 on the Latino Collection and Resource Center. My name is Amanda, I'm the LCR Superordinator and I'm very happy to join us here to talk about it. With two women that honestly need no introduction, we'll be having our event today with Dr. Kamilapoy and internationally acclaimed Chicana writer from San Antonio. She served as a co-allorate of San Antonio between 2012 and 2014 and was named the co-allorated justice and became a community in 2016. She's joined with Dr. Ellen Yohes-Clarke, UTSA Professor of America. And the one thing I thought was very cool is that she served as a Educational Content Director of the TVS series Maya and Miguel, which I love and I used to send them to. So I was happy to learn that you were involved in that. I'm a boy that can say that, yeah. And Dr. Ellen Yohes-Clarke is part of the L3 committee that was intervaled to opening the Latino Collection and Resource Center and if you haven't seen, Carmen Zahoy is one of our champion authors who's featured on our bookends that you can see when you go to the collection. So that's our short introduction, Elle. Go ahead and let you ladies get started. We're gonna be talking Tamales, a little bit about the history of the Tamalaba and reading some excerpts from their book. We're gonna make this rather informal, okay? So, I'm way older than that man. So, I'm the Mera Mera Tamarea. That's the name that I was given because I've been making Tamales, I just realized for 56 years, that's longer than she's been alive. No, so it's a long, long time, a long, long time. And the reason why is my mother never made Tamales. She came from the Fort Worth Dallas area and I don't know, they don't make Tamales in that area. But my dad's family would make them and never not to help. But anyway, once I established my own household decided to make Tamales, so every year would have a big Tamalaba at the house. So for those 50 years, I would get ready to have, all my friends come in, writers and artists and politicians, everybody went through my kitchen. It was a big job because I would make 150 pounds of masas, 150 pounds of masas. So you have to think about that. I have oyas or pots that are huge. And then, I'm kind of sure that being all that masa like this was a big job. And to do all of the oyas that were required to do all that many Tamales was huge. So, I do have a PhD, so I got it smart. And I figured out one thing, it's about culture. The minus is our culture, it's our history. And God wasn't going to tell you the history in a while. But the other thing I also understood was that it was about the process of making Tamales. And I said, not about the product. So it really didn't matter what that product tasted like or looked like, it was just important to get together and make them, you made them, you really think of the best Tamales in the world. So God meant that her husband, Ernie Goodenough, would come over with her children. I would tell people, just bring a pot and then you can take it to Mama's home and cook it. But here's my secret. Because nothing to do with, she didn't tell you what the history of Tamales is. This is 1980s, whatever year I started or earlier than that, you have the 60s making Tamales. So, that's how hard, if you ever did it as a child, you know you had to put them into soap, because corn shacks are very, very important. You have to soak them overnight, very hot water. So your hands end up being chapped and just not, I mean, it's hard on your skin. So I have a top coat, wash it, the top of the machine, you put the clothes on like that. So, I wash them, wash your sheen with vinegar twice, get rid of all of the soap residue. You put that on last time, because you need very hot water, put all the ojas in there, put the top on it and then pull out the stopper so it doesn't agitate. You don't want it to agitate. When my mother did it, she'd call me, she'd go, what do I do with all those pieces? Because they'd come apart. Mom, you weren't supposed to let it wash. So you let it, if you pull out the stopper and it just sumps. So the next morning, what do you do? You put on a spin, spins out all the water, fill it up with water again, and I had lovely hands, and I had very, very soft ojas, which would do my job on this. So that was the ojas. Then I got smart about doing all the masa, right? I mean, I wasn't gonna do this. That's how you do it. You have to be air into the masa. That's how you get fluffy tomatoes. And I did not want to look like Marilyn Monroe, you know, doing all of this all the time. So I got out my big, big mix master or the KitchenAid, that big KitchenAid. The same one I've had it for 50, something years. And I beat up all the masa. And remember I said it's all about process. So you want it to look good. So as soon as everybody would count, I would put all of that masa in a big pot. And when people would walk in, would gather in the bucket, I'd be like this. But I had already done it in all of them. And then when it's time to do all the spices, you do it with a macaque ente. A macaque ente is a mortar or pestle. And she's going to tell you about it that comes from the aspect times. So you have to grind them all the cominos, the chivas, and all of the garlic. But to make that make the malesia, you can imagine how many spices that need it. So what do y'all think I got? What did you get used to? That's an idea. You're a coffee grinder. Yeah, so you're grinding up all the spices, using that. And then just push it back. As soon as the