December 22, 2022 • 28 mins
Tamales are enjoyed all year round but become the center of the Mexican household around the holidays, a testament to the 10,000 year old dish with roots in Mesoamerica. In this episode, Eva and Maite unwrap the history of tamales while taste testing some from Tamales Olmeca in Los Angeles. Plus, a listener sends in a message sharing her family's tradition of making and eating tamales during Christmas.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Malis are over ten thousand years old and played
an important role in ancient meso American rituals and festivals,
and my ease, the main component of the dish, is
one of Mexico's greatest gifts to the world. Today's episode
is all about that. My name. My name is Eva
Longoria and I am and welcome to Hungry for History,
(00:26):
a podcast that explores our past and present through food.
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages. So make yourself
at home, eh, I'm from Texas. I was like Tomales
or from Texas. I knew they were Mexican, but there's
so many different versions, different kinds throughout meso America. There
(00:47):
are tons of different types, different names or different regions,
but they've been around for our Actually, the earliest visual
reference for the males appears in ofresco from Guatemala dating
around fIF BC, and you even have images of women
vendors selling them list so in these are pure frescoes
thousands of years ago. And there are a lot of
(01:08):
Mayan vessels that are used for drinking hot chocolate that
have depictions of on the actual they're like little ovals
with like red stuff on top, so it's probably red sauce.
So they've been around forever. And we see a lot
of references to Theamalies in different codexes, like post colonial codexes,
(01:31):
and one of them is called the Florentine Kodex. That's
twelve books and talk about the different aspects of you know,
life in Mexico at the time of the conquest. And
they have a whole section talking about them list, which
is so interesting. And this is a book compiled between
fifteen seventy seven and fifteen eighty seven, and chapter nineteen
(01:52):
of book ten they talk about different themalists. So they
talk about fish them lists, fishes I don't think I've
ever had for some never had fish with grains of maize,
frog them list, okay, salamander list Okay, rabbit the list,
go for them list. And he talks about tasty, like
(02:15):
very tasty, tam list. When they talk about the vendors
selling them, my list softened in lime, and I want
to talk about the lime this next samalization process in
a minute. Fruit the list being the list we pointed
them white them lis rolled shaped the list so even
them list with the fruit, turkey, egg, honey, you know,
(02:37):
every They just put everything in the mace. They just
put everything in there. Yeah, but most of them. I
mean there's some meats like the rabbit and the salamander
and all of this, but a lot of vegetables and
also no lard where which we put in massa. If
you don't put the lard in the massa today, it
just doesn't seal, doesn't cook and bake, right, I'm wondering
(02:57):
if they had more texture than well, there weren't fluffy
because the lard is what makes it really fluffy. So
the originals were probably quite dense, super dense because they
didn't really have that. Yeah, So I don't know they were.
They probably very varied. A lot of codex is where
you see the maale is depicted in festivals and rituals,
(03:21):
birth of a child, and there's you know, some codexes
that you know show the themala being given as a
gift and then also being depicted for hunting and traveling
large distances. You know, if these were nomadic tribes. You know,
Aztec and mind civilizations were pretty settled, but all Mec
and Toltec and all all of the other tribes before
(03:42):
if they're ten tho years old. This tradition has been
passed along through many many civilizations. Our themal is related
to the religious systems well, the whole idea of just
corn corns because it was sacred, because it was sacred.
(04:03):
And actually even going back to the corn that we
have today though seen that which is the the original
corn that's been around forever for like thousand years, the
original corn looked very different than our corn today. So
it was kind of a bushy plant that had maybe
six cornels. So it really had to be bred to
(04:26):
be able to get to what we have today. Actually,
the corn that we have today is only like six
thousand years old, but it's something that requires the from
the beginning. It can't really be pelivated, cultivated by cultivated
by humans, right and also even you know, growing the
corn in the meat bus together with beans, together with squash.
(04:47):
So it's part of this very sophisticated agricultural system and
it's the reason why these ancient civilizations thrived for so
many years because they had this particular cop It's not
just the plant itself. It needed to undergo, you know,
to get from the corn to the Massif that is
(05:08):
that the nixt melization process. What is that process? Unail
it does We've talked about this in the corn episode,
but like, not everybody does it. Not everybody does it.
But the true corn, the really good massa undergoes this process.
And yeah, we talked about it during the You soak it, right,
you soak the corn and something. You soak the corn
(05:29):
kernels in this calcium hydroxide, which is called cal or lime,
but not like the not like the line that you
put in Margarita. It's like this, this calcium wary drog side,
which in and of itself can be toxic, but when
you add it in small quantities, like you add this
to corn, it's life giving and it removes the skin
(05:49):
of the grain. It softens the skin, so it makes
the grinding easier, and it makes the grinding easier. And
it's what smells like if you open up a bag
of massa. If it smells a little bit of sidic,
it's not really what you want. But if it smells
like corn, it is this life giving you know, an
ex simelization process that brings out all of the necessary nutrients.
(06:11):
So this nextim cooin is the reason why these civilizations
thrived for so many years. And even at the time
of the conquest, which is fland, modern day Mexico City
was a thriving city right and there you know, the
malis were a big part of course of the food,
but the city was as big as Paris at the time.
