August 30, 2023 • 28 mins
amales are an ancient food imbued with limitless possibilities, tastiness, and... chemistry-based nutritional benefits? In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren get wrapped up in the long history and hot science of this Mesoamerican staple/comfort food.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savior, a protection of iHeartRadio. I'm
Annie Reese and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have a classic episode
for you about Tamale's. Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yes, I'm actually hoping some Tamalas are in my future.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well okay, So, as of the original, the original recording
of this in April of twenty eighteen, you had never
had one.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
No, but I that was an episode where I knew
this could not go on. And I did get some
pretty quickly after that, and since then, I've had several
around the city. It's something when I see on a menu,
I'm like, probably gonna.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Get, Probably should order that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, And I love them. I adore them so good.
We had a really good one in Vegas.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, that chef Sarah made. Yeah, that was so nice.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So I've had one recently, But that won't stop me
because there's a restaurant. Lauren and I are going on
very different Choose your an Adventure journeys. Lauren moving, and
I'm going to a very nerdy thing the downtown Atlanta.
Laurence cat is contributing to this outline. As we speaks,
(01:28):
he is Yeah, he's helping. Yes, but there's a restaurant
in downtown Atlanta that consistently has some tamala's.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
On their menu.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Usually go every year, so I'm very much looking forward
to it. So this classic. When you suggested it, I
was like, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Perfect, perfect timing. Yeah, well yeah, I speaking of timing,
I suppose let's see a couple couple of news updates.
Some Trader Joe's black bean tomalis have just been recalled
for having milk components but no milk allergy warning on
(02:04):
the labels. So if that applies to you, you know,
allow it to apply. Do with that as you will.
And also Vegas just announced that they are going to
be hosting a Tamales and Mariachi festival on December second
this year. So if you have the opportunity to go
check that out, I want you to and I want
(02:25):
you to report back in.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yes, please do.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And I've heard from you listeners about some some tomales
and your recipe, so that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Keep that coming, oh oh always literally always.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Oh please, But I suppose we should let past Annie
and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah, hello, and welcome to food Stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I'm Annie reve.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I'm Lauren Folkebaum, and today we're talking about Tomlly's.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yes, I, unfortunately, to my shame, have never had a tomaly.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Oh they're delicious.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah. I had to listen to a three minute conversation
between Lauren and Dylan before we started recording this about
how delicious they were. Okay, it's getting angrier and angrier, al.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
But we're gonna We're gonna rectify it. Yes, help is
on the way. Help is on the way, not like today,
but soon.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And doing the research on this one, I got a
craving for something I've never had, a very strong craving.
I knew immediately I'm going to have to go get
some of these. Yeah, probably a lot of them, a lot.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Like every day and for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yes, oh boy, that sounds fun.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So Lauren, let's start with a nineteen oh nine song
that you didn't know that's where this was going, did
you listeners by Herbert Ingram. Yes, I'm not gonna sing it,
and you'll thank me for that. It goes hot tomaly
wrapped in corn so neat, hot tomaly made of chicken meat.
Hot tomaly makes you feel so jolly and gay. That's
(04:12):
why I say, buy a hot tamat out of a
steaming pot. While they are nice and hot, you'll get
the best ie gun.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Hot tamal is rapping corn, Funny, hot damala is made
a chick in meat.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Hot mamal is.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Making you feel from jolliam gay. That's why I think
there are.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
A lot of songs about tomaly's.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Actually there's a bunch of early twentieth like early twentieth
century jazz and blue songs about tomali's. I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I didn't either, but as how delicious they sound, I
would sing about them too, speaking.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Of oh what are they?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Oh? Other than tasty? Tamaley is a corn flour dough
formed into a sort of solid tube or rectangular cake,
frequently with a pre cooked filling of some kind in
the core, savory things like shredded chicken or pork, stewed
vegetables or cheese, or sweet ones made with fruit or chocolate,
and then the whole thing is wrapped up tight and
(05:13):
cooked by steaming or simmering. Tomalies are served warm that
can be eaten cold too, and the result it's sort
of like a corn dumpling, just pillowy and springing, almost
melt in your mouth, but really satisfying. I'm sure they are.
The dough can be seasoned with a stuff like savory
(05:35):
broth or spicy pepper oil or sweet molasses or coconut milk,
or if they're simmered instead of being steamed, the water
might be seasoned the way that you would do in
a southern boil, like a crawfish.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Boil or something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, you can eat them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
The possibilities are endless and very extensively by region. There's
all kinds of traditions and preferences that have sprung up
based on whatever's available and popular in different areas.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Sure, yeah, sounds like you should eat them whenever you can.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
However, you got yeah, I yes, the world agrees. The
cornflower that you use to make this dough is important.
But more on that in our science section later on.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
The word tamale comes from the primary language spoken by
the Aztecs when their empire was at the peak of
its power, Though the Spanish it's from the Spanish word
am I getting that right?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well? Yeah, well, it's from It's from the Nawatal word tamali,
meaning wrapped but that turned into the Spanish word ta mal,
which we kind of bastardized because the singular in Spanish
is tamal. Right, plurali is tamalis, and we're just like tamali.
