The Secret of Great Tamales
By Terri Taylor • Photographs by Karen McCullough

Ask a cook of Latin American cuisine to share her grandmother’s favorite tamale recipe, and you’ll probably come up empty handed. Instead, if you’re lucky, you’ll get an invitation to grab an apron and join her (and her grandmother) in the kitchen.

The art of creating tamales, the holiday season’s ultimate slow food, is a gift that’s been passed down from generation to generation, and the tricks of the craft are best learned at family tamaladas, or tamalemaking parties. In North Texas, the making and consuming of these flavorful little food packages have long been associated with Christmas, particularly for those with ties to the Latino community.

Steeped in rich tradition, the story of tamales begins with maize, the indigenous cousin of corn, which was the life source of the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica. Masa, the dough made from its grains, was the base ingredient of many of the Mayan and Aztec food dishes, including tamales. Today’s tamales are as varied as the countries of Latin America and differ between regions, towns and families. In simple terms, an individual tamal consists of a filling swaddled in a sheath of masa. This edible portion is further wrapped, typically with a cornhusk or banana leaf, to protect it during the cooking process.

“The secret to making great tamales is not in the recipe,” says my friend Virginia Martinez as she bites into a freshly steamed tamal. “My sisterin-law Carmela is the expert in our family. We all help, but Carmela has the perfect hands for working with the dough. It’s all in the touch.”

Mrs. Martinez was born in Leon, Mexico and she treasures childhood memories of watching her mother and three aunts assemble tamales on Christmas Eve. Early in the day, she says, the piquant aroma of onion, garlic, and cumin wafted through the kitchen as the meats and vegetables were being simmered and sautéed. In the afternoon, after the ingredients were prepared, the women gathered on the family’s plant-filled stone patio with their children nearby.

“Mamá and her sisters sat outside on small metal chairs around our picnic table,” says Mrs. Martinez. “I remember the music of Sonora Santanera singing out from the radio. Bright ceramic bowls with the masa, the soaked hojas (corn husks), the shredded meats, roasted chilies and my mother’s red mole sauce were on the table. The women would chat and gossip as they worked.”

According to Mrs. Martinez, two of the women spread masa across the hojas, while the other two added the fillings. With a large spoon one woman swiped masa evenly across the husk, then handed it over to the next woman who layered the filling over the dough. For savory tamales, the contents included pork or chicken, frijoles, nopalitos, queso, green chilies, or a combination of several items. Mrs. Martinez flashes a broad smile as she recalls the sweet tamales filled with cinnamon-sugar, raisins, pecans, and cocoa, and wrapped in sugar-laced masa. The children were given the final task of folding the husk around the tamal.

“I was more interested in playing and sometimes wouldn’t pay attention,” Mrs. Martinez laughs, “When I didn’t close it correctly, Mamá would get furious and tell me I wouldn’t get my share if I didn’t do it right. Of course, I wanted to eat so I’d straighten up.”

After wrapping the tamales, her mother and aunts loaded them into the family’s large tamalera, a cylindrical steamer that had been lined with the extra cornhusks to hold in moisture and add flavor.

“The women prepared close to two hundred tamales and the steamer was huge. Because gas for the stove was expensive, and the cooking time was a couple of hours, the steamer was placed over an outdoor fire pit,” says Mrs. Martinez.

During the steaming process, the women headed to the kitchen to make atole, a warm, frothy corn-based drink traditionally served with tamales. Their family’s version of the beverage was thick and flavored with canela (cinnamon), vanilla beans, and piloncillo (an unrefined Mexican brown sugar).

“As we played outside,” say Mrs. Martinez. “We could smell the tamales steaming over the fire. From time to time, someone opened the lid to test and see if they were done. When the tamales easily pulled away from the husks without sticking, they were ready.”

Thankful for their blessings, the family stood together around the tamalera and recited the rosary before eating.

“We’d stuff ourselves and dance. A little before midnight, the entire extended family would make the ten-minute walk to our parish church for midnight Mass. Christmas is still my favorite season to be in Mexico.”

Mrs. Martinez hopes to instill in her own children, Diana, Kathy, and Pete and her grandson Joseph, the importance of honoring their heritage.

In her book “America’s First Cuisines,” author Sophie Coe says that paintings of objects resembling tamales have been found on classic Mayan vases. Fragments of Mayan pottery marked with boiler scale have also been discovered at archeological sites confirming the fact that tamales were probably steamed centuries before the arrival of the Spanish explorers.

“Tamales are the original to-go food,” say Jesse Moreno, Sr., a proclaimed “Doctor of Tamology” and the proprietor of La Popular Tamale House in Dallas. “The Aztec and Mayan kings needed a food that was portable when their warriors went into battle and tamales were the perfect solution. They wrapped all sorts of things in masa.”

The cooks of the New World discovered a procedure called nixtamalization, where ripened corn is processed with slaked lime (or wood ashes in ancient times), making it easier to grind and increasing its nutritional value. According to dieticians, this procedure enriches the corn, making it higher in calcium and niacin and easier to digest. By mixing beans with the processed maize, the indigenous people of the Americas created a diet that was superior to those in many other parts of the world at that time. Researchers have found evidence that household equipment for creating nixtamal from maize existed in southern Guatemala as early as 1500 B.C.

Nixtamalization is still used today. At Luna’s Tortillas in Dallas, deep stainless steel troughs are scattered about the facility. Inside them vast amounts of corn kernels are being soaked in an alkaline mix of limewater. Soon it will be converted into nixtamal and then ground and finally made into masa.

A metate, a stone slab made from lava rock, sits on the display shelf. With hundreds of pounds of corn to process each day, Luna’s retired this traditional utensil for grinding corn long ago. As we tour his company’s facilities, owner Fernando Luna assures me that their large shiny corn-grinding machine has a lava rock incorporated into its design.

Though machines can aid in the grinding, the task of making perfect tamales still rests in the hands of individuals. In countless kitchens and restaurants, experienced tamale-makers still huddle together and craft these delicacies one shuck at a time.

Fernando Luna tells of a young woman who came into his store to buy masa. Impressed, he asked her if she was making tamales. She laughed and shook her head. She was buying it for her grandmother. She had no idea how to make them.

“I gave her a look,” says Luna, “‘Better start learning,’ I told her. ‘Before long, you’ll be the grandmother.’”