Today we wonder if we can kick it and are immediately ambushed by Mr. Etymology and back-formations before chatting with Special Guest Marcela Valladolid about Tamales. We share some embarrassing confessions and avoid awkward bedtime conversations as we hope to be remembered for our housekeeping.
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Molly 0:00
Hi. I'm Molly.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:05
And I'm Matthew.
Molly 0:06
And this is Spilt Milk The show where we cook something delicious. Eat it all and you can't have any
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:10
or barely in this case kick something delicious because you said you were gonna kick a boy about kicking. QUESTION
Molly 0:17
Can I get I you can kick it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:20
Thank you. First off Happy Birthday to mama the show Judy Amster. This episode comes out on her birthday. I won't say what birthday number it is.
Molly 0:27
Happy birthday, Judy. We wouldn't be here without you. That's true.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:30
I mean, some of us would that let's be honest. Yeah. But you probably wouldn't be like here in the studio by yourself. Like
Molly 0:37
talk just waiting waiting while you to sign on because you never existed,
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:40
right? If I never existed, would I be a ghost? How this is
Molly 0:44
like one of those if a tree falls in the forest. Okay, you know what I should say what today's episode is? Oh, that's
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:51
a great idea.
Molly 0:52
So today we are talking about tamales.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:56
Yes, we've been wanting to do this for a long time. But we knew we needed a guest. And we knew we needed the right guest. And I think we found
Molly 1:03
that the right guest So more on that in a minute. But before she joins us, we wanted to have Mr. entomologie come in and just start us right off with talking about the origin of the word tamale.
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:24
Okay, so I found this interesting. I don't know if anyone will find it as interesting as I did. But let's give it a shot. I saw that you wrote about it in your journal. I did. Yeah, the word the word. tamale begins in the Novato language. And if you're wondering why I'm saying tamale rather than tamale we'll get to that in a minute. No, waddle is a group of related languages currently spoken by about 2 million speakers in central Mexico. And the Modern Language Group is descended from the language of the Aztecs. And the word in the wattle is tamale at sea. It's Romanized as tamal li okay, then the word entered Spanish, of course, in the era of Spanish conquest in the 16th century, and in Spanish, the singular was shortened to tamale with a plural of tamales. Hmm, all right. Then the word came into English from Spanish. And it's sort of hard to say like exactly when the word entered English because the earliest uses in English are in travelogue, so they're just like, you know, saying this is a food I saw, and this is the local word for it. But from Mr. etymologies perspective, the interesting question is when did the English back formation of the singular tamale happen? Because in Spanish, one of them is a tamale. And in English, one of them is a tamale. So why did that happen? And when?
Molly 2:42
All right Okay, wait, and this is called a back formation stick. So
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:46
of course, as as our listeners all know, a back formation is when you apply the lexical rules of one language by inference to a word adopted from another language. So in this case, that means that English speakers heard the word tamales or tamales, and I assumed that was the plural of a word tamale because that's how you form plurals in English. Ah,
Molly 3:08
okay. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:09
I'm following right it is it is possible that the word in Spanish is also a back formation from the Novato word because they're like hey, tamale tamales, like tamales. So that would that way the way you form a plural in Spanish would go tamale tamales, right.
Molly 3:25
This is so interesting. Did you hold on Matthew true confessions. Did you know the phrase back formation prior to meeting Mr. Etymology today,
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:34
gosh, I'm not sure which, which would be like the more embarrassing confession but the answer is yes, I did. That's the more embarrassing confession. Okay. So okay, so I went to the OED, of course, and the first recorded use of the English word tamale in the OED is from a writer that I've never heard of named Kate Sandborn, who Wikipedia describes as quote, an American author, teacher and lecturer, also a reviewer, compiler essayist, and farmer Sandborn was famous for her cooking and housekeeping. I'm famous for my housekeeping crew. And in her hubris at 93. travelogue, a truthful woman in Southern California don't know what the title means. It's only one of them, right? It's only one. She refers to a tamale singular, which seems to be the first time we found that in English, and I'm not going to read the rest of the sentence because it's kind of racist. That is unfortunate. Yes, and the fact that the word the word tamale in English is similar to the original novel word tamale is basically a coincidence it might have like you know, gotten back formed in Spanish to the back formed again in English, but the point is kind of that the word tamale singular has been part of the English language for a long time. And so it's not it's not really like up to me to decide this but I feel okay with using the singular Tamale and English rather than the Spanish tamale that both of them seemed fine to me.
Molly 4:55
I'll be very curious to see what our guest has to say about it. Yeah, we should ask her So we haven't walked down memory lane yet Matt
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:02
and we must, and we must ambush like we were about to like set out onto Memory Lane lane. We were the victims of a brutal ambush by Mr. Etymology, known street tough.
Molly 5:14
Well, you know, it's just as well because I have to say, I don't even remember the first time I had a tamale. I'm pretty sure that it was. I don't know, I was gonna say maybe it was when I was in college. Because I remember getting really excited to learn about all of the fantastic eating I could do in the mission in San Francisco. Yes, but I don't know. Maybe it happened earlier than that. Anyway, Matthew, what's your memory lane for tamales?