(06:34):
So I I love to think about Oh, people think
of you know, Paris sort of sophisticated. It was kind
of the same, you know, but there's sophisticated to the
agricultural systems, the the waterways, I mean everything and amazing well,
and so this process is pretty sophisticated. And the fact
that they were doing this process and that process is
(06:55):
still done today, that's what's amazing to me. You know
that some of these things have been around that we
don't even think about it, right, They've been around corn whatever,
They've been around for millennia. They're just a part of
the d n a of of of Mexicans. And also
of course in South Texas and California is just like everywhere,
the manage are such an important part of the culture.
(07:18):
Do you know about the Saca wheels from No. I
was just I was just looking at this. It's they're
so interesting sixteen foot the mullet. Yeah, they're humongout us.
They're wrapped in banana, but you have to eat them
with a spoon because they're not they're different that you
cook a sixteen and the giant the giant ovens for
(07:39):
these sacca wheat. They can feed fifty people and typically
served oh at weddings, baptism. There's an origin story to
this zacca wheel. Yeah, this is interesting. So in pre
Hispanic times, Empertsuma sent one of his men, and this
guy named m Lean to collect tributes from the area
of Lawas Takau and gim Clean took advantage of his
(08:02):
power and abused women along the way and eventually the
west they goes from this region, they took revenge. They
captured him, they cooked him with chile, and they put
him in a pit. You know. They cooked him and
shredded his flesh and cooked him and put him and
they put him in at the giant the mal and
(08:23):
they served it. Tell of the women who had been abused,
and they shouted, the problem is over. Plunk plank or landfill.
The problem is over. And this was repeated with rapists
with prisoners reward. It's like you know what, because this
is what's gonna happen to you. You're gonna turn into
the mail. And of course this was, you know, forbidden
(08:50):
tamalis themselves. I think because they're so labor intensive, they
have to be for so many people. Today they're made
with chicken or pork of course, or of a combination,
but used to be made with like deer, which you
may have you made it with, dear Dilla, have your
hat for Della. I have not, and I don't plan to.
I have had snake meat, though I've never had snake meat.
(09:11):
Snake meat just tas. Know what we're saying, tastes like chicken,
tastes like chick. Frog legs, tastes like chicken. After the break,
we're trying something. List don't go anywhere. Open this bay
(09:38):
right now. This is this Latina owned small business based
here in l A called Mecca Meca. Oh my god,
I can smell it. I can smell it. So this
is an l A. This is an l A. Yeah,
this is an l A. And I have to so
(10:03):
racas are I usually think they were held opinion, they're not.
The poblano slices delicious. And then we also have carnitas. Oh,
I love carnitas, which is pork, which is what I
usually eat in Texas. Is what you well, dear, I know,
we do dear tomalis and we do pork tomalies and
(10:26):
bean we do beans. Is that what you make here?
We I made everything here. I did chicken, beef, bean,
I did everything. I do everything. And so this is
this themat on the corn husk, freshly made. These were
made today. Okay, it's very brad, super red. So this
is obviously the carnita one. I think it's the gun
must be. Usually the red ones are the pork. Obviously
(10:49):
a savory massa. Yes, savory massa I've never seen. Is
when they get confused in the bag. It's like you
don't know what you're gonna get another grab bag. Oh
my gosh, I've never seen red racks. By the way,
these are huge compared to the ones I make a
really big You're delicious. It's an amazing The cheese mm hmmm,
(11:11):
it's super yes. Yeah, So I like, I'm very picky
about my tomale is. I don't. I like a massa
meat ratio to be sixty. Okay, I like more meat.
I like more meat too, So I think it's really
(11:33):
really good and the massa is super flavorful. Sometimes you
get the maalas where massa is just the thing that's
holding in the filling. Yeah, and it's a little massa
ea or there's like a sad little like thing, sad
little filling, sad little all right, So now we're gonna taste.
So this one must be which is white? Yeah, that's backwards.
(11:57):
Is that what it means to be old mac? She's
keeping us on our toes this so normally your pork
themals are the red the red ones. Yea. So now
she's just doing something completely different. Oh that's a lot
of meat. It's too mm hmm. How is that? M m.
(12:18):
You can tell these underneaths have been cooked for a
very long time. So much flavor this massa Again, this
massa is white, so it doesn't have chilip in the
massa like the other. Sometimes the massa it's too dense,
too dense. This one's not. This is nice and soft,
it is and and it's not. Sometimes that the dope
(12:40):
competes with the filling. You can only taste one thing
and there's like a sad little strip of chicken or whatever.
This is like the perfect ratio. It's a good ratio.
This this filling is so so so flavorful. You're right,
the massa has a personality as well as opposed to
like just holding in the filling. This massa is really good.
(13:02):
Now we're not sharing the are you kidding? We already
finished him. Hi. My name is Junior and I am
the founder of Omeca. I started making them lists throughout
the pandemic and would take them to the restaurant I
worked out, And at first it all started at something
nourishing and something to provide of comfort to during those
(13:25):
difficult times. But then the demand just kept getting higher
and higher, and I decided to do something with that.
So growing up with my mom, we never really made
them list. She just thought it was very labor intensive
and she refused to do it. She actually told me
that she refused to learn because she knew that she
(13:47):
would have to make them. So when I told her
that I started at my business, she laughed and she
could not believe it, but eatd by a lot of them.
