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Tamales save cook from unraveling

November 4, 2009 12:36 am

I WISH I was one of those people whose idea of a great vacation is relaxing on the beach.

But then, I might never have been introduced to new foods, new friends--even a new family.

My restlessness began with a trip to the islands years ago.

For some reason, I thought all I would need was a sketch pad and some Coppertone. (We're talking pre-sunscreen days here!)

I should have known I was in trouble given this Caribbean paradise's ubiquitous T-shirt motto: "High Winds."

But nothing prepared me for the island's constant, gale-force gusts.

The swirling sands left me looking like a powdered doughnut. And, like Dylan, "my back pages" ended up "blowin' in the wind."

I decided I wasn't going to lie back and take it anymore. I'd seek out hands-on experiences, and lots of them.

That's led to such getaways as a tennis workshop, a cooking camp, a writers' retreat--even a Spanish immersion program.

So when my wife suggested recently that we vacation in Santa Fe, N.M., for its adobe architecture and Georgia O'Keeffe landscapes, I felt myself getting jittery.

TOWARD A BETTER TAMALE

Not a huge fan of sightseeing, I came up with other ways to stay busy. That's how I wound up recently at the Santa Fe School of Cooking, with 14 other foodies.

During the three-hour class, we would get our hands dirty learning how to wrap 'n' roll tamales.

Tamales are an ancient dish. Their portability made them perfect for hungry armies on the go.

Our guide, 40-year-old chef Rocky Durham, was well-suited to the task, hailing as he did from the Land of Enchantment.

The sandy-haired Durham bore a striking resemblance to manic TV chef Gordon Ramsay, with one major difference: He kept the profanity in check. Even our fumbling attempts at tamale-tying weren't enough to unravel him.

A tamale is a many-splendored and -layered thing. First comes the wrapper, usually a corn husk. Then, cooked corn meal. A filling, traditionally pork, is next. Finally, a sauce is added, and everything is tied up nicely and neatly, and steamed.

However, there are lots of ways to stuff a tamale. Just ask Daniel Hoyer, whose recent cookbook "Tamales" will guide the uninitiated through the whole enchilada of tasteful tamale-making.

Almost any meat, fruit, seed, seafood, vegetable or nut will do in a pinch.

On this day, we would prepare four different kinds of tamales: chicken, pork, fruit-filled, and one featuring calabacitas, or squash.

"I love tamales," Durham said, "on so many levels. They're wrapped like gifts!"

One thing he neglected to mention was how incredibly easy they are to assemble. Especially when your instructor has done all of the prepping beforehand and all you have to do is to fill, fold, roll, wrap and tie them.

Truth is, it can take a village to make tamales from scratch. So nowadays, in Hispanic communities, they're primarily a celebratory food, served on holidays and festive occasions.

THERE'S ALWAYS TAMALE

While our tamales were steaming, Durham gave us a history lesson on "the second-oldest prepared food in the world," after the tortilla.

That's when my mind drifted to the 1970s. Back then, I was a 25-year-old hungry to learn Spanish. I signed up for a month at Guatemala's Language Project.

I stayed near the school in mountainous Quetzaltenango, where residents proudly, but unofficially, call their city "capital of the Mayas."

My hosts were an Amerindian family, the Coxac-Papas. In their cinder-block home I'd gain more fluency in the native corn-based diet than in the language.

That's because Pedro and his wife, Maria, and their three daughters spoke an indigenous dialect.

Although their conversation was sprinkled with Spanish, it still sounded like they needed to buy a few more vowels.

But it was clear they cared for me. And not just in the medical sense. Even though they did offer me several liters of their stockpile of Pepto-Bismol when I had the "Aztec Two-Step."

No, they showed their love, several times daily, by piling tons of delicious food on my plate. And the stuff stacked highest was invariably made of corn.

Sure, there were beans and fried plantains, but corn was indisputably king.

There were corn chips, corn chowder and corn tortillas. And no meal was complete until Maria fixed those wonderful corn tamalitos on her wood stove.

Tamalitos are neither wrapped nor filled. They're just cornmeal, water, salt and corn oil that's fried up hard.

Tamalitos were served for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and were eaten by themselves or used to scoop up other dishes.

ENJOY YOUR MEAL!

Meals began with a shared "Buen provecho!" which means "Bon appetit." But for me, it became synonymous with "Pass the tamalitos!"

One day my hosts beamed with pride. It seems they'd prepared a special treat just for me. "Anything but corn," I felt like begging them.

I was relieved when they poured me a thick, warm drink they called atol de maiz. That is, until I found out it was made from sweet-corn paste. Ugggh!

Eventually I came to love corn again. But nothing ever transported me back to "my family" in Guatemala like the mouth-watering tamales we made in class that day.

"We should be able to make tamales," said Durham, "with a stone ax and a loincloth."

And that got me thinking. Maybe for my next vacation an archaeological dig?

Kurt Rabin is a copy editor at The Free Lance-Star. He can be reached at krabin@freelancestar .com.