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:43
So I think kind of the same for me. I don't I don't remember having them as a kid or even necessarily in college. Although it's possible since I went to college in Southern California. I do remember in the 90s like hearing that they make their own tamales at the Mexican grocery at Pike Place Market. And in thinking like, I don't know if I've had this before, but it sounds good and going down and buying like red chili pork and green chili chicken tamales and bringing them home and, and steaming them at home. And they were so good. And then at some point when December was little we started like I think it was it was wife the show Lori's idea to start making Christmas Eve tamales. And so every year now on Christmas Eve, we do like a whole production of making like way too many tamales and like you we do it what just once a year like and then of course, every time we have the same conversation like these are so good. We should do it other times of year also, and we never do because it is really like an all day affair.
Molly 6:43
Okay, wait a minute. So when you first started doing that, do you remember who you sort of looked to as your authority? Or has Do you
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:52
have a guess? Of who like in the in the early 2000s? I might have looked to for for Okay, Mexican recipe.
Molly 7:00
I'm gonna guess you probably went to Rick Bayless, totally, you did.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:03
And so the recipe I make today like, you know, now I just kind of improvised with, with kind of, like, I know, like how to whip up the masa and like, I'm gonna make some kind of braised pork with red chili. Just using using whatever I have on hand. I buy one, one bag of Mustika masa Dena for tamales every year. And and use it that one time.
Molly 7:25
Excellent, excellent. Okay, so I feel like we should also just sort of tackle what these are. So yeah, what we're talking about here is something tasty that is stuffed or mixed into corn masa. And then it's wrapped usually in a corn husk or a banana leaf. And steamed. Right. Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:45
And it is it is a Mexican dish in origin and from from like, you know, long into the pre Hispanic period in Mexico, but it is now popular throughout Central America, the Caribbean and the US with lots of regional variation.
Molly 7:58
And there are I think, I know, I tend to think primarily of savory versions stuffed with meat, but there are also sweet versions. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:06
yeah. And I think I think our guests will probably talk about this, too. Excellent. So why don't we Why don't we bring on our guest and then we'll, we'll talk about her cookbook and her approach to tamales and then, then afterwards, why don't we get into a little bit of the history,
Molly 8:20
fantastic.
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:25
Marcela viado lead was born in San Diego and grew up on both sides of the border in San Diego and Tijuana. Her first job was working at her aunt's cooking school. She's a chef TV host classically trained French pastry chef and author of six cookbooks, including her new book, familia, and incredibly appealing collection of approachable Mexican and Mexican American recipes. Marcelo, welcome to spell Bow.
Marcela Valladolid 8:45
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:47
So we have wanted to talk about tamales forever. And new we would like need a guest to do it, because we don't know enough about them ourselves. And in the book, you wrote something that really like made me feel seen, which is you said, with tamales, you'll always find recipes such as this, that gives you very large quantities. There's a reason behind that you only want to do this once or twice a year, which my family would do it once a year. Yeah. Alright. So are tamales, holiday food in your family also, like how do you celebrate with them?
Marcela Valladolid 9:14
Yeah. And I love that you pull that quote from the book? Because I think I'll answer that in a second. But I think you hit on something like super important, right that sometimes Mexican cookbooks can be super intimidating because we love and respect the history attached to our recipes, like so much. Yeah, so with this book, I just wanted to be like, chill, you can do this. Like forget about all of the things that you're afraid by minus our labor intensive and the reality is exactly what you just said like set apart a day. It's definitely a holiday food or about diesel food or like a baptism or like us. You know what I'm saying? Like the other one of those food, they're the dead like, you definitely want to commit to not maybe not the full day but at least the whole morning of family Megan and Making and they freeze so well yeah, well there's no sense in going through that whole process for like four servings, there is no make no sense whatsoever.
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:08
And they don't they don't last and have lasting very long in the freezer in my house, but that's just because we eat them all the time. Yeah. Which
Marcela Valladolid 10:14
is exactly what it's a great let's food you can have it in the microwave and I don't have a microwave oven. Not a big fan. But what I'm saying is like, there's so many ways to thaw them to just you pack them up. You leave in the freezer freezer, you separate them in portions and you've got tamales forever.
Molly 10:28
Would you tell us about some of your memories of tamales and Tijuana? Yeah, of
Marcela Valladolid 10:33
course. Well, here's the thing. I grew up on the south side of the border, as you mentioned in the White House, but my grandfather, he was the Mexican consulate for Belgium, in Mexico, right. Okay. I didn't have social media back then. So he he extensively traveled through Europe for work or whatnot. And when he would come back, he would come back with all of the books from all the classically trained chefs like plot and Escoffier like he had every single Gourmet magazine back in the day, ever since it was like a catalog anyway. Yeah, like, yeah, he had them all. Anyway, I grew up with a an all of the big meals were at his home. We called it Casa Grande, the big house because it was a very big house and our whole family would spend like every holiday there and gas. And the model is we're always sitting next to these like beautiful, classic French really intricate dishes. So I grew up with this most amazing fusion of highly respected and very authentically prepared. The model is next to like, I don't know, a beef Wellington. It was amazing. But the Malays I would I would be lying to you if if for us, they sat on a very traditional table with only the Mexican like accoutrements. It was very euro and very Mexican and it was combined in these most awesome huge, massive tables. Our family events truly did revolve around food and tamales were always a centerpiece along with something very intricate and very French.
