Posted on 12/05/2004 4:28:37 AM PST by Arrowhead1952
One family's tamalada marks its 32nd year.
By Suzannah Gonzales
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, December 05, 2004
The aproned women crowded around a square table in the kitchen of the Balcones home Friday night, their hands busy and eyes focused on the work in front of them.
Piles of masa-covered ojas (corn husks), bowls of masa (corn dough) and containers of pork roast obscured the tabletop. With paint scrapers, some of the dozen or so women spread a thin layer of masa on the shucks. Others put a few spoonfuls of meat in a thin column on each masa-covered oja, rolled them and folded them.
While they worked, the women talked about school programs, pregnancy and what utensil spreads masa best.
For the descendants of Gonzala Ruiz, the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving weekend mean family and tradition — and tamales.
The family's tamalada— a gathering to make tamales, a Mexican American Christmastime staple — has come a long way since the first one in 1972.
Ruiz, originally from Tamaulipas, had died the year before, and four of her granddaughters didn't want to see her tamale recipe lost.
During that first gathering, Ruiz's eldest daughter, Esther Ancira, better known as Tía Tela among family members, passed down her mother's tamale recipe to her daughter, Ruth Madonna, and three of Madonna's cousins, Esther Stern, Yoli Ruiz and Carmen Tyler.
"Teach us what Grandma taught you," Tyler, 56, recalled them saying that day.
"They knew nothing," said Ancira, now 85. "They only knew how to eat (a tamale). But they were writing."
On a small piece of paper, the women scribbled a list of proportions of the ingredients Tía Tela never measured. The note has yellowed with age and is now kept in an album alongside photos and typed and handwritten notes from tamaladas past.
"Dec. 1972. 1. 8 1/2 lbs of pork roast 2. 1 hog's head 3. 53 lbs. of masa," the note reads. In 1996, "We won the National Championship. We beat Nebraska."
In 1997, guidelines — attendance rules, eligibility and an ad hoc hierarchy — for tamalada participants were established. In 1999, they welcomed 6-pound, 1-ounce, 20-inch-long Baby RJ. In 2002, they celebrated the tamalada's 30th anniversary and what had been a record output: 233 dozen tamales.
By Saturday evening 2004, there were 238 dozen and counting. On the grocery list were 20 pounds of ojas and 150 pounds of pork roast but no hog's head. The group switched to pork roast after one decade and after Madonna's heart surgery.
The women, descending on Austin from points as distant as North Carolina and as close as Round Rock, began about 9 a.m. Friday. They went until 11:30 that night but stayed at Tyler's house for an hour more, talking, counting and bagging tamales.
They started again about the same time Saturday and expected another late night.
Some tamales will be set aside for the big family gathering on Christmas Eve. The rest will be divided among tamalada participants.
The group waits to share big announcements until the tamalada each year. This year's news included four babies on the way and two engagements. The participants laugh, catch up and talk as if they see each other every month.
The tamalada is not to be missed and has never been canceled, persevering through a dozen births, four deaths, five weddings, three divorces and surgery.
Three generations sit around the table now. Kids who once played with their cousins during tamaladas are adults now and are part of the tamale-making process.
For Carmen Stern, Esther Stern's 25-year-old daughter, this year's tamalada was her first official one as a newly appointed "foil star member."
The foil star group is the bottom tier of the tamalada hierarchy, under the bronze and silver star members.
The "gold star" group has the four original students: Madonna, the elder Stern, Tyler and Yoli Ruiz. Their teacher, Ancira, is an "honorary platinum member."
Each group has its designated duties. The gold star members put meat on the masa-covered ojas. The younger Stern cleaned ojas, went to the store and was told to fetch lunch.
Being an official member of the tamalada is a lifelong commitment, the younger Stern explained.
"I'll come every year for the rest of my life for two days," she said. "Someday, when I have daughters, I'd like for them to join."
How long will the tamalada go on?
"Forever; I don't know," Madonna said. "I can't imagine not coming and making tamales."
Jordans on 7th St. in Phoenix.
THE best green corn tamales around.
After almost 20 years (he's been there a lot longer), I have yet to walk out.
Nothing -- except when people try to leave it out or substitute for it.
Have you been there lately? Or traveled past the luxury resorts like Cancan? There are thousands of people living in cardboard/old wood pallet shacks just across the border -- no running water or toilets -- open latrines. Very high birth rate, very high infant death rate, kids everywhere living and begging for a living on the streets. Extreme poverty for the majority of the people --- so desperate they'll be crammed over 100 in an unventilated semi-trailer to leave their homeland --- that's pretty third world --- in spite of the vast wealth there is in that country.
Great story.
My husband spent many years in Arizona and Texas and used to tell me the stories of the fresh tamales he used to get and how much he missed them.
I decided to surprise him by making them one day......how was I supposed to know it was an all day project, I'm a Irish kid from Brooklyn!!!!
I've been making them ever since.
You've got that right.
Thanks for sharing your recipe.
I am just guessing here, but guessing that they make tamales at Christmas time since it is cold enough to butcher a hog (and maybe just kept the tamales making at that time of year). That's when we butcher hogs. Need cold weather for that. I love tamales. Hog head is the best flavored. Never made tamales but have a good mexican recipe for them.
BTTT
It isn't just Christmas only. Tamales are made year round ... but Christmas tamales are a ritual. A very delicious one at that.
Try venison. It'll be the start of a new tradition. Gar-awn-teed!
I'm sure you feel the same about people with Italian surnames who still make their own pasta for Christmas and the Mc's who make their own soda bread.
Hey, great idea. As luck would have it, I happen to have some vennison in the freezer ;-)
Thanks for sharing the tamale recipe! It is definitely a "keeper". It has been copied and pasted in my wife's recipe folder.
We have a little tienda in our town (pop. 400), and the owner brings in a pot of chicken and salsa verde tamales every Saturday morning. They make a great breakfast at $1 each.
Last time I was down there I bought a couple of cans of what I thought were chili sauce, but they turned out to be Chipotle peppers in red sauce. I tossed them in the casserole I was making anyway. Holy Shiite! those were hot hot hot! The brand was La Morena.
Now I've got to pay my neighbor a visit and look pitifully malnourished again (a real trick with that band of lard around my waist). She's going to start up her holiday tamale-making operation again in a few days, and I want in on the ground floor this time.
Thanks for the wonderful recipe!
Laura has good taste in food as well as other areas. They porobably had fresh tamales in Austin when Dubya was governor of Tx.
That is one rule our friend in Corpus Christi lives by, no tamales - no business for you.
Yummy...reminds of the best tamales I ever had..in Panama City, Panama.
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