(06:50):
That's a great word.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I was very confused at first, like what, wait
a minute. Throughout Central America it had a variety of names,
but they all referred to basically the same thing, which
was a corn dough base wrapped in either a corn
husk or a banana leaf and then steamed. Right, And
apparently Chicago has a hot dog stand to Malay, also
(07:13):
sometimes called a corn roll, which is very different from
what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Or like mostly different. They're cylinders of corn meal encasing
seasoned ground meat or maybe meat substitute, cooked in hot
dog carts steamer boxes along with the hot dogs. Yeah,
so like the ratio is a little bit different and
the texture is going to be different.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
But right to all of the Chicago people, the Chicago
listeners who wrote in about that mysterious restaurant in Navy
Peer that I asked about in Tempe, confirm confirm about
the hot dog stands, maalows.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, yeah, tell us about them, Yes, have you had
the delicious send pictures?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yes, absolutely, Okay, Okay, So if we look at how
tamalis are made, it can be a tad intimidating.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I looked at one recipe and was.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Like, nope, And it's not that it was necessarily difficult
and skill level, but there were a lot of steps.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
A lot a lot of steps.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Oh yeah, one a recipe I saw I had one
hundred and twenty steps. Oh that's a lot of a
lot of instructions. Yes, I'm the type of person that
like accidentally skips a key thing. Oh yeah, when I'm
reading recipe, and then the whole thing's ruined. So if
I had one hundred and twenty of those to make
sure I didn't skip.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Your potential for failure is just yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's a lot greater because of this the difficulty. Similarly
to the dumpling traditions we talked about in our Lunar
New Year episode, tamalai's are often made in large quantities,
and the act of making them as a social one.
In fact, there's even a name for the social event
that is the making of tamales tom alatta.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, And I think traditionally this has been a woman
focused event, like a time for the women and girls
in a family to get together and catch up. But
now I think it's more common for men be involved too.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
In a lot of cultures, Tamaley's are a comfort food,
like a serious, serious holiday treat.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, it definitely pops up a lot around the holidays.
And in Atlanta, two pretty famous restaurants make tamali's for
purchase around Christmas, Fox Brothers Barbecue and Takyia del Soul.
I think Takyria del Sol, the chef.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
There won an award.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
He won like the Tamalay Festival Award one year or something,
so I'm definitely gonna check that out next Christmas.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
The Guinness World record for longest tomali comes from twenty sixteen, Peru,
with a one hundred and thirty foot about forty meters
behemoth Tamala. The filling was about two hundred twenty pounds
of chicken, eighty eight pounds of boiled egg, four hundred
and forty pounds of roasted maize, and forty four pounds
(09:52):
of olives. It took two hundred and fifty people using
a one hundred and thirty one foot or forty meter
oven to make oh and eighty people to carry it
to the central plaza.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
What if they had dropped it?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
That same year, National Tamala Day was established in the US.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
In terms of nutrition, a lot of tomales are made
with lard in the dough to keep the dough moist
and you know, make it tasty. Lard is nice. Yeah,
But this means that traditional tomales are pretty high in fat,
especially saturated fat, the bad kind effect. And they're usually
pretty high in sodium. But they're also high in protein,
especially if you've gotten meat or beans in the filling.
(10:33):
And they have a decent spread of vitamins and minerals,
so they will fill you up and keep you going.
But you know, maybe eat them with like a side
of vegetables. Yeah, maybe don't. Don't eat like twelve of
them in a setting, or do and live your life, y'all.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Well, give you the information, you decide what to do
with it.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And although although traditionally made at home, of course, there
is a market for packaged tomales, and it is on
the rise.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
I'm sure it is.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
M Yeah, I might have I might have thought about
going down that path. But you, Lauren, you said, don't
make your first don't you first one?
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Or I mean you know, I don't know? Again, yes,
do you know? Do what you can with what's available
to you. If your first Tomali experiences is a microwave tomalay,
I'm not going to judge you.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
It's good to know because I got to fix this
Tomali problems soon, you really do.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I'm going to give it a two week okay deadline?
All right?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, But now that we've established for the tamalay is,
let's let's go back in history and look at how
it came to be.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Oh, yes, in the way back. But first let's take
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, sir, Yes, thank you. So
the history of the Tamalae may go back as far
(12:05):
as eight thousand BCE with the use of corn as
a food in meso America. By around six thousand BCE,
the peoples there had started to domesticate wild maize and
to make masa that's corn dough from that maze for
tortillas and other foods.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, so that's a pretty long time.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
The creation myths of most of the civilizations living in
ancient Mexico, including the Mayans had to do with maize.
In the Mayan culture, the first humans were made of mud,
but they almost immediately dissolved. Oh, the second model of
humans were made of wood, but they were missing one
key thing, a soul husky little thing. The next iteration
(12:46):
of human was made of corn, and third times the
char vola humans.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
As we note, ah, yeah, No one.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Is sure when the first tamale happened amidst all of this,
but it probably would have been steamed in a pit
dug into the ground.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And in these pre Columbian Central American societies, tamalis themselves
were used in rituals and in offerings to gods, specific
tomalis for specific gods too.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Right, I love this, I do do. The Lord of Fire.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Got shrimp tomales, the jaguar god got bean tomales. Interesting,
and the rain god got tamales with hoitlacoche corn fungus. Yeah,
human sacrifices to the god of death and rebirth came
with the side of honey and bean tomales. And fun
fact about this God of death and rebirth, he used
(13:37):
the blood from his own flayed skin to water the fields.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
That's a that's an involved god.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
He Yeah, he really is.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
I mean he's getting a human sacrifice and honey and
bean tamale. Yeah. Then came the Spanish conquest. Some things
I read claimed tomali's were fed to as starving Cortez
and his crew. I feel like we've talked about what
was fed to Cortez and his crew on so many episodes, so.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Like an egregious number of times. Yeah, could be.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Could be.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
The Spanish bought with them new cooking materials. Instead of
steaming and cooking pits, tamalays were now steamed in pots.