Molly 12:02
How many people would you have around the table at a celebration like that or
Marcela Valladolid 12:06
holiday? Well, it was always two tables. It was a it was about 16 in the main dining room table with the adults and then the kids would we had a lamb SLOs Nino's, we had a smaller table for the kids. Literally, you literally had to wait for somebody to die at the adult table for somebody to be bumped to the
Molly 12:27
people. I love. I love it. Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:29
Okay, could you please walk us through the tamale making process? Of course. First of all, like Molly and I are both are both English speakers who maybe know a tiny bit of Spanish and so like we end up saying to Molly in English, but I nope, probably shouldn't say tamale when we're talking about the dish and like a Mexican context. Oh,
Marcela Valladolid 12:48
man, singular tamales, plural. So okay, so tamale, tamale, tamale.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:57
All right, we'll see how that goes.
Marcela Valladolid 12:59
That's fine. That's also something that I mentioned in the book like people get so freaked out about stuff like that, that they that they stay away from the whole process of getting themselves in, but especially these days, where people are so like, Oh, don't make them allies. Unless you're Mexican. Like, and that's not my jam. My jam is everybody's welcome to the table. You want to call it tamales you can call it whatever the hell you want to make it right. And it tastes good. And your family is you're welcome to my party into my cooking table into the whole thing.
Molly 13:26
But yes, thing.
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:28
So how do you make them? Say we're a series and corn husk rather than banana leaves? Like, what does the process look like? Yeah,
Marcela Valladolid 13:34
well, you can use either or, first of all is your Medina. That's the most important part of the process, which is your corn, which is the word in Spanish is nixtamal you sell and it's really important that I talk about this process, it's where the actual kernels of the corn are cooked in the solution that has slaked lime nixtamal, which makes more readily available all of the nutrients that are in the core. And that's why entire civilizations were able to, you know, survive on mice on corn. So through that process, and plus it gives it a great flavor to So Nick's family says Yan is where you cook the kernels in a giant pot forever. You grind it, you get this muscle, and then you need to consider the addition of fat. Well, we could also get into variety of corns, but honestly, I don't want to get too confusing. There's
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:20
Yeah, so to be clear, you do not have to do this. The stomach exhausts you on process. Oh,
Marcela Valladolid 14:24
I tell you, it's not what you do. Yeah, you you absolutely can, but you don't need to they have so many readily available already ground up ready muscles a little that looks like flour and you don't need to think about it or stress. But it's good that people know that that was a process. That's what made it from the muscle go from memories to the bag like something really important happened that's been happening since pre Hispanic times. It's I think one of the few recipes that still exists that are still being made as it was made 1000s of years ago. That's pretty cool. That's amazing that it's the Original recipe, the original KFC like the tortillas, we got that one Mexico. Anyway, once you get it in the bag, you can also I mean, if you're not cooking fresh corn, there's so many great varieties like you'll even have access now in the US to landrace corn varieties from like Massiah. And then other great brands it'll give you really good Medina made from really beautiful sustainably produced and harvested corn, which is amazing. So you can use blue corn, red corn, yellow corn, white corn, there's so many varieties these days, and you can make them honest with anyone. Okay, and then you have to consider what fat you will use traditionally, of course, it's lard. Nothing to say about that, except it's the best flavor. You've always got the option of, I don't know coconut oil, vegetable shortening, even olive oil like you can do whatever the heck you want in terms of fat, but the traditional method, the most flavorful method and gives you honestly I think the best texture more fluffiness is lard. Good old pick that Mm hmm. Yeah. And then there's a couple of tips and tricks in terms of when you add the liquid. Some folks say that as well. You have to add it warm, you don't want to distress the masa too much. So even temperature throughout is my recommendation and adding all of the ingredients together not hot, but maybe lukewarm room temperature. My choice is definitely chicken broth. Obviously for the same reason more flavor. Yeah, it is said that adding you know the materials have the husk if you save the husk from tomatoes and freeze them and add them to your liquid just while you're bringing it to temperature. What I don't know which ingredient is but one of the ingredients in the tomato husk will help with the texture and fluffiness of your tomato.
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:41
Oh, that's I've never heard that before. That's so interesting.