coffee comes, you get out the macaque ente, and you put all the spices in it, and then you grind it. So remember, it's about process and looks. And it's really getting together with all your familia, your friends, and everybody to make it the malesia. So yes, I tell people how to make them, show them how. And I still do it. I just did it the way they use them. And I just did it down the belgado. The belgado, and I just did it a little. Some days will go by so fast. So I teach people how to do it in the right side of the ohain, and how much you put in there, and how to fold it. But it doesn't matter. Sometimes the malesias are that big, and you cook it right next to one, because it's really easy to do. So those are the grand damaladas that I used to do. And then I decided I'm not doing them at home anymore. And I went to the one alufa 10 years ago. I went to the one alufa, and I said, can I do the damaladas for a community? So I did it for 10 years teaching 300 people how to do the damaladas. It was so much fun. And it had a lot of graduates in there. And then I turned it over to Garino Cortez, who's been great donors to the Latino Resource Center. And they're doing it grand. So we did it, I guess it was Sunday, right? Yeah, it was Sunday. Sunday. And there was like 700 people. And it was incredible. So for me to see this thing that I started 10 years ago, blossom into this huge thing was really incredible. Along the way, and he said to people, a lot of hecky, I think you should write all this down on it and put a book together. I said, amen, I do academic stuff. I don't do, you know, folks about damaladas. And she said, no, no, no. Anyway, in a short time, we put out the book. Three weeks, I think it was something like that. It was three weeks before we turned it over to the publisher for the book. What? Why? You couldn't imagine that. My last book took me 10 years on the one I started. But we were working overtime. And we had all the damaladas pitching in this. See, one of the things about the damaladas is that they just set off one person all by themselves and build a building or invent a way to grow a circle. As she starts to say, she did this, well, actually, we have another collaboration around the clock because not only did she create this beautiful cover. My other friends, a lot of them, we said, had done this piece of artwork. I think I'll say this, she was gonna be great. You've got to dig in, you've got to dig in, you've got to dig in. The thing that we thought was so important for my work and my identity is, who are we? You know, who are our groups? What is our history? And what we found was that the damalas are some of the damalas, some of the maíz. So learning about the history. And then we asked Antonio Castaneda, who is a very, very noted historian, to write a short piece for us on the history of damalas, and the history of 7,000 years of people of color. So this is something that was invented through communism. Yeah, I'm telling this article called Art, Labor, and the Genius of Women, a Short History of Damalas. She talks about these cultures of the Americas. And historically, bands of human beings didn't have a chance to bury a leopard. You kill the deer, you ate the deer. You don't have to gather berries or herbs or you ate this kind of thing. But making food that combined things was really an invention called mixtamalizacion, which is a delightful word. Coming from the word mixtamal, the masa of the damalas. The mixtamal is not fast to make, but once it's made, you pick it up and you go out and you take it, you don't have that corn and one can only meet the other. The very important thing about that was the corn gods. So there's a corn god and a corn goddess, and both of them made us, according to mythology, in a corner that a masa can create and does a scan lens. And one of the daughters had five daughters, and each one reflected the color. White corn, yellow corn, blue corn, red corn, and the one that's multi-colored. So you can still see those different colored corn in the grocery store. And so from that, they created a new concept and an indigenous group. So we, our children, we're children of corn. And if you look back, it's the very earliest in Europe where dirt is what we're made of. This animal, he tries mud and I mean something firm on it. What is firm, and it's strong, but it doesn't smile, and it doesn't move, and it doesn't have any emotions. And they decided to satisfy this hunger, you know, they're gonna, there's some questions, yes. And unmoving 7,000 in the Americas. So it's the most incredible food. And I make the modest, I think, I'm using the same recipe that my indigenous ancestors made. Masa, spices, either medicine, or pork, or sweet ones with basa, which means that these are all kind of just such an organic food of who we are. So that's why we love the modest. And we know that the modest reflect who we are and that the instruments we use such as what we have. I don't even know what a modest is. Let me ask that first. Because it's made out of volcanic rock and I know you've got a treat. It's a water pistol. It's a watering pistol object made out of... It's a three. I've noticed that you said... I mean, a friend gave me a wonderful little garlic press for Christmas. Little women just stick the garlic in and I said, oh, that's so convenient. And I put it aside and I grab it and then I did my garlic because it does it very well. But also, today it's still probably the most