Lists for um are one lady that would always make
um amazing every time, So that would be my biggest
(14:08):
memory of Camales did you make themals? Growing up h
No and Laredo. I never grew up making themalest. We
always had the malice, but we never I didn't have
the tradition of making themales. My earliest memory my mom
(14:32):
used to go visit her relatives in Mexico City and
she used to bring back these themmali pine sweet like
a like you know that the Mexican pine nuts are
pink and they taste really just different. They're sweeter there
and they were light pink, and she used to bring
a suitcase. She used to buy them from some nuns
(14:54):
and bring back with a sucase full of them, so
we have listen, they're freezer, you know, always and then
we would have them and it's like, oh like Christmas
few years yeah, down the street, Yes, from the Tamala
lady or from the and I love the tradition of
getting together in the whole family and make the other
I never really grew up with that. Every year it
(15:16):
was a sacred day before Christmas and we'd make hundreds
of dozens, hundreds of dozens because it was all my aunts.
My aunt was a cater or two, so she would
make them. She's the one that makes. Do you have
her recipe for cookie that you only make people? Um,
so we we would make a hundred dozen, and my
(15:39):
mom would get twenty dozen, and and my my aunt
would get twenty dozen, and so they all got So
she's like, you can sell them, you can eat them,
you can freeze whatever you want to do. But like
we're dividing the labor evenly as we divide the like
it was a whole. The counting was a thing. My
aunt was like twelve, Like she was really a stickler.
How many you get to take home? If you participated
(16:03):
in the day, you got to take them home? Did
everybody have a role? Like did you have a specific role?
I was a good spreader. You were a spreader. So
always so as when you get all normally spread because
the spreading is the most important. Like we said, massa
to filling ratio. So rolling him and folding him is
the easiest parts of my sister to do that because
they're not as good. I find that hard when I've
(16:24):
tried to make them a list. They always I always
have like it's the size of your husk. Maybe it's
too big. I don't know, I don't know. What if
you're like rolling it and then if they fall apart,
like I'll show you this year, you'll have to show me.
So are you still the spreader? This is I'm still
the spreader. I'm the spreader and I'm also the quality
(16:44):
check spreader. So as we push them down the line,
I'm like, what is that one? Send it back? I
rejected out spread it more, go lower. Yeah, I'm like,
that's my job and it's amazing, Like you know, you
doing these tamadas and you're following a tree that has
been around for ever. The malads can be so different
(17:07):
depending on where you're from or how you like them.
We asked you to send us your favorite memories eating
and making themalis. Thank you so much for sharing those
with us. We'll share one of those messages right after
the break. Welcome back to the show. We loved hearing
(17:38):
from you for our special Tales episode. Thank you to
everyone who sent a message. This one is from Rosie
Valise from Napa, California, sharing her tradition making themalis inspired
by her late mother. Hi, my name is Rosie Velis
and I'm calling from Napa, California. My mom's pork and
(17:59):
red chili recipe was hunted down to me and my
four sisters, and we've been making them every December twenty
three since we lost her three or three years ago.
Because we had nine siblings in our family, we make
well over eight to ten dozen tamales to enjoy Christmas Eve.
Through the years, we've included our daughters, our nieces and
granddaughters so that they learned to make them and can
(18:20):
carry on the tradition, and in recent years some of
the boys have taken interest in making them too. When
we make tamales, we catch up on each other's lives, gossip,
enjoy some wine, and we usually have music playing in
the background Saltzmas, so we inevitably end up dancing too.
Then we see each other on Christmas Eve for our
traditional familiar Velis party that started way back in the
(18:43):
day with our mom, and we enjoyed the tamales, the company,
and the other delicious food we all bring to share.
So the tradition of making tamales every year in December
is a very special time for my family. Thank you
for allowing me to share. What is your favorite? Well,
(19:08):
I like the sweet ones? You like this? I do
like the sweet ones, but I don't I don't like raisins.
We don't. I feel like rued cookie, cookies, bread, banana bread, fruitcake.
I get any of the fruitcakes. I can't because they're
all like raising cousins. I don't. I'm okay with fruitcake
because it's all that and dates and all that stuff.
(19:30):
And I like raisins, but it's not a dessert. But
you know, it's not for something that I crave, but
it's something that I look forward to during the holidays
because it represents home, you know, and that sort of
passage and the ritual and the tradition. Yeah, exactly. Um,
I love the pork. I mean, the pork is my favorite.
And I like banana leave wrapped ones. I actually did
(19:52):
in on my trip and you got that or where
did you make? Look at them? Okay, yeah, these amazing
banana leaf wrapped themales. But they cocoma underground and the
baby and they come out crunchy like like hard. But
that's interesting. The whole thing is hard or just like that,
(20:14):
like just the crust just that has a little texture.
It's like and now I want to make my son.