Marcela Valladolid 16:44
You know how they the tomatoes can be a little bit but not gelatinous. One of those ingredients helps in the fluffiness of Somalis. Yeah, so that's pretty cool as well. And then in terms of mixing it together, and I talked about this in terms of 30 Yes, I don't want I don't get too much into it in terms of the mullahs. But in the 30 years. I'm like, and I think I mentioned it with them, I just do I say, Listen, if somebody's giving you an exact ratio of water to fat to my sadena it's, I don't want to swear on your podcast, but it's fine. Like we allow it. It's bullshit like, because the reality is, unless we're all working with the exact same masari Math, and we're all working with the exact same just to my sadena itself, there's so much variation in terms of existing moisture, how coarse or fine it is, if it's salty or not, like there's so many variations within the moss itself, that for someone to say this is the precise recipe, you're going to need two cups of this, one cup of that, and one cup of that. It's one of those things that the reality is until you make it over and over and over again and you find the successful ratios for you. That's when you're good at making families. You can follow a recipe you can follow my recipe. I mean, I'm honest about it, but the reality is, unless you're in my Chula Vista kitchen using my ingredients and my pots and my the temperature, you know the flame on my stove that you know what I'm saying? Like if it's the exact same scenario, then go word for word for that recipe for all my other recipes. I'm just like, follow them to the tee I will fail you not. But with the Madison 30 years, I like to say it's one of those things that you just have to you know, it's experience. Yeah, I
Molly 18:27
imagine that there's a real there's a learning curve to knowing the field just like the muscle memory almost.
Marcela Valladolid 18:36
Totally. I didn't start making them honestly till I was older people like so you were making tamales since you were in your mother's womb. And I was like no, I really. I was not like I didn't really start cooking until I was in my late teens. To be honest with you. My mom was like, I don't want any kids in the kitchen. It's like a rite of passage. Like you don't Yeah, yeah, Americans are so much nicer about having kids in the kitchen and like, oh, the egg is broken and went on the foot. And my mom, I get them away from me. I don't have the patience. And
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:06
yeah, Molly and I both have kids and we definitely know that feeling.
Molly 19:11
Yeah, yes.
Marcela Valladolid 19:13
It was especially when I'm making like the intricate traditional Mexican stuff. I'm like, keep them in the TV room. I don't care if they were it was eight hours of Netflix like I'm gonna do this by myself. So the honestly, that was my upbringing. Like I wasn't I was observing, but I wasn't getting my hands in it to be honest with you until later in life. But when I started making them my personal mistake was always that the muscle wasn't spreadable, like I made it too thick. Because, okay, you want it to make it like playdough because you can form it and it's so easy and there's no spill and there's no drama. But the reality is if you want a fluffy tomato that really when you bite into it, there's zero resistance and it just kind of melts in your mouth. It's a spread. I think a lot of people don't know that about the Malays, especially if you purchase readymade masa and then I have some I have a Northgate market here that has great quality masa but I ended up having to mix in fat and liquid because you want it to spread. Because if that masa is made properly it's because it looks like a sprinter like how is this gonna become a fluffy thermal if it's made properly? It'll poof inside the corn house. Yeah. So you, you want it to be a spread.
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:25
I love that we've gotten this far. And I've only talked about the masa so far, because like, it's easy, like, you know, like, no, no, no, no, this is no I'm serious. Because like, you know, as soon as you get like sort of American style tamales that are like a ton of filling with a little bit of corn around it, but this is really like a corn dish that is flavored with a little bit of other stuff.
Marcela Valladolid 20:45
Well, that's the thing. Like it's the masa itself, once you taste it done, right, that's like your favorite part of the mat. Yeah, to be honest with you, like that's the good part. Like I would even forgive you if what you purchase was the filling. Because if you go to your medica the fill you will find some awesome cotton in salsa roja got it for you in salsa where they like you will find all of the things and you can just stuff your family and honestly, it's going to be really good. If you get the masa right when you bite into the masa like that's the star of the show. Right? Yeah. And I think that's what we've kind of, you know, there's a misunderstanding of that. There's like a huge focus on the filling, but the star of this show is actually the corn.
Molly 21:25
Totally talking about the filling or the flavors. What are your favorite fillings for tamale?
Marcela Valladolid 21:31
Well, I grew up with a traditional gardening, salsa roja, which is a shredded kind of slow and slow braised shredded beef with an assortment of different kinds of chilies. And then the other one is boys and salsa where they're so simple, just again, a slow cooked chicken that shredded and cooked in salsa where the Chili's mix it probably Serrano and jalapeno. And those two those two were the always the ones that always existed in our home, and the sweet variety Lhasa, Melissa Pina, the pineapple tamales, which always made kind of smaller and I would eat them like they were tic tac because they were so good. Not so addictive. Like you don't notice and all of a sudden you've eaten like eight of them. Small and delicious.
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:11
You have recipes for the pineapple, tamales, and the and the chicken. It's also rare days in the book. Yes,
Marcela Valladolid 22:16
yes. And those were the ones that I grew up with. And honestly, those are the ones that that I ate the most. I think that Allah has concasseur which is mono, charred, peeled, cut into strips, and literally just make it again, like it's just masa with a few strips of the poblano and some Wahaca cheese that ends up kind of steaming and getting all melty and fabulous. But again, it's just much more masa than anything else. And yeah, you've got the option, like you mentioned to either use the corn husk or the banana leaf and either one will work just fine.