effective way to grind spices without turning them apart. I don't do long grinding. I don't do blenders for a long time. It's just right. It's just enough but not that we emphasize. One of the things that is so delightful about going from Dallas or from Africa who are coming at me and by grinding or tasting they are having all the fun that everybody gets. I don't know if it's 7000 or 7000. Probably pushing it to 8000 or 9000 doing their food itself. It's an amazing thing. One of the things we did with the pool because it's one of the things that both of us had done separately I met in the 1970s when we were hosting our doctoral program to UT Austin. I didn't know I did know that my future husband had met her in the 1960s when she was his doctoral student. No, a master's student at UT Austin. So, one of the things that we were each doing and I think it was kind of the emotion and the sensation she was doing a tamales at home and writing parts of it and making tamales I was doing a multimedia tamales because I was a writer and I was into the arts and a friend who was missing tamales and she said, I made tamales come on, I would invite everybody over we invited all the poets so everybody brought the poetry books and the poetry while they're assembling and the reading poetry while they're in the rondo and then at the end the best part was when everything was ready pretty red honk got cleaned up showered off all the masa came back to eat tamales and then big boys and so we had coins artwork that was brought and it was a lot of fun and I was doing the same but also we had in Austin because the grad student almost was family and friends and my my great aunt, that in 1996 said you have to honor the food you honor the making of food and that was a huge lesson for me because I always thought you make a lot of food and everybody sits down and you enjoy the product and that's what I'm saying it doesn't matter about the product we never got dirty like that because my aunt would get all dressed up when it was time to do the tamales she would say you have to put on your beautiful, dainty earrings in pongan se liki stick so we all had to be well dressed with our lipstick and without all earrings and a beautiful apron not a dirty apron so it was all about the humanness to make have something to loss of fun so then when we get to Diego the skin was great yeah, beautiful skin again remember that this process probably happened because two kid women sat down and started to chat and it probably went something like this when one of the kid women was bragging about all the modern art that they had in their kid days and the other one was concerned it just wasn't enough so, should we give them a little taste of what 2K art is not like? now where did you see these drawings? all of them were wonderful they had that stick stickers they were inside the cave walls all of them was the best art exhibit we ever saw cave art and our civilization we had fire and then so the drawings were about cooking? no, but they were about buffalo the I got this one too what did that guy draw? at least four different colors on the walls, one was red one was blue, one I don't know the name for but it was good art we had sticks we had fire we had a good time all the last week what more could we possibly have in our civilization? well, but you know what I hate cooking by myself I invited a mother to come over to her she didn't know how to cook anything so I told her about doing the pasta and I said, you know how to cook the pasta she must be a civilized what kind of kid woman is that? she must be a civilized so man, what did you do first? well, you know we were kind of tired of just even working at the point I mean, she wanted to eat pasta and I wanted to eat the now good tasty deer I was like, which one is it gonna be? because we can eat both of them because if we have the pasta in one hand and deer in the other, who's gonna grab the chip? I have to keep them from getting too close to the fire you know? and she grabbed the orcas that I follow now on your corner and she grabs from my side and I say, what are you doing? I said, I'm not even gonna come over I'm gonna cook the orcas and I said, orcas, I'm gonna taste good come on here what the orcas are you kidding me? well, I'm not even kidding because that man of mine is bugging me always he got me he was gonna make five dishes no this was all in the middle in the middle isn't it gonna fall? no they put it in the pasta and then on this one I'm gonna put beans and I'm gonna make it double the amount and on this one I'm gonna put beans and on this one I'm gonna put la carne and I'm gonna have a two for one and I'm gonna call it Don means what that means pour and then I'm gonna put it on the fire and I'm gonna cook it okay, good one but you know what I'm gonna put on mine? oh yes, that was good I'm putting rabbit I'm gonna try this one and a Halloween I'm gonna put it this way it's gonna fall down oh wait a minute maybe we should fold it hold up I got it stick it in let's put some more those guys move and then I'm gonna put some of those seeds some of those seeds in there chili I am chili those are good seeds spice is so good well that is the invention of a tamale and a couple of days later when the guys got back in there and they were given this key wipe out all the food tamales we've made they shut up and this key flap says to them hey, can I take some of those what you call them? tamales? we can go with them instead oh