I want to make them in the oven. Sometimes when
I eat them up, I'll put them on because I
like the cspy. I like that. I like that it's
crispy and then it's and then it's soci on the
on the inside. So you have the different the different
text here. Yeah, that makes so, I like that, that
(20:35):
makes sense. But the banana thing is into the banana
because that's not nate. I mean the bananas were introduced
four so it's only really did the Spaniards bring bananas bananas? Yeah,
bananas are not native. Bananas are not native. But if
the malas are ten years old from meso America, Guatemalans,
surely they had banana. It was all corn and corn,
(20:58):
all corn. I mean, it's really the food. I mean,
you could probably say even before that goes before, it's
the thema and just massa itself is so interesting, right
but even you know, pre conquest, they used to take
the massa and spread the massa, put the filling, and
then it was portable food, right, so people would take
(21:21):
it to work, or warriors would take it to war,
or if you were going to go hunting, you would
bring them because it's the perfect food. It's like Themali
actually means wrapped. It means wrapped in a wattle I
didn't know that. So in Spanish it's the mat right,
the individuals. But in the US people say that mae,
but they're really saying, like the Maali, they're really saying
(21:42):
the words ya means wrapped. But there's so many like
you were saying that you like the little ones and
not the really fat ones. I was just in and
a couple of months ago, and they have these tamalis
called and they're like little triangles and their stuff it
was stuffed with like almost like a cottage cheese, but
(22:04):
not like the cottage. She's like the American cottage. She's
it's a little it's it's a little bit more like
so fresco, but but softer. So it was that and
rajas with a green sauce and it's delicious anything. I'm
I'm all over sold. But you know what I found
(22:24):
more in uh Wahaka and you could then when I
hit them, is they're mixed with sauces and Chile before
you put them in. Where I find that our Texas
Tomalis or northern Mexico is more dry. It's not you know,
the condiment is placed after right, like you pour the
sauce on after they're cooked in Wahaka and Ra Cruz.
(22:46):
They put the sauce in in thee before they cook it,
so it's almost it's a hard thing to do because
it can come out pretty mushy. Yeah, but they don't.
They come out perfect. The practice, well, have did you
have when you're in your Catani? Have the mook bill boo.
It's almost like a tamil casserole. But they put the
(23:06):
they seasoned the massa with that. So yes, I did,
I did it? Oh my god, hello, and then exactly
what I had. Yes, the red it makes it red,
it makes it rest. Yes, we grinded that, grounded it, grinded,
ground it. We grounded it. I don't know you ground it?
You ground it and ground it. I don't know what
(23:27):
we did. We smushed it in and put it inside
the massa. You're absolutely right. But then we did a
really small layer of the salsa and then that chicken
chicken in it. And it was this Mayan woman who
did not speak Spanish. She had to have a translator
her son, and there was a very specific way on
how to fold it. And I was like sweating because
(23:49):
she's just staring. But I'm like this, I take pride
in being the wrapper folder. And she was, I go,
how's that? She goes okay? I said, oh, well that
I understood. I don't need to speak Maya to understand
that tone that I obviously did it wrong. You know
that that look, I know that judgment. Um, but no
(24:12):
it was I love like the massa and the Chile
in the and the thing, and they did cook it
in a pit. But there's so many different you know,
the lists in Mexico, different sizes, different flavors. Some of
them are mixed with amaranths, which we talked about with
the candy episode when we made that. You know, we
talked about the the alleged s. But they have themalists
all over Latin America. So it's not just a yeah,
(24:33):
there's something Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico. So so are
the Caribbean the mala is different. I feel like in
Cuba they're the same as Mexican. I don't think that
the that the Caribbean themalists are an extermalized because that's
a very meso American process. So Puerto Rico has guani
may that's corn massa with beans and nuts, which is interesting.
(24:57):
But that the nixt samlis and process is very much
a Mesoamerican thing. And then in Puerto Rico, one emit
one emma is a Puerto Rican dish that can be
traced back to pre Columbian times and it's corn masa
stuffed with beans, seafood nuts wrapped in cornhouse. That sounds
like a tamali to me. Yeah, interesting, Yeah, every boy,
(25:20):
every it's like every home now that makes them a list.
Everybody adds their thing, you know, to it. We talk
a lot about this in the in the Tortilla episode,
because corn obviously is so important to Mexico, but there's
a lot of GMOs obviously that have been introduced and
have obstructed the ancient tradition of of seed exchange. It's
(25:44):
also threatened the future bio diversity of fifty nine varieties
of my use. And so I feel like, you know,
corn is more than a crop. I mean, my use
is a cultural symbol to Mexican identity, and I think
there's a lot of work to be done to like
safeguard the integrity of the mais but also the identity
of Mexico, don't you think? Absolutely? And when it goes
(26:06):
back so far it does. It goes back millennia. I
love that you that you use the word integrity right,
because by destroying these varieties of corn, we're sort of
destroying that the soul right of the country. And just
that it is so intrinsic to Mexican identity and going
back to the Mayan Book of Creation, the humans were
molded from massa and have it flowing through their veins.
(26:28):
So it is it is part of the culture. It's
literally who they are. It is become from corn. We
come from corn exactly. And it's interesting now we celebrate Christmas,
which is such a Christian Christian holiday, but corn never
dine crypto, a crypto indigenous way to continue their tradition
(26:54):
of honoring the morn god. What was the name. There
were tons of different corn gods depending on the well,
there's the different corn and but even depending on the
on the growth cycle, it was either male or female.
And then there was the greater gods in total, and
then there was just chicken mcguad like, there were different
we celebrated at Christmas because it was it was a
(27:17):
way to hide, you know, during the conquest and this
indoctrination of Christianity for them to keep something, to keep
something there, celebrating it around such a big Christian holiday,
It's possible for sure. And also, you know when corn
was suppressed and during the conquest for the Spaniards, it
(27:40):
was almost like punishment eating them as but people were
eating them. I mean, they're they're good, they're good. You're
not going away, you're not going away. And here we
are Christmas. We're now enjoying these enjoying these little gifts,
these little pocketings that we can unwrap. You guys, you
have a really great episode for New Year's Eve. We're
(28:03):
talking about Yeah, we're talking about the history of Latin
American holiday traditions. That's a lot of tradition. How long
is that episode? That's a lot. That's a lot. Possibly
cover all Latin American holiday traditions, we can't. We can't.