If the tamall stuck to the pot and steaming, the
Astecs saw that as good luck and that it would
grant protection during battle.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I read that it was considered bad luck, especially for
women to eat, because if they were pregnant. If they
were pregnant, the child might get stuck in their womb
the way that the tamale had gotten stuck to the pot.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Oh, definitely about that.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So, but the source of this information is not super clear.
I kind of I kind of like read it on
the internet. I read a lot of things on the
internet that I feel pretty good about, but this one
was not. So it was a little bit shaky, So
I guess assess any stuck tomales individually and at your
own risk is the only advice I can give.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yes, food stuff disclaimer of the episode speak to the
luck of your tamale.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
The Spanish also brought with them pigs, leading eventually to
the inclusion of lard in the dough. Before this time,
it's unlikely that recipes for tamalays included much, if any fat,
but going forward it would become traditional.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Mm hmm. And speaking of traditional, as Catholicism spread, the
tamale was repurposed to fit into Christian festivals and celebration,
and that's why to this day tamalas are eaten around
Christmas among Latino populations of the Americas, and for other
holidays like Candelaria.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Which is a Catholic holiday that happens to align with
the Aztec New Year.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Oh it happens too, or whit Sunday, which is actually
coming up in a month or so, I think from
when we're recording this.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Oh okay soon. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
During this time, the tamale diversified depending on the resources
available in the area that was being made. As far
as the wrappings went, you could find appliable. Tree bark
or banana leaves are even sometimes fabric as well as
the corn husk that's common today. Recipes were passed down
from generation to generation, and typically they were made by women. Simultaneously,
(16:07):
Tamalis became associated with poverty, so their popularity diminished, and
this association lasted quite a long time. A book about
Mexican crime written by a lawyer and published in nineteen
oh one called tamale's quote abominable folk pastry.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Uh yeah, abominable, abominable.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
This poor outlook on Tamala's didn't really change until after
the Mexican Revolution. Tamalai's arrived in the US via cities
like San Antonio or Los Angeles, at least by the
eighteen seventies, when the La City Council was attempting to
outlaw tamale push carts and wagons woo yeah. They were
(16:47):
a part of the eighteen ninety three World's Columbian Exposition
in Chicago, and around the same time in the nineteen hundreds,
Mexican migrants brought Tamali traditions up with them through the
Mississippi Delta and or they were brought back with soldiers
as they came back from the US Mexican War.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Probably that first thing, though, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
As a lot of black people moved out of the
South for more opportunity in the urban north, more Mexican
workers arrived to work in the cotton fields of the South.
The Mexican workers shared tamali recipes with the African American
workers in the area, and from this a regional variation
emerged of the tamali. The main difference is that instead
of steaming, the Mississippi Delta version are simmered in a spicy,
(17:31):
peppery liquid, and instead of masa that cornflower dough cormeal
was used. At first, they were only available in the
area in the winter, the off season for the workers,
and usually sold off of carts located on street corners
where the vendor, the malli man as he was called,
would shout hot tamales. At one time, these carts were
(17:55):
as commonplace as gas stations.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And gas stations in the region also frequently how tomaly vendors.
To this day, Yeah, By nineteen twenty eight, these hot
tamales were a staple for folks of all backgrounds in
the South. That is when a cookbook called Southern Cooking
by a white woman by the name of Henrietta Dull
was first published, including a recipe for hot tomales.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
In July nineteen thirty seven, blues musician Robert Johnson released
They're Red Hot about Hot Tomalaes. The Red Hot Chili
Peppers would go on to cover it on their nineteen
ninety one album And I believe it's on rock band Oh,
I think so vague memories of singing very quick lyrics
(18:38):
about tomalways. I was always the singer in my rock
band me too frequently. It was funny because I could
play the guitar, but I couldn't play the rock band guitar,
A different.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Thing totally how it goes.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yes, Eventually, the hot tamales were offered all year round,
and it's still a food tradition of the region, including
a Delta Hot Tomale festival, oh.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Which which must be the thing that the Tabria de
sa won I believe though. Yeah, yeah, That festival is
the second Saturday of every October in Greenville, Mississippi. If
you're looking for something to do that weekend, oh man,
But apparently get your hotel rooms early because they've sold
they like sell the whole town sales out by September.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
I mean a hot Tamale festival, right, of course.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
These Delta Tamalis may explain that Chicago hot dog cart
tamale though, because as Black Southerners continued immigrating to the
North throughout the middle chunk of the twentieth century, they
brought with them food traditions like fried chicken, as we
mentioned in our fried Chicken episode, and perhaps these altered tamali's.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Perhaps in nineteen eleven, that's allegedly when the first written
reference to tamale pie appeared.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Have you ever heard of tamale pie?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, okay, okay, I'm just making sure there's this thing
people know about.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I assumed it. I think it's a Midwestern thing, okay.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
But the term was definitely around by World War One.
