On a food note... one of the (food) things I was most excited about before I came was the supposed easy access to tamales. I've had a long-lasting love affair with tamales, ever since a professor in college invited the class over to his house for dinner and his Colombian wife made tamales from scratch. The ones I've found in the states have been of varying qualities - the first time I tried them in a Mexican restaurant we like, they were good - but the next time, not so much. Ditto with buying them frozen from Trader Joe's. So prior to actually coming to Mexico, my plan was to basically live on tamales (and empanadas, but that's a story for another time). So you can imagine my disappointment when I couldn't find them anywhere! Restaurants didn't have them, street stalls only sold tacos... this was indeed a crushing blow. Then yesterday, I took a different route to my office* - and discovered that I'd been looking in the wrong place the whole time! See, I figured out a week or so ago that tamales are considered breakfast food here. This is really no stranger than having tacos for breakfast, which is also common here but still weird to me. Mexicans eat really heavy breakfasts, something my body just can't handle. Anyway, I found a whole bunch of street carts selling tamales. Now, street carts are the one form of Mexican street food I hadn't yet tried. Unlike the stalls, which are permanent little shacks made out of aluminum, the carts are mobile - it's often one person with a little folding table and a bunch of stuff piled on said table, though I've also seen at least one instance where the guy converted the back row of seats in his station wagon into a grill and was cooking/selling that way. Street carts are probably the easiest way to get into trouble with your food here, because they're mobile. With the shacks, since they're in the same place every day, they've got a fairly consistent clientele - which translates to an incentive not to give them food poisoning. The carts, however, don't necessarily have that since they can change locations so easily. So in my quest for tamales, I scouted out vendors who are in the same place day to day and then worked out who was actually selling tamales. And today I finally screwed up my courage (which is a lot easier to do here than at home, since everyone's so nice) and bought a tamale!
The man selling them had the kind of tamales that we're used to at home - beef and pork - but he also had sweet tamales. As previously mentioned, a) I don't like protein heavy breakfasts and b) I like trying new things. So I ended up with a sweet tamale, which upon opening I discovered was hot pink. Instead of filled tamales (which I really like, but again, too much protein), this was masa - corn flour - through and through, with what I assume was sugar mixed in. The hot pink color was unexpected, but the tamale itself was really pretty good. Tomorrow maybe I'll see if my stomach can handle a pork tamale, which would make me very happy. I just wish they were available at times other than breakfast!
*Starbucks
Miryam, my mom makes a giant batch of tamales every year at Christmas and then keeps them in the freezer for half the year. She usually makes bean tamales and cheese + poblano tamales. If I would've known you liked them so much, I would've brought you some last year. Tamales are not just a breakfast food item, it's just that people don't usually buy them in restaurants.
ReplyDeleteI decided to comment so you'd know someone was reading your blog!
you make it sounds like people in America aren't nice!! glad you are enjoying the food.. I thought that was the point of this blog. it isnt?
ReplyDeleteAmanda: people here are generally nicer than the average American. It's kind of like living in a really big version of Minnesota :).
ReplyDeleteI like talking about food, but there are lots of other great things here too - which I will continue to write about (along with the food, naturally).