We could just scratch the surface. But we'll try. But
(28:24):
we'll try. We'll try. Hungry for History is an unbelievable
entertainment production in partnership with I Hearts Michael podcast Network.
For more of your favorite shows, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Malis are over ten thousand years old and played
an important role in ancient meso American rituals and festivals,
and my ease, the main component of the dish, is
one of Mexico's greatest gifts to the world. Today's episode
is all about that. My name. My name is Eva
Longoria and I am and welcome to Hungry for History,
(00:26):
a podcast that explores our past and present through food.
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages. So make yourself
at home, eh, I'm from Texas. I was like Tomales
or from Texas. I knew they were Mexican, but there's
so many different versions, different kinds throughout meso America. There
(00:47):
are tons of different types, different names or different regions,
but they've been around for our Actually, the earliest visual
reference for the males appears in ofresco from Guatemala dating
around fIF BC, and you even have images of women
vendors selling them list so in these are pure frescoes
thousands of years ago. And there are a lot of
(01:08):
Mayan vessels that are used for drinking hot chocolate that
have depictions of on the actual they're like little ovals
with like red stuff on top, so it's probably red sauce.
So they've been around forever. And we see a lot
of references to Theamalies in different codexes, like post colonial codexes,
(01:31):
and one of them is called the Florentine Kodex. That's
twelve books and talk about the different aspects of you know,
life in Mexico at the time of the conquest. And
they have a whole section talking about them list, which
is so interesting. And this is a book compiled between
fifteen seventy seven and fifteen eighty seven, and chapter nineteen
(01:52):
of book ten they talk about different themalists. So they
talk about fish them lists, fishes I don't think I've
ever had for some never had fish with grains of maize,
frog them list, okay, salamander list Okay, rabbit the list,
go for them list. And he talks about tasty, like
(02:15):
very tasty, tam list. When they talk about the vendors
selling them, my list softened in lime, and I want
to talk about the lime this next samalization process in
a minute. Fruit the list being the list we pointed
them white them lis rolled shaped the list so even
them list with the fruit, turkey, egg, honey, you know,
(02:37):
every They just put everything in the mace. They just
put everything in there. Yeah, but most of them. I
mean there's some meats like the rabbit and the salamander
and all of this, but a lot of vegetables and
also no lard where which we put in massa. If
you don't put the lard in the massa today, it
just doesn't seal, doesn't cook and bake, right, I'm wondering
(02:57):
if they had more texture than well, there weren't fluffy
because the lard is what makes it really fluffy. So
the originals were probably quite dense, super dense because they
didn't really have that. Yeah, So I don't know they were.
They probably very varied. A lot of codex is where
you see the maale is depicted in festivals and rituals,
(03:21):
birth of a child, and there's you know, some codexes
that you know show the themala being given as a
gift and then also being depicted for hunting and traveling
large distances. You know, if these were nomadic tribes. You know,
Aztec and mind civilizations were pretty settled, but all Mec
and Toltec and all all of the other tribes before
(03:42):
if they're ten tho years old. This tradition has been
passed along through many many civilizations. Our themal is related
to the religious systems well, the whole idea of just
corn corns because it was sacred, because it was sacred.
(04:03):
And actually even going back to the corn that we
have today though seen that which is the the original
corn that's been around forever for like thousand years, the
original corn looked very different than our corn today. So
it was kind of a bushy plant that had maybe
six cornels. So it really had to be bred to
(04:26):
be able to get to what we have today. Actually,
the corn that we have today is only like six
thousand years old, but it's something that requires the from
the beginning. It can't really be pelivated, cultivated by cultivated
by humans, right and also even you know, growing the
corn in the meat bus together with beans, together with squash.
(04:47):
So it's part of this very sophisticated agricultural system and
it's the reason why these ancient civilizations thrived for so
many years because they had this particular cop It's not
just the plant itself. It needed to undergo, you know,
to get from the corn to the Massif that is
(05:08):
that the nixt melization process. What is that process? Unail
it does We've talked about this in the corn episode,
but like, not everybody does it. Not everybody does it.
But the true corn, the really good massa undergoes this process.
And yeah, we talked about it during the You soak it, right,
you soak the corn and something. You soak the corn
(05:29):
kernels in this calcium hydroxide, which is called cal or lime,
but not like the not like the line that you
put in Margarita. It's like this, this calcium wary drog side,
which in and of itself can be toxic, but when
you add it in small quantities, like you add this
to corn, it's life giving and it removes the skin
(05:49):
of the grain. It softens the skin, so it makes
the grinding easier, and it makes the grinding easier. And
it's what smells like if you open up a bag
of massa. If it smells a little bit of sidic,
it's not really what you want. But if it smells
like corn, it is this life giving you know, an
ex simelization process that brings out all of the necessary nutrients.
(06:11):
So this nextim cooin is the reason why these civilizations
thrived for so many years. And even at the time
of the conquest, which is fland, modern day Mexico City
was a thriving city right and there you know, the
malis were a big part of course of the food,
but the city was as big as Paris at the time.
(06:34):
So I I love to think about Oh, people think
of you know, Paris sort of sophisticated. It was kind
of the same, you know, but there's sophisticated to the
agricultural systems, the the waterways, I mean everything and amazing well,
and so this process is pretty sophisticated. And the fact
that they were doing this process and that process is
(06:55):
still done today, that's what's amazing to me. You know
that some of these things have been around that we
don't even think about it, right, They've been around corn whatever,
They've been around for millennia. They're just a part of
the d n a of of of Mexicans. And also
of course in South Texas and California is just like everywhere,
the manage are such an important part of the culture.