A tamali pie, for those of you don't know like me,
is a meat pie or a cast role that has
a cornal crust and layers of tamalay type fillings. Although
they grew popular when women were urged to conserve meat
during the rations of World War Two, so many of
the first recipes were meatless.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
But these days, I think ground beef is pretty omnipresent
in the midwestern Tamali pie.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
The Tamali pie, and that is the Tamalae history.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, that brings us more or less to the culture
of Tamalas today.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
It does.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And I've got some really cool science for you about
Tamale's Tamali science. But first I've got one more quick
break for a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
And we're back, Thank you sponsor. So warn yes, you
found some Tamali science.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Tamali science. Yeah, okay, there's some serious science to tomales
because of the way that the corn flour is made,
the masa. Because you're not just using like regular ol
ground up bits of corn meal in Spanish that would
be a harina de maize flour from corn to make
tomales and tortillas and arippas and corn chips. You use
(21:24):
masa or masa harna meaning dough or dough flour. Masa
is still made from corn, but it's corn that's been
treated in a process called Niche tomalization Niche tomalization Niche tomalization,
so that the field corn used to make masa is
not as tender as the sweet corn that we would
eat right off the ear. That the holes or endosperms
(21:45):
of its kernels are tough and too fibrous to make
for good dough. So before corn from masa is ground
down into flour, you want to dehullet, which is in
itself a tough problem because the hull is just really
stuck on there. So you simmer your corn kernels in water,
and the key is that you treat the water with
(22:05):
an alkalizer, usually lime or lie or lime, the mineral,
not the citrus. Back in the day, folks might have
used wood ash or oyster shells in their cooking water,
but these days you can just get the chemical.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So the heat and water soften the hole, and the
alkalinity starts breaking down the tissue of the kernel underneath,
which unsticks the hole from the rest of the kernel.
You can then rub or wash the holes off, and
the treated kernels that you are left with will be
big and porous and less tough and thus easier to
grind up. This is hominy, oh, by the way, the
(22:40):
Nawatal word for which was nesch tomali, which became the
Spanish niche to mal. In the American South, hominy is
what's ground up to make grits and how many is
also the corn bits and pasole if you've ever had
a pisole stew soup. Also, a specific large kernel species
of corn is used to make the snack corn nuts from.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Oh my dad loves hominy. As a kid, I would
mention it sometimes in passing, and no one ever knew
what it was.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
My grandmother kept like giant cans of hominy, but I
could like it was. It was sort of gooey almost
in texture, like like it was a little bit it's
supposed to be gelatinous. That's kind of the point, but
when it's canned, I don't know. It was always really
like bland and.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Uh just oozy face. Lauren is making it not a
good one. It was not not a good one.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So I grew up with this strong dislike for hominy.
But now I'm like, oh, it makes all the best foods,
good stuff. Okay, future episode, Yeah, back to back to
Molly's Yeah, because you know, so this is pretty cool.
But wait, there's more more more. It turns out that
(23:58):
this process, in breaking down the tissue of the corn
kernel a little bit, it makes nutrients like protein, calcium,
and niasin. That's vitamin B three more readily available for
us to digest when we eat it. It's also it
also converts some of corn's starches into dietary fiber, so
masa is more nutritious than plain old corn. Oo in
(24:19):
hominy too, and this process is what gives massa its stickiness.
The process messes with the structure of the starches in
the corn, gelatinizing them and releases some emulsifiers from the
tissue and adds some of that calcium into the mix,
meaning that when you grind the niche to modolized corn
down into flour, the particles are more willing to link
(24:39):
up with each other.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
We'll want to be best buzzed. Yeah. Cool.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It can also reduce or destroy some of the toxins
that cantaminate corn infested with certain types of fungus.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Oh, that is pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, And it changes the flavor a little bit Insitetimialization
creates compounds that can taste or smell like concord grapes, violets.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Spice graves, violets, and spice aw.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Masa arena is flour that's made like this and then
flash dried to preserve it. It can be made from white
or yellow corn and it's great as a thickener in
soups and stews. It's often available in grocery stores, and
if you've got a Central American market in your town,
they may carry massa preparada, which is prepared dough that's
freshly made and ready to be put to use. Ooh,
(25:26):
and this brings us more or less to the end
of our Tamalae episode and the end I know, but
but may I may I leave us with a little
bit of folk wisdom.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Please do Okay.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
There's a saying in Mexico Pea too mal un tamalea
toto bien tembien, which translates to when everything sucks, have
a tamale when everything's good, do the same thing. Tamali's
are great.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I can get behind that, right.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I've also seen this saying with my as cal instead
of tamali's. Yeah, so I guess you know whatever works
for you. But I think both our fine pieces of advice.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Absolutely, I've been I didn't know this was a saying,
but I feel like I've been following it, not knowing.
Bad day, have some chocolate, Yeah, good day, have some chocolate, Yeah,
regular day.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
You know what, probably chocolate chocolate. Yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I mean, I can't wait to try tomale, but who knows,
maybe I will be enjoying many and tomalay my day.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
I hope so, I hope so.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And that brings us to the end of this classic episode.
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we
enjoyed rerunning it. We hope that tamalis are in your future,
should you want them.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
We hope that if your kat also loves getting on
your keyboard, that maybe he doesn't do it when you're
in the middle of a recording session right before you're
about to break down your studio and move to a
new house.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to decipher these random
possibly not random keystro.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Okay, yeah, so so what he added? What he added
to the outline because he went ahead and did it
while we were recording live, So I figured I should
go ahead and say it. I think that's a.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
That's a.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Maybe it's a lowercase L dash zero P, left bracket,
left bracket. Then several several line several enters have been entered,
you know, several line breaks, then lowercase QA, capital W.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
It's co we got to crack it.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, it sounds like a droid from Star Wars to
be honest, but I don't know.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I'm gonna have to sit with this one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, Lopquah, that's a weird droid name.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
That's I don't know a lot of times they do,
like you know, like Choppers C one zero.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, like you know, I think there's there's something here to.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Play, there's room to play here, and well we'll get
to the bottom of it, absolutely, But in the meantime, listeners,
please contact us.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
We always love hearing from you.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, you can email us hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saver pod, and we
do hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(28:41):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savior, a protection of iHeartRadio. I'm
Annie Reese and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have a classic episode
for you about Tamale's. Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yes, I'm actually hoping some Tamalas are in my future.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well okay, So, as of the original, the original recording
of this in April of twenty eighteen, you had never
had one.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
No, but I that was an episode where I knew
this could not go on. And I did get some
pretty quickly after that, and since then, I've had several
around the city. It's something when I see on a menu,
I'm like, probably gonna.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Get, Probably should order that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, And I love them. I adore them so good.