I just think we made them and so he picks up a whole bunch of them he sticks them in his house and he heads off with them and he says hey, we're gonna have a good expedition and he says hey, don't eat too much you'll be too fat to kill the deer he didn't listen so we had to wait a couple of months before we could go to the deer but we're not going to the same thing we're still saying the same thing we want some more so people have to keep taking them tamales away I wanted to share with you guys a point that a friend of mine wrote about tamales and I think he kind of captures a modern perspective on the traditional tamales and she's from Humboldt, California so the point is called recipe hinterland tamales here in Humboldt we have one Mexican market El Cueblo and as the proprietor Maria says in Christmas the whole world comes to get masa for tamales but I didn't mean it I don't want to drive to the other side of Eureka to get masa trucked all the way from San Jose before daylight I make my own masa all the same way the old ladies before me have done you can do this too go to the market the hinterlands of our slime will have masa in their bags don't be a baby follow the directions on the back of the bag behind the bags there's a viebo cano so the old white-haired man was no clue as to the contents of that bag there's no excuse honey they even print the directions in the English the trick though is in the machine don't whine about authenticity if your grandma had had a food processor you know to what it used to be deep down it's the twin sister of the old lady that means whenever the diaspora has flung you and yours does the food processor make tamales with masa but it's specific once you have masa your possibilities are endless traditional tamales de cuerpo de pollo chile verde de musical raisins or even if you're dairy and tamales so a little peace of our God experience one of the things we feel proud about is that we were able to reach out across San Antonio really across the nation and get commentaries for different individuals about their favorite tamales because once these started turning into favorite tamales a few of them did say tamales de cuerpo or de lote dulce or pollo porrajas de chile but most of them started to recognize so we're going to share a few of these because we got everybody from Vicky Karr and we're James Solomons we got Dan Nair, Kujen Castro the Cabaret, Fernan Eloise Maria Eloise from the columnist Eloise columnist and even and even and even Mayor made your city of the U.S. she said the best ones were always made by wives and you know and Ellen you finally did get Senator Yeah some of the status as you well know is a very famous author and translated into 47 languages at least but anyway, I love her she's a very concise boy fat tamales are my favorite I mean the ones made in central Mexico and shaped like Mexican feet not the little sardine shaped ones folksy and northern Mexico in places so she like big square like big feet we have other commenters from people who talk to all about the beautiful and sardine shaped ones from northern Mexico like North Magadu but some of you may remember the late great women champion fantastic flamenco guitars performed throughout the world and he had one of the most magical statements that we got he said my favorite is that my father would hunt the deer and my mother would turn it into tamales the tamales were always a mystery to me almost a gathering of brujas witches I remember the boys and men were asked to leave the house and only the women were gathering their own selective own boys would play at other neighbors' homes and the men sat and talked and had their say but when we got home the tamales would emanate an aroma that I could still smell after so many years now I realize those women alone have left their problems and their dreams and their hopes inside those tamales this is some of these different words they just don't understand that's neat, it's very effective hey you're still your normal that's the one they used to collect on your money because she knew the facts she said my amelita made the best tamales ever she was small, strong and independent she was also perfectionist when she died my sister and I attempted to duplicate her tamales but we were going high tech we purchased a mechanical tamale maker that had two cylinders one for the masa and one for the me the entire family was relying on us to have an amelita like tamales for our chakras was gathered the meat and masa were prepared according to amelita specifications and the aroma of the tamale meat filled the kitchen we were so proud of ourselves and hoped that our amelita would also be proud of us we stuffed the meat and the masa into the cylinders and cranked it cranked away to our horrible surprise instead of getting nice and neat tamales the meat turned it up towards the ceiling and ended up on the walls floor and everywhere else you can imagine the amelita the kitchen looked like a disaster compared to it covered with red spongey substance the following year we decided to go the old fashioned way sometimes tradition just can't be replaced okay let's look at the amelitas from a little kids perspective how many of you know David my amelita used to be with the Crayolas or still is they call themselves the spectabecta beetles very very talented fans here in town and he talked about one of his thermal experiences when he was 9 or 10 he says I guess I've never seen how the amas were made