A festival competition is scheduled at 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10 for those cooks who believe their tamales are tops. 

For others, it’s a chance to conduct concentrated culinary research in a festive atmosphere − until the waistband on your pantalones warns you to stop.