We had a really good one in Vegas.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, that chef Sarah made. Yeah, that was so nice.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So I've had one recently, But that won't stop me
because there's a restaurant. Lauren and I are going on
very different Choose your an Adventure journeys. Lauren moving, and
I'm going to a very nerdy thing the downtown Atlanta.
Laurence cat is contributing to this outline. As we speaks,
(01:28):
he is Yeah, he's helping. Yes, but there's a restaurant
in downtown Atlanta that consistently has some tamala's.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
On their menu.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Usually go every year, so I'm very much looking forward
to it. So this classic. When you suggested it, I
was like, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Perfect, perfect timing. Yeah, well yeah, I speaking of timing,
I suppose let's see a couple couple of news updates.
Some Trader Joe's black bean tomalis have just been recalled
for having milk components but no milk allergy warning on
(02:04):
the labels. So if that applies to you, you know,
allow it to apply. Do with that as you will.
And also Vegas just announced that they are going to
be hosting a Tamales and Mariachi festival on December second
this year. So if you have the opportunity to go
check that out, I want you to and I want
(02:25):
you to report back in.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yes, please do.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And I've heard from you listeners about some some tomales
and your recipe, so that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Keep that coming, oh oh always literally always.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Oh please, But I suppose we should let past Annie
and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah, hello, and welcome to food Stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I'm Annie reve.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I'm Lauren Folkebaum, and today we're talking about Tomlly's.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yes, I, unfortunately, to my shame, have never had a tomaly.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Oh they're delicious.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah. I had to listen to a three minute conversation
between Lauren and Dylan before we started recording this about
how delicious they were. Okay, it's getting angrier and angrier, al.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
But we're gonna We're gonna rectify it. Yes, help is
on the way. Help is on the way, not like today,
but soon.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And doing the research on this one, I got a
craving for something I've never had, a very strong craving.
I knew immediately I'm going to have to go get
some of these. Yeah, probably a lot of them, a lot.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Like every day and for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yes, oh boy, that sounds fun.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So Lauren, let's start with a nineteen oh nine song
that you didn't know that's where this was going, did
you listeners by Herbert Ingram. Yes, I'm not gonna sing it,
and you'll thank me for that. It goes hot tomaly
wrapped in corn so neat, hot tomaly made of chicken meat.
Hot tomaly makes you feel so jolly and gay. That's
(04:12):
why I say, buy a hot tamat out of a
steaming pot. While they are nice and hot, you'll get
the best ie gun.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Hot tamal is rapping corn, Funny, hot damala is made
a chick in meat.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Hot mamal is.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Making you feel from jolliam gay. That's why I think
there are.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
A lot of songs about tomaly's.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Actually there's a bunch of early twentieth like early twentieth
century jazz and blue songs about tomali's. I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I didn't either, but as how delicious they sound, I
would sing about them too, speaking.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Of oh what are they?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Oh? Other than tasty? Tamaley is a corn flour dough
formed into a sort of solid tube or rectangular cake,
frequently with a pre cooked filling of some kind in
the core, savory things like shredded chicken or pork, stewed
vegetables or cheese, or sweet ones made with fruit or chocolate,
and then the whole thing is wrapped up tight and
(05:13):
cooked by steaming or simmering. Tomalies are served warm that
can be eaten cold too, and the result it's sort
of like a corn dumpling, just pillowy and springing, almost
melt in your mouth, but really satisfying. I'm sure they are.
The dough can be seasoned with a stuff like savory
(05:35):
broth or spicy pepper oil or sweet molasses or coconut milk,
or if they're simmered instead of being steamed, the water
might be seasoned the way that you would do in
a southern boil, like a crawfish.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Boil or something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, you can eat them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
The possibilities are endless and very extensively by region. There's
all kinds of traditions and preferences that have sprung up
based on whatever's available and popular in different areas.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Sure, yeah, sounds like you should eat them whenever you can.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
However, you got yeah, I yes, the world agrees. The
cornflower that you use to make this dough is important.
But more on that in our science section later on.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
The word tamale comes from the primary language spoken by
the Aztecs when their empire was at the peak of
its power, Though the Spanish it's from the Spanish word
am I getting that right?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well? Yeah, well, it's from It's from the Nawatal word tamali,
meaning wrapped but that turned into the Spanish word ta mal,
which we kind of bastardized because the singular in Spanish
is tamal. Right, plurali is tamalis, and we're just like tamali.