but I've walked into the kitchen and there was my yes eyes and my grandma's up to their wrists in grass they were smiling and their hands were glistening of grease and there was a head it looked gruesome enough to traumatize me I still eat them but that image will be etched in my memory forever young member Joe Vannell a senator Joe Vannell was young in 1991 and he was the first Mexican American senator in Texas and he just said that definitely definitely the macho tamales when in the tamales ceremony line you run out of meat then you add jricotas and then when you run out of jricotas beans you add pasas for raisins then you have tamales with pasas until you run out of raisins then you add sugar to the masalas you make them sweet tamales you add all the ingredients except for the masalas and you end up wrapping up the masalas all by itself so the man made a jazz masalas is called a macho yeah right there you have it Terry Binance artist, teacher has illustrated numerous books she's just an amazing human being and she says I'm from a family of tamales makers I have several good memories but the funniest one is when I tried picking tamales on my own my mother gave me the recipe for preparing the dough and the carame and the meat came out perfectly and the masa I thought was very good I steamed my tamales and they smelled delicious but when I tried one it was as hard as a rock I hadn't followed the part of my love-ish recipe that said I had the whole box of manteca because I thought we would be healthier I had to throw my tamales into a reel and suddenly I found my apartment and then even the fish couldn't eat and really if you use real lard now I'm talking with the one in the box real lard from one of the Kitakana that is the best and healthiest but they got the name oh no never anyway there used to be a coffee house called Timo's coffee house and he says when I was 17 a man made me a friend of mine invited me to her house for tamales I thought I knew what we were going to be but when the plates were served there was only one tamale on mine and it was huge you had to cut through the thick banana leaves to find that the mine made it shrimp, rice plantain, chicken grandmas, veggies and who knows what else but then they said fad yeah you know, Franco Maldini the artist back and forth between Florence Italy and San Antonio he said one of the nicest compliments I ever got in New York City asked by a fancy potential art client where I like to keep Mexican food in New York City I hesitated knowing how many New Yorkers resented the Puebla sensation of New York City where all these people were Puebla were moving in to New York in fact those who don't know the Puebla immigration to New York has become so significant New York now called it Puebla York but we call it Puebla sensation then I had to fess up half expecting her to roll her eyes in dismay I said I love to buy the tamales from the street vendor ladies from Puebla she then gently responded that she felt with its growing Mexican population New York can become a conduit and more and then I had a good friend Rebecca Amazan who is actually Vicky Carr's sister-in-law because by the way when you make the money you have to achieve them you have to toss them so do you know that Rebecca was her brother her brother is married to Vicky Carr and her brother is Rebecca's brother and she divided him as a visual fabulous visual artist so I couldn't see that she's not doing too well but anyway she said the rules for my mama you cannot embalada as hojas until you master washing and draining so that said you have to learn how to wash them and the job of the kids will do I'll be the one to decide when and if you're worthy to graduate to embalada embalada means to put the masa hojas I will fill them I will fill them, roll them and only I will stack them in the bucket my other sister Esperanza was her taster as well as my brother Pepo shortly before she died in 1983 Esperanza and I took over as Pamaleras Mama tasted all of the fillings Cajunet, chicken, beans beans and cheese and jalapenos aren't you getting hungry when the first tamalas were done we would give her the tamalas to taste and she said tears in her eyes ya no me necesita ustedes ya son las tamaleras so she was so sad that they didn't need her anymore because they hadn't done a good job she died before the next tamalada and Esperanza took over I continued to come to San Antonio you're a christmas to help her we laugh a lot now we think of Mama as we tackle 60 pounds of masa for Christmas Eve I cannot schedule going back to Maryland to be with our daughters for the holidays until my sister gives me the new tamalada non-stop 3 day marathon a 12 hour days some time ago I bought restaurant papers I hand painted them with flowers and hand letter the tamalera for my two sisters and myself Jen her husband early pointed the phrase no healthy, no eating tamales and now the official taster and on the simple bad issue we want to close with a very short story from a little quote from a woman that used to be the executive director of the cultural arts center because we live in a modern world we're not everybody understands Spanish anymore and some want to kind of translate so this word about vaga has a very interesting mistranslation she says on one of my family's annual holiday tamaladas as my sisters and I were first learning this tradition we asked my dad what he was doing as he was in vaga Rambo the masa on the corn plasters he answered