Alice Guadalupe Tapp - Tamales 101: A Beginners Guide to Making Traditional Tamales

Copyright 2002 by Alice Guadalupe Tapp

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tapp, Alice Guadalupe, 1944
Tamales 101 : a beginners guide to making traditional tamales / Alice Guadalupe Tapp.
p. cm.
1. Stuffed foods (Cookery) I. Title.
TX836 .T37 2002
641.8dc21 2002007137

eISBN: 978-1-60774-371-2

Cover design by Betsy Stromberg
Photography by Bill and Carol Stasiewicz
Food and prop styling by Diane Tarango
Illustrations by Diane Tarango Pottery by Stephen Rodriguez

v3.1

Diane Tarango, thank you for all your dedication and unwavering help and most importantly for understanding fully the importance of this first book. I love you very much.

Steven Tapp, thank you for being a such wonderful person, for having a good heart, and for your extraordinary sweetness and generosity. Thank you for being in my life and for teaching me how to love unconditionally.

Tamara Tapp, thank you for all the hours of buying, preparing, cooking, cleaning, smiling, loving the traditions, being my daughter (which sometimes is a task like no other), and for bringing Kianna and Jahna into our lives.

Dee Dee Hitchcock Chappelle, thank you for your truly loving friendship, your determination to help me attain happiness, and your generosity of love and support in making this book possible. Thank you for all the fun times through the groups, presentations, meetings, seminars, weekends, workshops, quests, rebirths, and sweats.

Bill Chappelle, thank you for your pure and simple genius of understanding and for providing so much positive advice, direction, and valuable information through the years.

Sally Landsburg, thank you for your endless hours of expertise to help me recover and find my sanity and for being such an incredibly gifted role model.

Melinda Louise, I owe you so much for guiding me to the path, for teaching me how to set and accomplish my goals, and for giving me the realization that I could write this book.

Stephen Rodriguez, thank you so much for your artistic talent and desire to create beautiful pottery and your perseverance to make a living at it no matter what it takes.

Bill and Carol Stasiewicz for the many hours of photo shoots. For understanding my vision and interpreting it into the photographs. I appreciate all your input, hard work, and kindnesses.

Lika Stephens, thank you for your enthusiastic suggestions of new tamales flavors.

Kianna Jade Goodwin, you are my angel and such a joy. I love that you treat me special and support just about everything I do.

Jahna Grace Tapp, my sweetheart, thank you for your hugs and kisses and for your love.

Yvonne Ozar Solomon, for being my friend for so many years, for your endless enthusiasm, for loving the things I do and make, and for simply being Yvonnie.

Meghan Keeffe, thank for your extraordinary talent for making my words more comprehensible than I imagined and for giving the book exactly what it required to teach others the amazing art of making tamales.

Phil Wood, thank you for giving my book life. I am truly grateful.

Kathy Hashimoto, thank you for all the kind words and inspiration. Im very happy that I took your advice.

Betsy Stromberg, thank you for your spectacular book design.

Francisco Jauregu, gracias por todas las horas de trabajo, y por haber entendido todo lo que nos hacia falta en cualqier circumstancia. Y gracias tambien por los tamales siempres perfectos.

To my father, Augustine Rodriguez, thank you for just being you. Thank you for the many ways you give your help and for teaching me integrity, honesty, and the importance of family and tradition. I love you.

To Charlie, I appreciate the many hours of expertise you have given so generously.

To all my family, past, present, and future, I love you so very much. Thank you for giving me the joy of making and eating tamales.

And finally, to Babaji, thank you for always being there to give so much love, peace, and happiness. I love you, too!

I have written this cookbook with the intention, first, of creating an instructional manual to help you prepare the best possible masa and fillingsthe perfect tamale. Second, it is my wish to introduce you to many of the delicious types and flavors of tamales made since pre-Colombian times.

I have loved making tamales for as long as I can remember. Over the fifty years that I have been making tamales, and for the last six years of owning a tamale business (wholesale and retail), I have perfected the art of making tamales. My tamale education began when I was only seven years old, when I would help my mother, grandmother, and grandaunts as they made tamales for the family or to sell after Sunday mass. Since then, my love of cooking has only grown, as has my thirst for new tamale recipes.

No matter where I am dining, if the food is good I will ask for the recipe, or at least general directions and ingredients. However, in my search for tamale recipes, I dont wait for a sampling: When I simply meet people of different Hispanic backgrounds, I always ask them if they or any of their relatives make tamales and ask for ingredients or instructions. When I go marketing and I see someone buying tamale-making ingredients, I introduce myself and ask about the particular type of tamales he or she makes.

The tamale recipes in this book are a result of my many years of researching, testing, and enjoying tamales. They are a variety of traditional and regional Mexican, Aztec, and Mayan tamales; they are tamales from Central and South America, from Cuba, the Philippines, and the Caribbean, as well as from my own kitchen. My own creations (in the chapter Specialty Tamales) are variations on the traditional tamales that I grew up making; Ive also created many of the vegetarian, vegan, regional, low-fat, and sweet tamales for my family, my customers, and now you.

I often tell the tamale makers at Tamaras Tamales that the tamales must be made perfectly. Each and every tamale has its own distinct flavors. Each is a work of art and perfection. I tell them to consider themselves artists who make tamales for a living, because thats what were creating here every dayart! They laugh at me, shaking their heads, replying Aaayyyee, Alicia!!