(06:50):
That's a great word.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I was very confused at first, like what, wait
a minute. Throughout Central America it had a variety of names,
but they all referred to basically the same thing, which
was a corn dough base wrapped in either a corn
husk or a banana leaf and then steamed. Right, And
apparently Chicago has a hot dog stand to Malay, also
(07:13):
sometimes called a corn roll, which is very different from
what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Or like mostly different. They're cylinders of corn meal encasing
seasoned ground meat or maybe meat substitute, cooked in hot
dog carts steamer boxes along with the hot dogs. Yeah,
so like the ratio is a little bit different and
the texture is going to be different.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
But right to all of the Chicago people, the Chicago
listeners who wrote in about that mysterious restaurant in Navy
Peer that I asked about in Tempe, confirm confirm about
the hot dog stands, maalows.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, yeah, tell us about them, Yes, have you had
the delicious send pictures?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yes, absolutely, Okay, Okay, So if we look at how
tamalis are made, it can be a tad intimidating.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
I looked at one recipe and was.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Like, nope, And it's not that it was necessarily difficult
and skill level, but there were a lot of steps.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
A lot a lot of steps.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Oh yeah, one a recipe I saw I had one
hundred and twenty steps. Oh that's a lot of a
lot of instructions. Yes, I'm the type of person that
like accidentally skips a key thing. Oh yeah, when I'm
reading recipe, and then the whole thing's ruined. So if
I had one hundred and twenty of those to make
sure I didn't skip.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Your potential for failure is just yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's a lot greater because of this the difficulty. Similarly
to the dumpling traditions we talked about in our Lunar
New Year episode, tamalai's are often made in large quantities,
and the act of making them as a social one.
In fact, there's even a name for the social event
that is the making of tamales tom alatta.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, And I think traditionally this has been a woman
focused event, like a time for the women and girls
in a family to get together and catch up. But
now I think it's more common for men be involved too.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
In a lot of cultures, Tamaley's are a comfort food,
like a serious, serious holiday treat.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, it definitely pops up a lot around the holidays.
And in Atlanta, two pretty famous restaurants make tamali's for
purchase around Christmas, Fox Brothers Barbecue and Takyia del Soul.
I think Takyria del Sol, the chef.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
There won an award.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
He won like the Tamalay Festival Award one year or something,
so I'm definitely gonna check that out next Christmas.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
The Guinness World record for longest tomali comes from twenty sixteen, Peru,
with a one hundred and thirty foot about forty meters
behemoth Tamala. The filling was about two hundred twenty pounds
of chicken, eighty eight pounds of boiled egg, four hundred
and forty pounds of roasted maize, and forty four pounds
(09:52):
of olives. It took two hundred and fifty people using
a one hundred and thirty one foot or forty meter
oven to make oh and eighty people to carry it
to the central plaza.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
What if they had dropped it?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
That same year, National Tamala Day was established in the US.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
In terms of nutrition, a lot of tomales are made
with lard in the dough to keep the dough moist
and you know, make it tasty. Lard is nice. Yeah,
But this means that traditional tomales are pretty high in fat,
especially saturated fat, the bad kind effect. And they're usually
pretty high in sodium. But they're also high in protein,
especially if you've gotten meat or beans in the filling.
(10:33):
And they have a decent spread of vitamins and minerals,
so they will fill you up and keep you going.
But you know, maybe eat them with like a side
of vegetables. Yeah, maybe don't. Don't eat like twelve of
them in a setting, or do and live your life, y'all.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Well, give you the information, you decide what to do
with it.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And although although traditionally made at home, of course, there
is a market for packaged tomales, and it is on
the rise.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
I'm sure it is.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
M Yeah, I might have I might have thought about
going down that path. But you, Lauren, you said, don't
make your first don't you first one?
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Or I mean you know, I don't know? Again, yes,
do you know? Do what you can with what's available
to you. If your first Tomali experiences is a microwave tomalay,
I'm not going to judge you.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
It's good to know because I got to fix this
Tomali problems soon, you really do.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I'm going to give it a two week okay deadline?
All right?
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah, But now that we've established for the tamalay is,
let's let's go back in history and look at how
it came to be.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Oh, yes, in the way back. But first let's take
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, sir, Yes, thank you. So
the history of the Tamalae may go back as far
(12:05):
as eight thousand BCE with the use of corn as
a food in meso America. By around six thousand BCE,
the peoples there had started to domesticate wild maize and
to make masa that's corn dough from that maze for
tortillas and other foods.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, so that's a pretty long time.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
The creation myths of most of the civilizations living in
ancient Mexico, including the Mayans had to do with maize.
In the Mayan culture, the first humans were made of mud,
but they almost immediately dissolved. Oh, the second model of
humans were made of wood, but they were missing one
key thing, a soul husky little thing. The next iteration
(12:46):
of human was made of corn, and third times the
char vola humans.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
As we note, ah, yeah, No one.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Is sure when the first tamale happened amidst all of this,
but it probably would have been steamed in a pit
dug into the ground.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
And in these pre Columbian Central American societies, tamalis themselves
were used in rituals and in offerings to gods, specific
tomalis for specific gods too.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Right, I love this, I do do. The Lord of Fire.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Got shrimp tomales, the jaguar god got bean tomales. Interesting,
and the rain god got tamales with hoitlacoche corn fungus. Yeah,
human sacrifices to the god of death and rebirth came
with the side of honey and bean tomales. And fun
fact about this God of death and rebirth, he used
(13:37):
the blood from his own flayed skin to water the fields.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
That's a that's an involved god.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
He Yeah, he really is.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
I mean he's getting a human sacrifice and honey and
bean tamale. Yeah. Then came the Spanish conquest. Some things
I read claimed tomali's were fed to as starving Cortez
and his crew. I feel like we've talked about what
was fed to Cortez and his crew on so many episodes, so.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Like an egregious number of times. Yeah, could be.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Could be.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
The Spanish bought with them new cooking materials. Instead of
steaming and cooking pits, tamalays were now steamed in pots.