the cure I'm embarrassing the tamalas to this day every holiday we make the tamalas feel as self conscious and then as easy as we can I personally like the tamalas and they're lightly embarrassed more than the heavily embarrassed so that's our book and Gavin and I still do tamaladas but now we're the tasters we're the tasters we're the supervisors so we still propose our lipstick and their adepts and to be ready but I'm going to be making my tamalas in fact when I go home tonight I just got into Dallas I'll go home tonight the meat's cooked so I'm going to chop it up put it in the refrigerator cook it tomorrow I'll do videotaping and so forth to get ready for my tamalada that will be very small just enough to make tamalas for my family when they all play in so I hope you enjoy making tamalas and you know what and you know what I'm going to make them you know who wants a good idea this is great the other person said go buy a bunch of them but before you invite anybody over take them as a photo get one of your good pops stick them in there and let the water boil a little bit you know what put the water in put some cominos in and some garlic and let it boil so the smell goes to the whole house then put the tamales in there and then get a little sweat on your face and be ready to serve them and act like which is fast forwarded to end of the day any questions or comments? comments or stories to share yeah it's uh I uh was hoping to go to the town a lot over here but I guess because you know first of all I'm not paying attention this time of the year because I'm not paying attention and things happen and I go wow what's he like to do that so fortunately I walk into the water and I'm looking for something else and I see the little there you go well I don't know what that's gonna be but I'm going with that so I tell him okay I'm not going home I'm going with this and oh it was a surprise but a fantastic thing fantastic and we got our book in the back so if you need recipes the recipes people love to give up for ideas and their cousins are not in love so it's not just a recipe but it's got the fun and the flavor and the jokes and the real anecdotes that have happened like when Gerald Ford came to San Francisco he was like I can't know and you really say I went to something with my grandmother who was here and I went to something when I was maybe eight or nine or so and they had tamales as part of whatever it was and so I think did you want to go down for those because I don't even know and at eight I was like can I have a little nickel to get a little jambalic she had a whole bag of nickels I don't know there's a story there's a story about politics and there was a lady in San Antonio that used to she would fix the elections you would tell her what the election was and put her up against and how high the post was and she'd tell you how many dozens of tamales you needed to win and then everybody was invited over to come eat tamales for the candidate and ended up winning and in fact when Henry D. Botelus first ran for office Henry D. Botelus Convention was named after a real old person ten years he was our representative and he ran against a guy called Charlie Good and Good would do it all politicians used to do in San Antonio then go around there the Mexicans in the neighborhood bring him over, give him a beer in the alas have him vote, then put him back on the bus take him back and drop him in the neighborhood forget about him until the next time they weren't for election and they would service the community at all so Henry D. Botelus right in the place it was drink Good's beer and eat good's tamales and go to the tolls of four ones out and that was for real anybody got a good story or a memory? nobody's made, how many of you made tamales? alright what's your favorite let me know well I wanted to my mom always made the tamales in my early desk so my siblings never really participated so about three years ago I suggested we should continue the tradition my mother's 95 years old she could continue so about three years ago we started one of the holidays and we got about a month it's a lot of work to get it all but we also experimented with different made tamales those were delicious I didn't know you could do that but we were having fun drinking tamales in bed my sisters were drinking wine and there were some tamales in the refrigerator it was made by Brandon they were really good I was with a cactus and you just sauteed it with tomato and put it in the middle and I just loved it I made sweet ones also and every year I invented the new one so last year I invented one with and you make sweet ones sweet ones are very small so I did it with the masa but you mix everything together lots of it comes from Texas so I made my tree and then chocolate was also from the Americas and then tequila mix it all up so what's your favorite you have a favorite we have a question if I may the cooking process because I've seen pots being used so what's the ideal process if you're going to make how many pounds of masa did you make if you're going to make 15 pounds of masa investment in a tamale pot from each other they cost about 30 bucks but they're really neat because it tells exactly how much water to put on there and it's got a little span 15 pounds of masa and they love that big container and they don't fall into the water now when I read that part about the mother saying I'm the one that puts them in the pot one of the old lifestyle is but