Molly 22:47
You know, you mentioned what how can cheese? Are there regional styles of tamales throughout Mexico? Absolutely.
Marcela Valladolid 22:55
But the reality is the story and the more traditional recipes, like everything is gonna come from mostly central and southern Mexico. Okay, yeah, us in the north. Like, for example, where I come from the Quanah is a is a baby city compared to southern Mexico. So actually, that's why in northern Mexico I'm from we're much more allowed to like play with our foods. Mexico is still very attached to the traditional, almost pre Hispanic recipes. So the varieties, you're not going to get that much of a variety in terms of the traditional flavors. You'll go to like Google and some of the more fusion super modern restaurants by like in regal ware and you'll get you know, you get like flamboyant style, like raspberries, tamales or you get like different or masala to quality like it's made with chocolate, the masa itself, like you'll get so many different varieties. They're really delicious. But the reality is the traditional ones, the ones I grew up with, like that was just the it was it was a short menu, we kind of just stuck to that.
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:53
Alright, tell us more about your new book. So in addition to classic recipes, like the tamales, like one dish that caught my eye was the creamy Chipotle spaghetti with cilantro Parmesan croutons, which, like I'm definitely going to be baking very soon. What What was your approach to the recipes of this book?
Marcela Valladolid 24:08
That's my editors favorite recipes. That's my favorite recipes made he said he's made it a million times. And when I posted about that recipe, well, the book let me tell you how the book started. I started doing online cooking classes during pandemic just because I was bored and scared out of my mind just like everybody else. And I wanted something to know number one, I was looking for a new source of income because all everything just went away like for everybody was unemployed just like planet Earth. Everything was
Molly 24:34
so terrifying. Yes, terrifying.
Marcela Valladolid 24:37
And fill it my partner was like you should do online cooking class. And I'm like, No, I'm too cool for that. Like, I'm not gonna do that. And then Selena Gomez had me on her show. And I saw how we produced the most beautiful show ever with like two people because it was pandemic and I was like, okay, she can do it. I can do it. So I started doing this online cooking classes and it was just so amazing and the rep because I wasn't doing it for a network. I was just on Mostly just cooking what I cooked my friends and family so they were much more hence the chipotle spaghetti I grew up with that recipe a lot of isn't the one I grew up with that recipe it's, it's kind of an it's honestly it's Fidel Seco is what it is. But it's made it which is free, there was just a Mexican version of like one inch angel hair pasta pieces that you just cook with a Chipotle tomato broth, but it becomes basically it looks like spaghetti. But I just cooked all of the recipes that I would cook for my friends and family. And mid year. I was like, this is a book and I took you know, half of the recipes and I went out and sold the proposal. And I was like Okay, great. This is this book is writing itself because I have to write the the recipes for the classes anyway. So fantastic. But that was one of the recipes that I was literally just like this was a weeknight meal for us in the Quanah. Like weekly, it was something that my mom would make all the time and when I posted about it. So many people from throughout Mexico were like I thought we were the only weirdos eating spaghetti. My friends vividly remember it from our childhood having giant platters of it in our home. And it was just one of I thought it was just one of the you know, many dishes that trickled down from the from the northern North of the Border States down to Mexico and just kind of combined. But apparently it was I realized during that process that it's popular throughout Mexico, people are eating Chipotle cream spaghetti like all over the place.
Molly 26:28
Awesome. I can't wait to try it. So where can people find you online? And what would you like to plug besides familia?
Marcela Valladolid 26:36
Oh my gosh, I do most everything on Instagram at chef Marcella, same name on Facebook. Marcelo, I think it's chef Marcela via lead. So that's where I am, on my website, Casa marcella.com. I have been the last couple years I've really, really wanted to bring to the US and promote the artisanal work of all my funnels in Mexico. So I either create or curate products for the home and table from made partnering with artisans, and bringing their work to the US. So that has been super fun. Where are you guys is where is home for you guys?
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:09
We're in Seattle.
Marcela Valladolid 27:10
Oh, you're in Seattle. I'm on my way to New York. Now. I'm on the Today Show in a couple days. But I'm also doing the Boston Yeah, big book signing out in Williamsburg. That's super exciting. All of the info is on my Instagram. And then back here in California for a big one in a store here in San Diego called Arthur Lixia. But yeah, that's about zillow.com for all of Oh, every day of the dead, I do a box of artisanal product to help people set up their altar for Day of the Dead because like I said, I like to invite everyone to the party. So I think in educating people about the tradition and bringing real beautiful, not stereotypical pieces for their altars. So we're doing that this month as well.
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:48
Oh, that's wonderful stick. Well, Marcel, thank you so much for joining us on spell back. This has been an absolute delight.
Marcela Valladolid 27:53
Thank you so much, you guys.
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:02
That was great. I hope we were gonna have Marcella on again, she was delightful. I wrote possibly too much about the history of tamales, because I found it interesting. This is this is gonna be the theme for this episode. Like, here's a thing Matthew found interesting that he will try to make interesting for everyone else.
