Tamales, Central American style

I enjoyed the recent story about the “tamale tías” in Albuquerque who make and sell thousands of Mexican-style tamales for local tamale lovers. It’s a Christmas and New Year’s tradition that keeps on giving all year-round.

My family faithfully share’s that annual tradition, not just devouring lots of tamales throughout the holidays, but making them together at home. Every year just before Christmas, we all get together for a day of tamale making, with everybody chipping in in assembly-line fashion as we spread the masa on the corn leaf, fill it with ingredients like pork and homemade salsa, and steam them into hot tamales that we feast on together when all the work is done.

We usually make about 40 dozen, or roughly 500 tamales, and freeze the leftovers for post-holiday meals. And we make a wide variety, not just meat-based tamales, but vegetarian ones with beans and cheese, and vegan ones with cooked zucchini and other vegetables.

My wife is a Mexican native who has lived in Albuquerque more than 40 years. I’m originally a New Yorker who lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in Central America from 1980-1992. When I returned to the U.S., I settled in New Mexico. But I’d never tasted a Mexican-style tamale — nor even tried salsa picante beyond a hesitant finger-tip taste — until my wife introduced me to it when we became a couple 25 years ago.

That’s because in Central America — where tamales are also a holiday staple developed over centuries of Indigenous dietary culture mixed with Spanish colonial influence — local tamales have little resemblance to Mexican-style ones.

For one thing, they look totally different because Central Americans wrap their tamales in plantain leafs rather than corn husks as Journal reporters Allison Carpenter and Nakayla McClelland point out.

But more importantly, the ingredients in Central American tamales are very different from Mexican-style ones, creating a unique texture and taste.

Central Americans mix rice and spices into the corn-based masa, giving it a distinct flavor. They also boil the tamale rather than steam it, which softens the masa into a delectable wrap that kind of melts in your mouth.

And while they do put pork or chicken into the center of the tamale, they also use a wide variety of vegetables that turn it into a much bigger plate of food than the few bites (however delicious) that one gets from a Mexican-style tamale. That’s particularly true in Nicaragua, where Indigenous communities developed their own Nicaraguan-style dish that they call “nacatamales.”

Perhaps most important is that Central American tamales almost never include chile. Unlike in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest — where chile is a traditional staple in most local food — it’s not widely consumed in Central America, at least not among the mixed-race, or “mestizo,” population. Many varieties are grown and consumed in the region, particularly among Indigenous communities. But chile is not a fundamental part of the regional diet.

That’s why — except for once when I bit into a raw, fiery piquin chile in my early days in Central America and then vowed to never do it again — that I never consumed any type of salsa picante until living in New Mexico and my wife started adding it to our meals. Now, I love chile, in moderation of course, and I savor our holiday tamale tradition.

But I miss those delicious Central American tamales. They take a lot more time and labor to make, and few commercial vendors make or sell them in Albuquerque. I’ve only eaten them here when local friends from Central America, or friends of friends, get the urge to make them.

I’m not complaining, though. The Mexican-style tamale is a welcome alternative that has become an annual holiday staple that my family and I enjoy during the end-of-year festivities, and well beyond.