(07:18):
Do you know about the Saca wheels from No. I
was just I was just looking at this. It's they're
so interesting sixteen foot the mullet. Yeah, they're humongout us.
They're wrapped in banana, but you have to eat them
with a spoon because they're not they're different that you
cook a sixteen and the giant the giant ovens for
(07:39):
these sacca wheat. They can feed fifty people and typically
served oh at weddings, baptism. There's an origin story to
this zacca wheel. Yeah, this is interesting. So in pre
Hispanic times, Empertsuma sent one of his men, and this
guy named m Lean to collect tributes from the area
of Lawas Takau and gim Clean took advantage of his
(08:02):
power and abused women along the way and eventually the
west they goes from this region, they took revenge. They
captured him, they cooked him with chile, and they put
him in a pit. You know. They cooked him and
shredded his flesh and cooked him and put him and
they put him in at the giant the mal and
(08:23):
they served it. Tell of the women who had been abused,
and they shouted, the problem is over. Plunk plank or landfill.
The problem is over. And this was repeated with rapists
with prisoners reward. It's like you know what, because this
is what's gonna happen to you. You're gonna turn into
the mail. And of course this was, you know, forbidden
(08:50):
tamalis themselves. I think because they're so labor intensive, they
have to be for so many people. Today they're made
with chicken or pork of course, or of a combination,
but used to be made with like deer, which you
may have you made it with, dear Dilla, have your
hat for Della. I have not, and I don't plan to.
I have had snake meat, though I've never had snake meat.
(09:11):
Snake meat just tas. Know what we're saying, tastes like chicken,
tastes like chick. Frog legs, tastes like chicken. After the break,
we're trying something. List don't go anywhere. Open this bay
(09:38):
right now. This is this Latina owned small business based
here in l A called Mecca Meca. Oh my god,
I can smell it. I can smell it. So this
is an l A. This is an l A. Yeah,
this is an l A. And I have to so
(10:03):
racas are I usually think they were held opinion, they're not.
The poblano slices delicious. And then we also have carnitas. Oh,
I love carnitas, which is pork, which is what I
usually eat in Texas. Is what you well, dear, I know,
we do dear tomalis and we do pork tomalies and
(10:26):
bean we do beans. Is that what you make here?
We I made everything here. I did chicken, beef, bean,
I did everything. I do everything. And so this is
this themat on the corn husk, freshly made. These were
made today. Okay, it's very brad, super red. So this
is obviously the carnita one. I think it's the gun
must be. Usually the red ones are the pork. Obviously
(10:49):
a savory massa. Yes, savory massa I've never seen. Is
when they get confused in the bag. It's like you
don't know what you're gonna get another grab bag. Oh
my gosh, I've never seen red racks. By the way,
these are huge compared to the ones I make a
really big You're delicious. It's an amazing The cheese mm hmmm,
(11:11):
it's super yes. Yeah, So I like, I'm very picky
about my tomale is. I don't. I like a massa
meat ratio to be sixty. Okay, I like more meat.
I like more meat too, So I think it's really
(11:33):
really good and the massa is super flavorful. Sometimes you
get the maalas where massa is just the thing that's
holding in the filling. Yeah, and it's a little massa
ea or there's like a sad little like thing, sad
little filling, sad little all right, So now we're gonna taste.
So this one must be which is white? Yeah, that's backwards.
(11:57):
Is that what it means to be old mac? She's
keeping us on our toes this so normally your pork
themals are the red the red ones. Yea. So now
she's just doing something completely different. Oh that's a lot
of meat. It's too mm hmm. How is that? M m.
(12:18):
You can tell these underneaths have been cooked for a
very long time. So much flavor this massa Again, this
massa is white, so it doesn't have chilip in the
massa like the other. Sometimes the massa it's too dense,
too dense. This one's not. This is nice and soft,
it is and and it's not. Sometimes that the dope
(12:40):
competes with the filling. You can only taste one thing
and there's like a sad little strip of chicken or whatever.
This is like the perfect ratio. It's a good ratio.
This this filling is so so so flavorful. You're right,
the massa has a personality as well as opposed to
like just holding in the filling. This massa is really good.
(13:02):
Now we're not sharing the are you kidding? We already
finished him. Hi. My name is Junior and I am
the founder of Omeca. I started making them lists throughout
the pandemic and would take them to the restaurant I
worked out, And at first it all started at something
nourishing and something to provide of comfort to during those
(13:25):
difficult times. But then the demand just kept getting higher
and higher, and I decided to do something with that.
So growing up with my mom, we never really made
them list. She just thought it was very labor intensive
and she refused to do it. She actually told me
that she refused to learn because she knew that she
(13:47):
would have to make them. So when I told her
that I started at my business, she laughed and she
could not believe it, but eatd by a lot of them.
Lists for um are one lady that would always make
um amazing every time, So that would be my biggest
(14:08):
memory of Camales did you make themals? Growing up h
No and Laredo. I never grew up making themalest. We
always had the malice, but we never I didn't have
the tradition of making themales. My earliest memory my mom
(14:32):
used to go visit her relatives in Mexico City and
she used to bring back these themmali pine sweet like
a like you know that the Mexican pine nuts are
pink and they taste really just different. They're sweeter there
and they were light pink, and she used to bring
a suitcase. She used to buy them from some nuns
(14:54):
and bring back with a sucase full of them, so
we have listen, they're freezer, you know, always and then
we would have them and it's like, oh like Christmas
few years yeah, down the street, Yes, from the Tamala
lady or from the and I love the tradition of
getting together in the whole family and make the other
I never really grew up with that. Every year it
(15:16):
was a sacred day before Christmas and we'd make hundreds
of dozens, hundreds of dozens because it was all my aunts.