Molly 28:19
I think this is really interesting, too, because I think that at least when I was a young school child, there was definitely the same way that I think every kid has a period when they're really interested in ancient Egypt or a period when they're really into Greek myths. Yeah, I think that every American school kid at some point has a period when they're really into these like, ancient civilizations from the area we we now think of as Mexico and other parts of Central America. So the Aztecs, the Mayan people. I'm really excited to geek out on this, Matthew, let's do it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:56
So tamales are a very old food like old enough that we will probably never know for sure within like 1000 year margin how old they are, but it seems pretty clear that the Toltec civilization ate them that was the civilization associated with the city of Teotihuacan. We found like not not we me and Molly, but but archaeologists have found fossilized corn husks in Teotihuacan dating to the first century BCE, and it's possible not sure, but some anthropologists think that they may go back further than that to the Olmecs civilization. But for sure people living in both the Mayan and Aztec empires ate
Molly 29:38
tamales that is just it like blows Yeah, it's so cool. Like like
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:43
Marcel talks about that like, you know, corn built these empires and like learning how to unlock the nutrients in corn made possible a population explosion because like, if you try and live on polenta, you will get palabora I think is the is the deficiency disease because As it's not externalized we talked about this at some point yes, right
Molly 30:04
I think we did we do a masa episode or episode maybe leaves the tortilla episode that would make more sense.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:10
And so so the Mayans cracked it many 1000s of years ago and you know made corn like the the staple of their diet and tamales were part of that. There is a classic Mayan vase that was created somewhere between 608 100 ce that is now in the British Museum that shows tamales being offered as penance to a nobleman. You can see a picture of this on Wikipedia.
Molly 30:36
And I see here that the Maya made the special preserved tamales for hunters or travelers so they would cook them in like extra wood ashes to make a hard shell so that they would last longer on the road. Yeah, was like
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:50
they could last for like three weeks. And I think the idea is probably like, right, where we talked about pastry coffins is probably similar thing where you would you would not eat the outer layer, but you would eat like the inner layer of corn and the filling.
Molly 31:05
So how do we hold on how do we know I mean, other than like these, these ancient vases and things like that, how do we know what we know about tamales dating all the way back to the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and before though,
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:19
it's mostly mostly vase based. Okay.
Molly 31:22
So Oh, knowledge should be really
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:24
so in researching this, I came across a historical figure whose name I had heard but couldn't have told you anything about him. And it is an interesting character named Bernardino de Saha goon, who was a Spanish Franciscan monk who came to Mexico as a missionary, you know, along with with Spanish colonization, and ended up writing a surprisingly sympathetic ethnography and history of the Aztec people, including his final book was a book about the Spanish conquest that was told entirely from the indigenous perspective. It was so interesting reading about this, like I want to read more about about this person because I kept wanting to to say like, oh, this was a good guy or a bad guy, and wow, can you not like wrap up this guy had through either one of those lenses because, like, you know, he was he was very committed to converting the people of Mexico to Catholicism, and just thought like that there were better ways to do it, then like cortezes way and that like understanding like, what do the people what are what are the people's existing customs and beliefs and language would be helpful with the with the missionary mission,
Molly 32:38
something came up in, we were reading and if the island were still on Book Three. We were reading out of the island, and there was something about a missionary in it. June was asking me what a missionary is. And wow, was it hard to wow. I mean, especially like, at the end of the day bedtime, trying to find the right word for what a missionary is, or was
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:02
it was Tom? Yeah. Have you ever had like a bedtime conversation with your kid about death?
Molly 33:07
Oh, all the time. Yeah, it's the only time to talk about upsetting things. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:12
like I was like, I never did like, you know, I've never wanted to be the kind of parent who would be like if I get just like, shut up and go to sleep. But we'll talk about this tomorrow. So I never did that. But But I sure understand where the impulse comes from. Okay, do it turn to Wikipedia for a quote here. So in book 10 of of saga goons Codex he describes as tech tamales using a variety of corn for their flour base, and were cooked in Earth ovens or soya, which were heated by the steam the steam of dried cane grown and harvested for the express purpose of cooking tamales. fillings would consist of meat such as turkey, fish, Frog, axolotl, or gopher fruit beans, squash seed, turkey egg, and even no filling. It would be seasoned with chilies or seeds if they were savory and honey if they were sweet.
Molly 33:57
I'm sorry. I've got to go back to the Axolotl. Yeah, that's like a salamander.
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:01
Right? It is
Molly 34:03
it is and I feel like when people think of axolotl, especially right now they're I think they're really like trendy in in like, the world of stuffed animals and wild stration and stuff like that can
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:14
also be stuffing for
Molly 34:16
like, the ones that I think people think of are the albino ones, too. So they're like albino with like these funny or pink ruffles or like around their collar. And I gotta say, I cannot imagine eating one of those.
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:30
Yeah, but I think like, you know, there always gonna be like things things you didn't grow up eating that are hard to imagine. Like
Molly 34:40
this is like a really cute animal. Yeah, like cute. Yeah, also being kind of slimy.