If the tamall stuck to the pot and steaming, the
Astecs saw that as good luck and that it would
grant protection during battle.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I read that it was considered bad luck, especially for
women to eat, because if they were pregnant. If they
were pregnant, the child might get stuck in their womb
the way that the tamale had gotten stuck to the pot.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Oh, definitely about that.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So, but the source of this information is not super clear.
I kind of I kind of like read it on
the internet. I read a lot of things on the
internet that I feel pretty good about, but this one
was not. So it was a little bit shaky, So
I guess assess any stuck tomales individually and at your
own risk is the only advice I can give.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yes, food stuff disclaimer of the episode speak to the
luck of your tamale.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
The Spanish also brought with them pigs, leading eventually to
the inclusion of lard in the dough. Before this time,
it's unlikely that recipes for tamalays included much, if any fat,
but going forward it would become traditional.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Mm hmm. And speaking of traditional, as Catholicism spread, the
tamale was repurposed to fit into Christian festivals and celebration,
and that's why to this day tamalas are eaten around
Christmas among Latino populations of the Americas, and for other
holidays like Candelaria.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Which is a Catholic holiday that happens to align with
the Aztec New Year.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Oh it happens too, or whit Sunday, which is actually
coming up in a month or so, I think from
when we're recording this.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Oh okay soon. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
During this time, the tamale diversified depending on the resources
available in the area that was being made. As far
as the wrappings went, you could find appliable. Tree bark
or banana leaves are even sometimes fabric as well as
the corn husk that's common today. Recipes were passed down
from generation to generation, and typically they were made by women. Simultaneously,
(16:07):
Tamalis became associated with poverty, so their popularity diminished, and
this association lasted quite a long time. A book about
Mexican crime written by a lawyer and published in nineteen
oh one called tamale's quote abominable folk pastry.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Uh yeah, abominable, abominable.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
This poor outlook on Tamala's didn't really change until after
the Mexican Revolution. Tamalai's arrived in the US via cities
like San Antonio or Los Angeles, at least by the
eighteen seventies, when the La City Council was attempting to
outlaw tamale push carts and wagons woo yeah. They were
(16:47):
a part of the eighteen ninety three World's Columbian Exposition
in Chicago, and around the same time in the nineteen hundreds,
Mexican migrants brought Tamali traditions up with them through the
Mississippi Delta and or they were brought back with soldiers
as they came back from the US Mexican War.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Probably that first thing, though, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
As a lot of black people moved out of the
South for more opportunity in the urban north, more Mexican
workers arrived to work in the cotton fields of the South.
The Mexican workers shared tamali recipes with the African American
workers in the area, and from this a regional variation
emerged of the tamali. The main difference is that instead
of steaming, the Mississippi Delta version are simmered in a spicy,
(17:31):
peppery liquid, and instead of masa that cornflower dough cormeal
was used. At first, they were only available in the
area in the winter, the off season for the workers,
and usually sold off of carts located on street corners
where the vendor, the malli man as he was called,
would shout hot tamales. At one time, these carts were
(17:55):
as commonplace as gas stations.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And gas stations in the region also frequently how tomaly vendors.
To this day, Yeah, By nineteen twenty eight, these hot
tamales were a staple for folks of all backgrounds in
the South. That is when a cookbook called Southern Cooking
by a white woman by the name of Henrietta Dull
was first published, including a recipe for hot tomales.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
In July nineteen thirty seven, blues musician Robert Johnson released
They're Red Hot about Hot Tomalaes. The Red Hot Chili
Peppers would go on to cover it on their nineteen
ninety one album And I believe it's on rock band Oh,
I think so vague memories of singing very quick lyrics
(18:38):
about tomalways. I was always the singer in my rock
band me too frequently. It was funny because I could
play the guitar, but I couldn't play the rock band guitar,
A different.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Thing totally how it goes.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yes, Eventually, the hot tamales were offered all year round,
and it's still a food tradition of the region, including
a Delta Hot Tomale festival, oh.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Which which must be the thing that the Tabria de
sa won I believe though. Yeah, yeah, That festival is
the second Saturday of every October in Greenville, Mississippi. If
you're looking for something to do that weekend, oh man,
But apparently get your hotel rooms early because they've sold
they like sell the whole town sales out by September.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
I mean a hot Tamale festival, right, of course.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
These Delta Tamalis may explain that Chicago hot dog cart
tamale though, because as Black Southerners continued immigrating to the
North throughout the middle chunk of the twentieth century, they
brought with them food traditions like fried chicken, as we
mentioned in our fried Chicken episode, and perhaps these altered tamali's.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Perhaps in nineteen eleven, that's allegedly when the first written
reference to tamale pie appeared.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Have you ever heard of tamale pie?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, okay, okay, I'm just making sure there's this thing
people know about.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I assumed it. I think it's a Midwestern thing, okay.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
But the term was definitely around by World War One.
