Keeping Latin American Tradition Alive
From Prehistoric Mesoamerica to East Austin
Words by Sean Saldana Photos by Ashley Haguewood
Tamales are a staple of Latin American cuisine. To many Hispanic people, bowls of cornflour, braised meat, and heaps of lard sprawled across kitchen counters are a familiar scene during the holidays, when families honor the tradition of making tamales together.
Linking grandparents to grandchildren, tamales incorporate nearly every ingredient associated with a Mesoamerican diet: pork, beans, masa, and corn husks.
Tamales are so intertwined with the Latin American story; in fact, their invention predates the written word. To understand the history of tamales, one must turn the clocks back approximately 7,000 years as Mesoamerica was transitioning from a hunter-gatherer society to one dominated by agriculture. The word “tamales” is an anglicized version of the Spanish word “tamal” which comes from the Aztec word of the Nahuatl language, “tamalli,” meaning “wrapped food.”
What’s perhaps most fascinating about tamales is how they’ve endured. Cultures have shifted, empires have fallen, and nations have been colonized, and through it all, the tamale has been a constant. Additionally, tamales have always been communal: a food that brings people together.
Carmen Valera is the owner of Tamale House East, the latest iteration of a family restaurant that has served Mexican American food in Austin since 1958. Part of what motivated Tamale House East to open up was the lack of tamale options around the city.
The labor, time, kitchen space, and costs associated with producing tamales make it hard for business owners to profitably sell tamales, and at first, Carmen was no different. When Tamale House initially opened, ironically enough, tamales weren’t on the menu. Carmen and her team hadn’t quite figured out how to make them at scale.
“We laugh about it now,” says Carmen, looking back to the early days of the restaurant.
Eventually though, with the help of her mother, Carmen was able to create recipes that allowed Tamale House to serve homemade tamales quickly without compromising on quality. This is one of the reasons why, at Tamale House, there aren’t any machines that help with production.
Carmen says, “The process of making tamales is a communal process. People come together as a family.” They make everything by hand because it comes down to one simple thing: tradition. Carmen insists, “We’re doing it the way my mom did it, and my grandmother did it, and the way her mother before her did it.”
One thing is certain. No matter the time it takes to wrap these savory treats and get them to the masses in East Austin, one of Latin America’s oldest traditions is alive and well and has been bringing the community together for decades.
Contact:
(512) 495-9504
1707 E 6th Street
tamalehouseeast.com
@tamale_house