My aunt was a cater or two, so she would
make them. She's the one that makes. Do you have
her recipe for cookie that you only make people? Um,
so we we would make a hundred dozen, and my
(15:39):
mom would get twenty dozen, and and my my aunt
would get twenty dozen, and so they all got So
she's like, you can sell them, you can eat them,
you can freeze whatever you want to do. But like
we're dividing the labor evenly as we divide the like
it was a whole. The counting was a thing. My
aunt was like twelve, Like she was really a stickler.
How many you get to take home? If you participated
(16:03):
in the day, you got to take them home? Did
everybody have a role? Like did you have a specific role?
I was a good spreader. You were a spreader. So
always so as when you get all normally spread because
the spreading is the most important. Like we said, massa
to filling ratio. So rolling him and folding him is
the easiest parts of my sister to do that because
they're not as good. I find that hard when I've
(16:24):
tried to make them a list. They always I always
have like it's the size of your husk. Maybe it's
too big. I don't know, I don't know. What if
you're like rolling it and then if they fall apart,
like I'll show you this year, you'll have to show me.
So are you still the spreader? This is I'm still
the spreader. I'm the spreader and I'm also the quality
(16:44):
check spreader. So as we push them down the line,
I'm like, what is that one? Send it back? I
rejected out spread it more, go lower. Yeah, I'm like,
that's my job and it's amazing, Like you know, you
doing these tamadas and you're following a tree that has
been around for ever. The malads can be so different
(17:07):
depending on where you're from or how you like them.
We asked you to send us your favorite memories eating
and making themalis. Thank you so much for sharing those
with us. We'll share one of those messages right after
the break. Welcome back to the show. We loved hearing
(17:38):
from you for our special Tales episode. Thank you to
everyone who sent a message. This one is from Rosie
Valise from Napa, California, sharing her tradition making themalis inspired
by her late mother. Hi, my name is Rosie Velis
and I'm calling from Napa, California. My mom's pork and
(17:59):
red chili recipe was hunted down to me and my
four sisters, and we've been making them every December twenty
three since we lost her three or three years ago.
Because we had nine siblings in our family, we make
well over eight to ten dozen tamales to enjoy Christmas Eve.
Through the years, we've included our daughters, our nieces and
granddaughters so that they learned to make them and can
(18:20):
carry on the tradition, and in recent years some of
the boys have taken interest in making them too. When
we make tamales, we catch up on each other's lives, gossip,
enjoy some wine, and we usually have music playing in
the background Saltzmas, so we inevitably end up dancing too.
Then we see each other on Christmas Eve for our
traditional familiar Velis party that started way back in the
(18:43):
day with our mom, and we enjoyed the tamales, the company,
and the other delicious food we all bring to share.
So the tradition of making tamales every year in December
is a very special time for my family. Thank you
for allowing me to share. What is your favorite? Well,
(19:08):
I like the sweet ones? You like this? I do
like the sweet ones, but I don't I don't like raisins.
We don't. I feel like rued cookie, cookies, bread, banana bread, fruitcake.
I get any of the fruitcakes. I can't because they're
all like raising cousins. I don't. I'm okay with fruitcake
because it's all that and dates and all that stuff.
(19:30):
And I like raisins, but it's not a dessert. But
you know, it's not for something that I crave, but
it's something that I look forward to during the holidays
because it represents home, you know, and that sort of
passage and the ritual and the tradition. Yeah, exactly. Um,
I love the pork. I mean, the pork is my favorite.
And I like banana leave wrapped ones. I actually did
(19:52):
in on my trip and you got that or where
did you make? Look at them? Okay, yeah, these amazing
banana leaf wrapped themales. But they cocoma underground and the
baby and they come out crunchy like like hard. But
that's interesting. The whole thing is hard or just like that,
(20:14):
like just the crust just that has a little texture.
It's like and now I want to make my son.
I want to make them in the oven. Sometimes when
I eat them up, I'll put them on because I
like the cspy. I like that. I like that it's
crispy and then it's and then it's soci on the
on the inside. So you have the different the different
text here. Yeah, that makes so, I like that, that
(20:35):
makes sense. But the banana thing is into the banana
because that's not nate. I mean the bananas were introduced
four so it's only really did the Spaniards bring bananas bananas? Yeah,
bananas are not native. Bananas are not native. But if
the malas are ten years old from meso America, Guatemalans,
surely they had banana. It was all corn and corn,
(20:58):
all corn. I mean, it's really the food. I mean,
you could probably say even before that goes before, it's
the thema and just massa itself is so interesting, right
but even you know, pre conquest, they used to take
the massa and spread the massa, put the filling, and
then it was portable food, right, so people would take
(21:21):
it to work, or warriors would take it to war,
or if you were going to go hunting, you would
bring them because it's the perfect food. It's like Themali
actually means wrapped. It means wrapped in a wattle I
didn't know that. So in Spanish it's the mat right,
the individuals. But in the US people say that mae,
but they're really saying, like the Maali, they're really saying
(21:42):
the words ya means wrapped. But there's so many like
you were saying that you like the little ones and
not the really fat ones. I was just in and
a couple of months ago, and they have these tamalis
called and they're like little triangles and their stuff it
was stuffed with like almost like a cottage cheese, but
(22:04):
not like the cottage. She's like the American cottage. She's
it's a little it's it's a little bit more like
so fresco, but but softer. So it was that and
rajas with a green sauce and it's delicious anything. I'm
I'm all over sold. But you know what I found
(22:24):
more in uh Wahaka and you could then when I
hit them, is they're mixed with sauces and Chile before
you put them in. Where I find that our Texas
Tomalis or northern Mexico is more dry. It's not you know,
the condiment is placed after right, like you pour the
sauce on after they're cooked in Wahaka and Ra Cruz.
