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."
In the grocery store, it's usually somewhere in the vicinity of the butter!
I use it on occasion - makes the best biscuits you've ever tasted, and it's also good in refried beans, odd as that sounds.
Not that I know how to make such things properly, Scots-Norwegian Yankee that I be...but someone taught me to make 'em that way and I do it once in awhile!
LOL!!!! NYC Irish here.......but I've taught myself how to make the bloody things!!!
Actually I've mastered many types of ethnic foods......but have a heck of a time making a plain old pot of navy bean soup!!!!!
Try some chorizo with potatoes for breakfast. (Warning: Don't read the label on the chorizo!)
Best tamale I ever had was a cinamon and corn (duh) sweet tamale that I purchased from a street vendor in Mexico DF for a grand total of 2 pesos (about 15 cents at the time).
If you find any improvements, please pass them along, especially in the chile sauce area. I'm just an amateur tamale maker.
Judge any Mexican restaurant by its tamales and every Chinese restaurant by its noodle soup.
With a recipe like yours, you are definitely a step above amateur.
I love making sauce from the dried chiles, but it never comes out the same way twice........I have a basic recipe, but I never seem to have the same chiles from batch to batch.
However, I usually make enough of it to last about 6 or 7 tamale batches and various enchilada or burrito dinners as well.
I judge Chinese restaurants with 3 criteria - Mushi, egg rolls/spring rolls, and rice.
I am going to try scraping the "meat" out of the chilis next time, and discarding the skins.
Depending on the chiles, I will scrape the meat out of the skins. I grow one type that is just called "red chile" but they are fairly small so I don't bother scraping them. The larger ones I always scrape.
I agree with you about not using the soaking water, with some chiles. I generally use equal parts fresh water to the chile water.
Did I mention the time Homeland Security searched my luggage because of the two cans of Las Palmas Red Chili Sauce I had inside?
That's crazy!!!!!!
Where were you going or coming from that you were carrying the sauce?
If you were carrying it on your way home because you can't get it at home, let me know - I buy it in the supermarket all the time.
The dumb shiites dumbed my dirty underwear all over the counter and then picked up the two offending cans of Las Palmas Enchilada Sauce and stared at them like they were bombs or something.
Then they put them back and let me board the plane.
What a joke. How did they know what was in the cans, anyway? But I digress...
Sheesh..........
As I said, I buy it in the local supermarket - I cn always mail it to you!
Lard will most likely be next to the butter, sold in a box shaped just as if it were a box of four sticks of butter. I've seen it in tubs, too, but not nearly as often.
Here there are boxes with two shades of blue --- Morrell Snow Cap Lard --- they sell it everywhere but this is the border which might be why it's so common. I think it makes a real difference but then that's how all the mexican food is made here.
I made that mistake. I thought there was nothing like eggs with chorizo for breakfast when camping up in the mountains --- until after reading the label. Someone told me there's a real good soy chorizo --- called choylizo or soylizo that uses none of what's on that label but tastes the same.
I'm sure it's sold everywhere here as well, I've just never looked for it.
But I appreciate all the info you and others have provided me........and folks wonder why I like FR so much!!!!!
Some of the Mexican tamale places here --- not really restaurants because they only sell tamales and masa make chile-queso tamales -- strips of green chili and some kind of white cheese --- with the masa and lard in the husks --- those are very nice.
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