Tamale Traditions

A holiday dish with deep family roots

By Jennifer Anthony

Too many cooks in the kitchen? There is no such thing when it comes to a tamalada. This Hispanic tradition brings all generations of the family together to create tamales, the delicious, melt-in-your-mouth, meat-and-dough delicacies that have become a holiday staple, the centerpiece of the Christmas Eve dinner.

The tamalada was born partly by necessity because of the intensity of tamale making.

Becky Almanza makes and sells more than a hundred dozen tamales each holiday season with the help of her daughter. Sometimes her sisters will drive in from Dallas to assist with the tamales and take payment in the form of the same.

“It’s not a one-person job,” Almanza said. “So everybody pitches in. The more people you can get in there, the better. I have five other sisters, and so we would all be in there making tamales, especially around the holidays, because that’s what we do. It’s tradition.”

Cris and Liz Herrera, owners of the Abilene restaurant Casa Herrera, both recall this tradition as an integral part of their families’ holidays for as long as they can remember. Liz Herrera grew up with seven sisters and three brothers, all learning the art of tamale making each holiday season by being in the kitchen, smelling and tasting the ingredients, and listening to their mother, grandmother and aunts explaining the process.

“They just pick it up like me, my kids, my grandkids – they’re watching me,” Herrera said. “We talk about what we’re putting in there, and they learn everything, and they grow up with that recipe in their head.”

The tradition extends back so far that its connection to the holidays is difficult to trace, but it makes sense, Herrera said. When the weather gets cold, people turn to warm – and warmly seasoned – food.

Almanza said tamales – made in large batches and with a tendency to stretch a little meat a long way – are the perfect dish to make and serve at large family gatherings, where there are many mouths to feed and plenty of helping hands.

The perfect tamale is soft, moist and flavorful. Almanza and Herrera both have a distinct sense of what a tamale should be like.

“A whole lot of people will either not spice the dough and just spice the meat, or spice the dough and not spice the meat,” Almanza said. “I do both, and I think that adds a lot to it.”

Herrera emphasized the importance of the masa to the finished product.

“If you get a tamale with hard masa, that’s it,” she said. “It’s not good. You’ve got good masa, you’ve got good tamales.”

Starting around Thanksgiving, the Herreras’ restaurant begins taking orders for tamales, mostly from their dine-in customers. Some of their tamales have made it as far as New York City. Over the course of the holidays, they fill orders for about 1,200 tamales.

Rather than a recipe to follow or a task to complete, tamale-making is a daylong event. Herrera said she remembers her parents starting around 10 a.m. by soaking the cornhusks in hot water to make them soft and pliable. While the husks soak, someone cooks meat or chili for the filling while someone else mixes the masa dough. When these three components are perfect, the cooks spread the dough onto the soft husks, apply the meat filling, and wrap the tamales and tie them in groups of six or 12 with a string made from husk. Then the tamales are boiled standing upright in a large pot on the stove covered with a wet towel.

In the midst of the soaking, simmering, spreading and steaming, “we sit there and visit and fellowship and talk about life,” Almanza said.

“It’s just like ladies with quilts, how they all get together,” Herrera said. “It’s the same with tamales. It kind of brings the family together.”

Both the Herreras and Almanza will begin taking orders in November. Casa Herrera can be reached at (325) 692-7065, and Almanza can be reached at (972) 965-5778.

Tamales 15 Ways:

• Just unwrap and enjoy!
• Drizzle with hot sauce.
• Use one or two as a topping to a large green salad.
• Serve with scrambled eggs for breakfast, either on the side or crumbled into the eggs.
• Pour a tablespoon or two of oil into a skillet and heat the tamale, then top with a fried egg.
• Top with a dollop of sour cream and guacamole.
• Lay them across a bed of white rice.
• Serve alongside a bowl of hot soup or stuffed peppers.
• Mix up a black-bean salad with a dash of cumin, chopped onion, cilantro and tomatoes and serve together.
• Ladle refried beans onto a plate and top with tamales and cheddar cheese.
• Scoop a couple tablespoons of raspberry chipotle sauce over the top.
• Pair with a skillet of fideo – vermicelli pasta sautéed with onion and seasonings, then cooked until tender in broth.
• Dice up a bowl of fresh pico de gallo to spoon over the top.
• Cover with a generous serving of salsa verde.
• Open a can of enchilada sauce and pour over a dish of tamales, then top with cheese and heat in the oven.