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:45
So So is a goat. So for a lot of
Molly 34:48
things, so our cows, cows are really cute. It turns out
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:52
is this is this the episode where we like suddenly become vegetarians. It might be okay. Alright, so here's some more from Sol goon quote, it was customary for Aztec women to stay up for two to three days cooking tamales before a wedding. In terms of festivities, the most notable was a name that I'm not going to ProNet attempt to pronounce. But we'll put in the show notes, which was celebrated during the 18th month of the calendar round. The name of the celebration translates to the eating of tamales stuffed with amaranth greens, and was a celebration of the fire day at ecostyle qui,
Molly 35:25
Matthew, I have a question by the way. Good job. I mean, I pronounced that correctly but I admire your efforts. Matthew, quick question. Do we have any like celebration days that are named for the food that we eat on them?
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:42
I mean, there's like National Ice Cream day national
Molly 35:46
holidays but like this is called like the the celebration is called the eating of tamales stuffed with amaranth because
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:53
that isn't that an incredibly evocative name
Molly 35:57
Yeah, we have like what do we have like National Turkey Day? There we go to Turkey Day there you got lucky day. So Matthew, when you do not have a freezer full of your own homemade tamales from Christmas Eve Yeah, where do you purchase tamales or do you even do you just wait until you you've stocked the freezer again?
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:19
No, no, I like frozen tamales are great so like are refrigerated so like I like if you tried the free lard tamale company? Oh, yeah, those are those are like local ish to you. Yeah. And are really good. Yeah, I think they're probably at like Fremont farmers market, maybe valid farmers market. You would I guess you would notice if they were at Ballard farmers market, but they're not
Molly 36:41
in any, like grocery stores or any?
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:44
That's a good question. I should check their website we'll link to their website if you're if you happen to be in Seattle, I think like at least West Coast and maybe like more more broadly distributed than that is in the in your grocer's freezer case there's Tucson tamale company, which I first noticed at a watcher Maya which just has like a small selection of Mexican frozen foods, and they are kind of pricey. As far as frozen tamales go, I think I want to say they're like, two, two for eight bucks, something like that. Which, which was letting me be like, Okay, I guess I have to try these ones. And unfortunately, they were really, really good. Okay, so
Molly 37:21
I have to say, when you really think about it, like the amount of money that a lot of us spend on meat, for instance, sure, per serving tamales. And that sounds fine to me, ya
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:32
know, like, yeah, I don't want to be like one of the feel like, you know, like this, this particular you know, national cuisine has to be cheap.
Molly 37:39
No, no, I don't I think our listeners No, that's not what you mean. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:43
I want to talk just a little bit more about like the, the process of making because we didn't with with Marcela, we didn't quite get into like, like the spreading of the masa, like, you know, she mentioned that the texture needs to be right. But like, the thing I want to impress on people is first of all, like, you should make tamales at home, it's an experience that will bring everyone in your house together, there may be some squabbling, you will end up with an enormous amount of good food and you have to you will practice over and over spreading the Bossa on to the corn husk which you've soaked earlier in the day. And it's a it's a real learning process because like, you know, a funny a funny shaped like, you know, weirdly sized tamales still going to taste delicious. So you don't have to worry about it. But you're going to spend a lot of time like saying like, Oh, I left a hole in the in the in the masa that like oh, like I spread this one or like, on the wrong side, like, you know, on the left, like, it will really make you feel like a like a child.
Molly 38:39
That sounds semi
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:41
painful, but then you won't be a child forever because someone will die and then you'll move up to the adult stage. Oh, good. Okay.
Molly 38:46
Okay. Matthew, you know, your description of making these are learning how to make them I presume in the first few years. Reminds me of so about a year ago actually, like maybe even this week, a year ago, we got together with two other families. And we made dumplings, we made pot stickers, basically to freeze. And I had figured so we were doing this at our friend Joe in Leslie's house and I brought like a chicken and shittaka a filling. And we also had some sort of a pork filling. Anyway, I figured we were going to use like premade wrappers. Oh, no, Joe wanted to make the dough from scratch. So we made the dough. I mean, it was beautiful, though. The learning curve. However, as you can imagine, there's already sort of a learning curve for learning how to fold though right? But the learning curve to for rolling out the dough and trying to get it even and all of that stuff. Wow. Did we make some ugly? Ugly dumplings? Yeah, but they were so good. They were still delicious, though. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 39:53
I hardly ever make my own dumpling skins be just because it's so much more work but it really is better.
Molly 39:59
Mm. Hmm, well, this was so, so good. I loved talking with Marcela and I'm so excited for her book familia.
