No. 247 - Tamales

Today for lunch we ate at a Guatemalan restaurant. The food was fantastic - fresh and spicy. After we ordered my wife told me that on Saturdays they supposedly made fresh tamales. I asked what they were. She said: You don't know what a tamale is? I guessed it was some type of pepper. My wife had a pattern earlier in the year of asking me questions for which the answer involved a pepper. Refer to Post No. 25 on pimentos and Post No. 102 on scotch bonnets.

I learned that a tamale is a traditional Latin American dish made of dough, which is steamed or boiled in a corn husk or a banana leaf wrapper, which is discarded before eating. Tamales can be filled with meats, cheeses, vegetables, chilies (perhaps even pimentos or scotch bonnets) or other ingredients according to taste, and both the filling and the cooking liquid may be seasoned.

Tamales originated in Mesoamerica as early as 5,000 to 8,000 B.C. Aztec and Maya civilizations used tamales as a portable food, often to support their armies but also for hunters and travelers. Tamales are said to have been as ubiquitous and varied as the sandwich is today.