(22:46):
They put the sauce in in thee before they cook it,
so it's almost it's a hard thing to do because
it can come out pretty mushy. Yeah, but they don't.
They come out perfect. The practice, well, have did you
have when you're in your Catani? Have the mook bill boo.
It's almost like a tamil casserole. But they put the
(23:06):
they seasoned the massa with that. So yes, I did,
I did it? Oh my god, hello, and then exactly
what I had. Yes, the red it makes it red,
it makes it rest. Yes, we grinded that, grounded it, grinded,
ground it. We grounded it. I don't know you ground it?
You ground it and ground it. I don't know what
(23:27):
we did. We smushed it in and put it inside
the massa. You're absolutely right. But then we did a
really small layer of the salsa and then that chicken
chicken in it. And it was this Mayan woman who
did not speak Spanish. She had to have a translator
her son, and there was a very specific way on
how to fold it. And I was like sweating because
(23:49):
she's just staring. But I'm like this, I take pride
in being the wrapper folder. And she was, I go,
how's that? She goes okay? I said, oh, well that
I understood. I don't need to speak Maya to understand
that tone that I obviously did it wrong. You know
that that look, I know that judgment. Um, but no
(24:12):
it was I love like the massa and the Chile
in the and the thing, and they did cook it
in a pit. But there's so many different you know,
the lists in Mexico, different sizes, different flavors. Some of
them are mixed with amaranths, which we talked about with
the candy episode when we made that. You know, we
talked about the the alleged s. But they have themalists
all over Latin America. So it's not just a yeah,
(24:33):
there's something Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico. So so are
the Caribbean the mala is different. I feel like in
Cuba they're the same as Mexican. I don't think that
the that the Caribbean themalists are an extermalized because that's
a very meso American process. So Puerto Rico has guani
may that's corn massa with beans and nuts, which is interesting.
(24:57):
But that the nixt samlis and process is very much
a Mesoamerican thing. And then in Puerto Rico, one emit
one emma is a Puerto Rican dish that can be
traced back to pre Columbian times and it's corn masa
stuffed with beans, seafood nuts wrapped in cornhouse. That sounds
like a tamali to me. Yeah, interesting, Yeah, every boy,
(25:20):
every it's like every home now that makes them a list.
Everybody adds their thing, you know, to it. We talk
a lot about this in the in the Tortilla episode,
because corn obviously is so important to Mexico, but there's
a lot of GMOs obviously that have been introduced and
have obstructed the ancient tradition of of seed exchange. It's
(25:44):
also threatened the future bio diversity of fifty nine varieties
of my use. And so I feel like, you know,
corn is more than a crop. I mean, my use
is a cultural symbol to Mexican identity, and I think
there's a lot of work to be done to like
safeguard the integrity of the mais but also the identity
of Mexico, don't you think? Absolutely? And when it goes
(26:06):
back so far it does. It goes back millennia. I
love that you that you use the word integrity right,
because by destroying these varieties of corn, we're sort of
destroying that the soul right of the country. And just
that it is so intrinsic to Mexican identity and going
back to the Mayan Book of Creation, the humans were
molded from massa and have it flowing through their veins.
(26:28):
So it is it is part of the culture. It's
literally who they are. It is become from corn. We
come from corn exactly. And it's interesting now we celebrate Christmas,
which is such a Christian Christian holiday, but corn never
dine crypto, a crypto indigenous way to continue their tradition
(26:54):
of honoring the morn god. What was the name. There
were tons of different corn gods depending on the well,
there's the different corn and but even depending on the
on the growth cycle, it was either male or female.
And then there was the greater gods in total, and
then there was just chicken mcguad like, there were different
we celebrated at Christmas because it was it was a
(27:17):
way to hide, you know, during the conquest and this
indoctrination of Christianity for them to keep something, to keep
something there, celebrating it around such a big Christian holiday,
It's possible for sure. And also, you know when corn
was suppressed and during the conquest for the Spaniards, it
(27:40):
was almost like punishment eating them as but people were
eating them. I mean, they're they're good, they're good. You're
not going away, you're not going away. And here we
are Christmas. We're now enjoying these enjoying these little gifts,
these little pocketings that we can unwrap. You guys, you
have a really great episode for New Year's Eve. We're
(28:03):
talking about Yeah, we're talking about the history of Latin
American holiday traditions. That's a lot of tradition. How long
is that episode? That's a lot. That's a lot. Possibly
cover all Latin American holiday traditions, we can't. We can't.
We could just scratch the surface. But we'll try. But
(28:24):
we'll try. We'll try. Hungry for History is an unbelievable
entertainment production in partnership with I Hearts Michael podcast Network.
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