A tamali pie, for those of you don't know like me,
is a meat pie or a cast role that has
a cornal crust and layers of tamalay type fillings. Although
they grew popular when women were urged to conserve meat
during the rations of World War Two, so many of
the first recipes were meatless.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
But these days, I think ground beef is pretty omnipresent
in the midwestern Tamali pie.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
The Tamali pie, and that is the Tamalae history.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, that brings us more or less to the culture
of Tamalas today.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
It does.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And I've got some really cool science for you about
Tamale's Tamali science. But first I've got one more quick
break for a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
And we're back, Thank you sponsor. So warn yes, you
found some Tamali science.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Tamali science. Yeah, okay, there's some serious science to tomales
because of the way that the corn flour is made,
the masa. Because you're not just using like regular ol
ground up bits of corn meal in Spanish that would
be a harina de maize flour from corn to make
tomales and tortillas and arippas and corn chips. You use
(21:24):
masa or masa harna meaning dough or dough flour. Masa
is still made from corn, but it's corn that's been
treated in a process called Niche tomalization Niche tomalization Niche tomalization,
so that the field corn used to make masa is
not as tender as the sweet corn that we would
eat right off the ear. That the holes or endosperms
(21:45):
of its kernels are tough and too fibrous to make
for good dough. So before corn from masa is ground
down into flour, you want to dehullet, which is in
itself a tough problem because the hull is just really
stuck on there. So you simmer your corn kernels in water,
and the key is that you treat the water with
(22:05):
an alkalizer, usually lime or lie or lime, the mineral,
not the citrus. Back in the day, folks might have
used wood ash or oyster shells in their cooking water,
but these days you can just get the chemical.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So the heat and water soften the hole, and the
alkalinity starts breaking down the tissue of the kernel underneath,
which unsticks the hole from the rest of the kernel.
You can then rub or wash the holes off, and
the treated kernels that you are left with will be
big and porous and less tough and thus easier to
grind up. This is hominy, oh, by the way, the
(22:40):
Nawatal word for which was nesch tomali, which became the
Spanish niche to mal. In the American South, hominy is
what's ground up to make grits and how many is
also the corn bits and pasole if you've ever had
a pisole stew soup. Also, a specific large kernel species
of corn is used to make the snack corn nuts from.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Oh my dad loves hominy. As a kid, I would
mention it sometimes in passing, and no one ever knew
what it was.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
My grandmother kept like giant cans of hominy, but I
could like it was. It was sort of gooey almost
in texture, like like it was a little bit it's
supposed to be gelatinous. That's kind of the point, but
when it's canned, I don't know. It was always really
like bland and.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Uh just oozy face. Lauren is making it not a
good one. It was not not a good one.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
So I grew up with this strong dislike for hominy.
But now I'm like, oh, it makes all the best foods,
good stuff. Okay, future episode, Yeah, back to back to
Molly's Yeah, because you know, so this is pretty cool.
But wait, there's more more more. It turns out that
(23:58):
this process, in breaking down the tissue of the corn
kernel a little bit, it makes nutrients like protein, calcium,
and niasin. That's vitamin B three more readily available for
us to digest when we eat it. It's also it
also converts some of corn's starches into dietary fiber, so
masa is more nutritious than plain old corn. Oo in
(24:19):
hominy too, and this process is what gives massa its stickiness.
The process messes with the structure of the starches in
the corn, gelatinizing them and releases some emulsifiers from the
tissue and adds some of that calcium into the mix,
meaning that when you grind the niche to modolized corn
down into flour, the particles are more willing to link
(24:39):
up with each other.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
We'll want to be best buzzed. Yeah. Cool.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It can also reduce or destroy some of the toxins
that cantaminate corn infested with certain types of fungus.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Oh, that is pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, And it changes the flavor a little bit Insitetimialization
creates compounds that can taste or smell like concord grapes, violets.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Spice graves, violets, and spice aw.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Masa arena is flour that's made like this and then
flash dried to preserve it. It can be made from white
or yellow corn and it's great as a thickener in
soups and stews. It's often available in grocery stores, and
if you've got a Central American market in your town,
they may carry massa preparada, which is prepared dough that's
freshly made and ready to be put to use. Ooh,
(25:26):
and this brings us more or less to the end
of our Tamalae episode and the end I know, but
but may I may I leave us with a little
bit of folk wisdom.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Please do Okay.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
There's a saying in Mexico Pea too mal un tamalea
toto bien tembien, which translates to when everything sucks, have
a tamale when everything's good, do the same thing. Tamali's
are great.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
I can get behind that, right.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I've also seen this saying with my as cal instead
of tamali's. Yeah, so I guess you know whatever works
for you. But I think both our fine pieces of advice.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Absolutely, I've been I didn't know this was a saying,
but I feel like I've been following it, not knowing.
Bad day, have some chocolate, Yeah, good day, have some chocolate, Yeah,
regular day.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
You know what, probably chocolate chocolate. Yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I mean, I can't wait to try tomale, but who knows,
maybe I will be enjoying many and tomalay my day.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
I hope so, I hope so.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
And that brings us to the end of this classic episode.
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we
enjoyed rerunning it. We hope that tamalis are in your future,
should you want them.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
We hope that if your kat also loves getting on
your keyboard, that maybe he doesn't do it when you're
in the middle of a recording session right before you're
about to break down your studio and move to a
new house.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to decipher these random
possibly not random keystro.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Okay, yeah, so so what he added? What he added
to the outline because he went ahead and did it
while we were recording live, So I figured I should
go ahead and say it. I think that's a.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
That's a.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Maybe it's a lowercase L dash zero P, left bracket,
left bracket. Then several several line several enters have been entered,
you know, several line breaks, then lowercase QA, capital W.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
It's co we got to crack it.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, it sounds like a droid from Star Wars to
be honest, but I don't know.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I'm gonna have to sit with this one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, Lopquah, that's a weird droid name.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
That's I don't know a lot of times they do,
like you know, like Choppers C one zero.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, like you know, I think there's there's something here to.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Play, there's room to play here, and well we'll get
to the bottom of it, absolutely, But in the meantime, listeners,
please contact us.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
We always love hearing from you.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, you can email us hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saver pod, and we
do hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(28:41):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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