it's true I think is that one person should put stacked tamales and I'm sure your mother tells you that not everybody should be putting tamales in there it takes one person I cannot put them in the pot nicely I just don't know how to stack them so somebody that is very meticulous to put them in there and let that person put all the tamales in the pot and then you boil them for about an hour that big pot and steam them much nicer than a roaster and now we just reserve that pot for tomorrow and we've heard all kinds of interesting commentary from a manager one woman said she would all put a penny because when the water was boiling you could strip it with a penny and then we don't hear anything it's like uh oh we're out of water because penny didn't have anything to throw away so that's a very handy idea but if you use this pot you never run out of water the new pot it's really high whereas if you're doing it the old fashioned way my mother would say take the mano from the mocha and then you took the vessel from the mortar and pestle and you put it in the center of the pot that you were cooking in and then all the tamales went on like this but you always have to worry about raising them the golden part goes down so every time you make a tamale your heart is out again this is the way I make it I don't put masa I don't put masa oh that's a rectangle so I put it like in a a rectangle right here leave a space at the bottom a space on the top and a space on the sides and then I get the oha like this and then you throw it over and then you hope you have an open front here and that's the way you put it that's the way you put it down and when you open it it's magical because it's never stuck to the open and then it goes up and we have to mention one of the neat things that you can think about unless you're really working with an item a lot really studies the shock of the corn you know you pull out and build the trash can but if you feel a shock of the corn definitely the kind you use but the corn is the right one one side is smoother the other side has more distant ridges the ridge part goes out the spoon part goes in and now oha'sas are nice so that when you buy them they just naturally curl so put the curl part in your hand and you can use a knife or a spoon just right there and I'm a corn addict I love the mothers the real corn flavor for instance the white what they call the green corn in Arizona why they call it green corn? because they make it for what they call the white corn which is not normal corn not what you think of as white corn but anyway we have to wait until the white corn gets here and when the white corn would come they would mix real corn in terms of curls in the masa that corn flavor and they would put variations on it but the white corn does not have any the green corn the mothers do not carry they have cheese white cheese but they're very mild they're not the very very mild so this was typical this was if you go to Arizona and you ask for green corn the mothers you're probably going to get white cheese a little in the chili in there and sometimes they go right in the green cheese would you guys in a different way? it's a fresh corn flavor and I have my absolute favorite the mothers I'm torn between the green corn mother between a family recipe that the two of us used to make years and years ago we called it chaos theory the mothers when everything is going on and the women are taking care of the babies and the baby is sick and this one is doing this and the men are out in the fields and they're having to bring the milk in from the cows everything is chaos we want to have to do two of them like this we have no way we have time to make fun of us and so they threw in the meat they threw in the kernels they made a big queso of masa and corn and corn kernels and meat and they got green shucks because they could go to the certified driver because they had to save it they just picked the corn off the stock so they took the green shucks and they put this mixture through it or fast they put it in a pot steamed it something which they invented in 1940 but it was an afternoon and they said what are your favorite films love or and how would you use this big tomato do you like it yeah my favorite and yours I would say that I could tell two years ago I had never made tomatoes so I fell under the uncivilized classification that you talked about a couple of well again a couple of years ago a group of us got together I think you all know we all got together at her house and there was still that I know how to do all this stuff going in and then just sprinkle and I really think this thing doesn't stay on you know so I struggled for a few minutes they kind of said you know maybe you should try separating the I'll go I'll go so I'm over here doing it all because they needed a lot of trying to version of this process but you know what there's just so many of us I need something else they assigned me the job of putting them in the and I did pretty good I did them exactly like you were saying and I was the only one putting them nice indeed very well organized by the time the whole thing was over those tomatoes were very good but here I am a novice candlelight and all these other ladies have been making them for years and they just assume that everybody knows that well what I really like is every time I go to these places people say I love making tomatoes from it and we've been making them every year so that's really heartwarming