I live in the state of Hidalgo, near a different Actopan. There they make a molé verde (si yo tengo acento en mi teclado)with epazote and it gives a very different flavor. Read more

Where should I send the freelance check? Read more

This article is good, but where’s the mole recipe? Read more

i’d need to import a proper Abuela for best practices.  Read more

I feel I should confess that for the longest time my white ass had no idea you weren’t supposed to eat the wrapper. Read more

This article makes me miss my abuelita’s tamales so much. The kids were forced labor on Sunday mornings to make the tamales for the week. Every Sunday, we would complain and every time we were told that we can stop once we are adults. We had an assembly line so it was always lots of fun. We usually made over 100 and… Read more

My family still makes tamales every year for Christmas. As a kid, we used to spend the day outside rehydrating the husks while the adults (including Abuelita) spent the day inside making fillings, masa, and the tamales. We nearly froze our little hands off dunking the husks in a bucket of cold water outside, but the… Read more

OMFG! Texans and Californians and people all over the world coming together harmoniously with a common cause.... TAMALES! Read more

My ex is a nurse, and like in many hospitals, the staff came from many different places. Every year around Christmas, her coworkers from California, Texas, Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, and it goes on and on, would get together for a tamale making party. They would turn out easily 500 tamales with… Read more

Tamales are awesome and are a perfect food to microwave. Finding good ones is not easy. Read more

Tamales are one of the many things in this world that prove God loves us. Read more

Oh man, now I want a tamale. I guess eating healthy will have to wait for another day, maybe 3 or 4 days actually. Tamale time ! Read more

On a tangent, Roads & Kingdoms have a great feature on the “red hot” delta tamales of the American South.   Read more

Something the author forgot to mention is that Delta tamales aren’t steamed, they’re boiled in water spiked with chile powder.

A few tips for tamale making:
-Never use a synthetic wrapper. No wax paper, no parchment paper, no foil, no cling wrap. The masa will end up gummy.
-Don’t forget to salt your masa, in fact, it…

Sigh. In my feelings about my abuelita’s sweet tamales. With anise seed and piloncillo. Like a warm soft god affirming biscotti.
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A properly made “pib” (a yucatecan tamal, cooked for Hanal Pixan, the mayan version of Dia de los Muertos) is heaven on earth.
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Another variation of the Chicago tamale is the mother-in-law which is a Chicago tamale in a hot dog bun covered with chili. Read more

He's basically a religion in Chicago Read more

Great article! And as an aside, I grew up as a white kid in the Chicago suburbs thinking those canned/jarred tamales were what tamales actually were, until some Mexican-American friends set me straight. Never had them often, but if it was a holiday or special occasion, like you said, someone was cooking a big pot of… Read more

One of the things I miss most about living in Houston is sitting outside a bar (or a very specific type of bar in Texas known as an ‘ice house’) at about midnight and having some guy walk up with a styrofoam container and buying tamales right there. Read more