tamalada

every year we get together--my mom her closest sister, my cousin and her family, me, and sometimes my sister--to make tamales. and every year my mom swears it will be the last time.

making tamales is labor intensive. cooking the meat; shredding the meat; de-seeding the chiles and then soaking them to make salsa; adding just enough salt/chile/baking powder/crisco(yes, we're health conscious! ;) to the masa; amasando bien; soaking and cleaning the hojas. when we finish all of the above, then we can begin the arduous process of assembling the tamales. spreading the masa on an hoja, adding meat, and wrapping each tamal. the tamales need to be placed carefully in a deep pot and steam-cooked for an hour to an hour and a half.

yesterday we made tamales from twenty five pounds of masa. and we were tired. my hands stung from peeling chiles. we all complained of aching backs. our fingers like prunes from handling so many wet hojas.

why, then, do we continue to make tamales year after year?

it's a tradition. making tamales is an important part of mexican culture. it's a traditional food of which we partake during christmas. anthropologists appreciate that aspect of culture. ;)

but on a more personal level, it's also something that my mom and her sisters did with their mom. i like the idea of carrying the tradition to another generation. making tamales gives us a reason to get together, to spend time with one another. to catch up on our lives. to gossip about other family members! to remember old stories.

a tamalada definitely revolves around food and its preparation. it also revolves around family, and strengthening the bonds that already connect us to each other.

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