As you may remember from my post on Dia de Los Reyes Magos, on January 6th everyone buys and eats a large, slightly sweet bread called Rosca de Reyes (pictured below) that contain little, plastic dolls.
If you happen to find one of these dolls in your piece of bread (or even uncover one that is still technically within the Rosca), you then are obligated to buy everyone Tamales on February 2nd, which is today. As I uncovered two dolls and my husband one, a few days ago we went a Feria de Tamales in Coyoacan (a part of Mexico City) to scope out what they had to offer.
Before we get too far into this, I wanted to go over the two general categories of tamales: those wrapped in corn husks and those that instead use banana leaves.
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| Corn Husk wrapped Tamale |
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| Banana Leaf wrapped Tamale |
A tamale is prepared by smearing a corn mixture called masa on a leaf wrapped, filling it with a combination of salsa, meat, peppers, or cheese, and steaming it until cooked. In the US, I was only familiar with the tamales in corn husks, which tend to be thick, fluffy, and contain lots of little air holes. However, since living here, I have tried and fallen in love with tamales cooked in a banana leaf, frequently called Oaxcan Style Tamales. These Oaxcan Tamales are thinner and denser with more of a chewy consistency. I really, really like them.
As long as we are going over basic tamale information, you should also know the three most common flavors of tamales are Verde con Pollo (Green Salsa with Chicken), Mole con Pollo (Mole sauce with Chicken), and Rajas con Queso (Poblano Pepper and Cheese). Of course there are many, many others (as you are about to see) along with a wide variety of sweet tamales. Yes, you read that right, sweet tamales.
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| Shrimp Tamale with Nopales in Green Salsa |
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| Tamale with Zucchini Flower, Mushrooms, Corn, Cheese in Green Salsa |
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| Tamale of Morita Chile with Slow-Roasted Pork |
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| Tamale of Purslane in Green Salsa with Chicken |
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| Tamale of Blackberries with Cheese |
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| Tamale of Anis with Mole and Chicken |
Sweet tamales are still fairly new to me. Sadly, my first experience with them a few months ago was regrettable and since I have not been very interested in trying them. In was only at this fair that I even realized that sweet tamales have many different flavors, like the Blackberries with Cheese shown above. A friend who went with us bought and shared with us a chocolate tamale - it was dense with a uniform chocolate flavor that reminded me of a brownie. I thought it was pretty good. So I am excited about carefully trying out a few of this style of tamales, making sure not to repeat the one I had the first time.
I must tell you that traditionally tamales are sold with something that I even like slightly more than tamales (and trust me, I am crazy about Oaxacan Tamales), it is called atole. For me good atole is an amazing culinary experience. And trust me, this only applies to good atole. Bad atole is really, really scary. Atole is a drink thickened with maize that comes in a wide variety of flavors including Chocolate, Guava, Milk with Rice, Sweetened Goat's Milk, Strawberry and more, with Guava being my current favorite.
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| This typical set-up of large pots are for keeping hot the tamales and the atole |
So, if you have a chance, today is a great day to try some tamales! And if none are being sold around where you live, it is always a good time to visit Mexico.
Happy Tamale Eating!
~ Kim
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