to know you know that you want to go back and honor your mother because you're not going to be thrilled that you're making them and then that you're going to get together with them and it really is a lot of process she's been laughing trying you know storytelling and then you're making some food and it's really fun and with that to give don't forget when you do the pot to always get a cicado or a dishcloth and you wet the dishcloth and you put it on top now my aunt always said it has to be your best dishcloth the one that's really embroidered is that really ours? you really have to embroider it so far that you wet it and you put it on top and that keeps the steam in there so make sure that you do that at my house we also crown a queen or a king we have a crown that was made and you're crowned in all the things you put on the crown made out of all hats that a friend's man made for me and I've had it for about 30 years and my daughter now is 54 years old and when she was 10 she did not like to eat them others oh there's Peter, there's Peter there's also Peter and I was a great father great father and she made she made an angel out of the corn husk when she was 10 so it was 44 years ago that spill is on our tree our Christmas tree kind of falling apart but it's a signature piece so you can make anything out of the whole husk should I answer it? how about y'all over there? all we did was with osciles in it and a fork you don't ever make a fork and fossils that's good if you've been raisins and you've been with a fork yeah that's good how about you? I love the choreo how about oh yeah those bones those you have yeah those are good I've never liked beans but now I'm starting to like beat the modest with the jalapeño and the queso blanco I know it's not the modest or the tight I don't know why is that? the sweet ones you tie up both ends you make them small but sometimes sometimes you make them odd it's just special it's so pretty and this is the comment I get back from a lot of people who say it's tight and it's tight but there's one more manuelita who spoke the other day manuelita was an immigrant to San Antonio at the age of 18 she worked hard for her life but she talked about growing up in Christmas and for the other little friends who make them odd make one for love regular but she would make that one demand soon the strips of the corn shell that come out of the tall part she would take it she would tie it and sweet and the child would eat it it would taste better the only person who nurtures and sustains something that was eight of one person a lot of times you're going through a big pile and there's a bunch of demand but also the practical reason because you want to identify the purple ones usually look red but the chicken ones look white and the bean ones look white so you want to tie a row tie a bow around the bean ones are the chicken and there's a third to keep the identified because you might put them all in the same pond so you might tie a different way but there's a third reason that is that they come from a culture and so you're not just like oh I want those and I want those but you use it everything so at the end when Yolk and I saw how she took it and there's just strips you might have to use like three little strips to get what my junkie called they walk out so you lay those three strips out you fold them out so that's a way of making sure that it is a pond but pick your way these are the bean ones and when I tie the bean ones to the top I'm going to tie the chicken ones to the middle for the ones I love and the pork ones you don't tie the other question is do they come always and there's just a bunch of regional variations you probably figure this out in Mexico and in fact certain parts of the rest of Lebanon have their own style so you can give banana leaves tropical areas and you're going to get them wrapped in other kinds of leaves but there's styles and there's spices and there's flavors that go for it and if you go back historically we were the Spanish priests that arrived in New World and some time come on he was down in Mexico he found a village where they served a falalon this one and this one and you put one and the whole town comes and eats they put entire chickens in the middle and so these are regional variations and it's not like there's a right way along to make them in some areas we have this great big talales here in North Mexico and San Antonio we kind of tend towards the little ones so we get to say oh I have four talales for you it's a big trouble if you're in certain parts of Arizona or in Mexico and you say you want four talales you're going to get four things this big you're going to get all this big so we have pond holders here what are those for? oh so they're free so we have we have all of them if you want we're also selling our books in the back but let's all grab the pond holders any other comments or questions any other recipes? I would just say thank you for doing this thank you I got your book and I saw you a couple of weeks ago and I started reading and it's so funny some of the years are so funny it's amazing how you can capture all of these details within a free free incredible but you have to understand that no one had already written up the recipes from previous and she also had the and so we just put it together and filled in a YouTube they did a filming last year from the Texas Beef Council you'll see me at my house when you go up there okay let's go sign the key