Matthew Amster-Burton 40:08
All right. So, Molly, do we have any segments perhaps a bit of spilled mail
Molly 40:19
we have some spilled mail that I love it is from listener Steve. First of all, Steve, let's hang out. Okay. Okay, so everybody keep in mind Steve's my new friend, friend friend decided
Matthew Amster-Burton 40:31
first friend of the show and friend of the host of the show, or foe foe dose. All right, Stan. FOSS. FOSS. So DOS,
Molly 40:42
here's what he says. I just got home from orchestra rehearsal, made myself a martini, and decided to write this email since you asked when my wife then girlfriend, Mimi, started vet school at UC Davis in 1990. Her classmate Peter instantly became one of our closest friends. We were in our late 20s. And he was in his mid 30s. We all loved cooking and would have dinners at each other's house every weekend. At his house, we'd often have a gin and tonic and he'd have a martini, we would taste the martini and have pretty much the same reaction that you and Molly did. But we kept trying by the time she became a DVM in 1994. Mimi and I loved martini, okay. Part of the reason that people didn't want vermouth in their martinis during the cocktail Dark Ages is that they usually had crappy Gallo vermouth that had been sitting for eons in the back of the cabinet. vermouth is wine and goes bad if it sits at room temperature for months, just like a bottle of white wine will. vermouth should be kept in the refrigerator. If you want to try a martini adjacent drink I'd recommend a poet's dream. Two ounces of gin, three quarter ounce dry vermouth. A quarter ounce Benedictine, two dashes orange bitters, and a lemon twist. You can leave out the bitters if you don't want to buy a bottle just for that. Sorry if this is too long, the Martini is finished and has definitely kicked in. All the best Steve.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:08
Okay, I'm gonna throw your friend Steve under the bus now because I cut this this letter by like 70%
Molly 42:15
Oh, really? Cuz I was like, your letters.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:18
Now, going oh, now that you know that. Are you like dumping him as a friend?
Molly 42:23
Ah, well, no, I'm feeling like we're even better friends now.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:26
Because you also write a lot of words.
Molly 42:29
I do write a lot of words. Anyway, Steve, I love that you came home from orchestra rehearsal and made a martini. I love what it sounds like. Your friendship with with Peter was all about what a delight. Use or know how to live even though I don't know if I'm going to hang in there with you on Martini.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:49
Yeah, I do. I did get the sense. Like when Molly and I did the episode, like, you know if we tried this, like in the right context where like other people were drinking them like 17 more times, probably we would grow to appreciate them. But that's not going to happen.
Molly 43:03
I did that with beer when I was like 22 years old. Like a lot of people do. I want to like this. And anyway, it's possible. Okay. Anyway, Steve, thank you so much.
Matthew Amster-Burton 43:14
Yeah, and the poet's dream really does sound good. I would try it does.
Molly 43:17
Matthew, what's your snacking?
Matthew Amster-Burton 43:19
Hey, watch your snacking. Gotta tell me what your snack in or I'll release the Kraken. So what's your snack in cheese? Have I got a snack and for you wife the show Laureen I read PCC supermarket the other day and made an impulse buy by the cash register of HEBO and company Hall vav made in Los Angeles and specifically the Molly a peanut butter chocolate crisp flavor. It comes in like a little a little plastic dish and you kind of have to ship it out with a spoon. I guess you could like inverted and like cut slices of the whole thing but I've been shipping it out with a spoon. It is so good. It's the kind of thing like I took the first taste of like I don't know if this really like given me like as much like salt or peanut and whoa there it is. And like the flavor just blooms in your mouth three times now in the last couple days I've been out on a walk and thinking to myself I'm gonna have a spoonful of that Hoffa when I get home.
Molly 44:17
That's fantastic.
Matthew Amster-Burton 44:18
He will and company have will link to their website. They're not sponsoring us or anything. I just really liked it and says where you can get it or order it online.
Molly 44:27
Great. Matthew, I understand that you have been reading banana Yoshimoto
Matthew Amster-Burton 44:32
yes and not in fact her new book The premonition which I am very much looking forward to and probably will have read by the time you hear this episode but it's not quite out yet. I just reread her previous book Moshe Moshe, which I think is from like 2016 It is such a beautiful book so I don't even think it's like you know considered one of her best but I think it is the the main character Yoshi like recently lost her father in any murder suicide. And she and her mother move into a small apartment in this bohemian neighborhood in Tokyo called Shimokita Zara that I've been to a number of times, you know, Yoshi wants like answers to like, Why? Why did her father die in this way that she never would have expected and she doesn't really get answers. It's not it's not a detective kind of book. It's about her relationship with her mother, who you know, she's living within this tiny apartment. There's a sexy jazz musician. There's she works in a French bistro and there's like beautiful descriptions of like the food they're serving at this French bistro. It's a hard book to describe because it is it is one of those Japanese novels where like essentially, the the plot is like, you know, time Time passes and the seasons change. But I want to read the part like a passage from this book that like absolutely like blew my mind. Okay. At first I'd come through like a tourist but now I could feel every one of my footsteps leaving a mark on the ground here and since how they added up over time, each day, I walked this town every step my feet inscribe I was also building my inner landscape. They'd keep growing in tandem and a hint of My presence would linger even after I was gone. I was experiencing that form of love for the first time. It's a book about the relationship between a person and a neighborhood. It's so good and it's short. Like you can easily read it in one sitting. And she's just a great writer.
Molly 46:23
Oh, she is fantastic. I remember reading kitchen way back when
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:27
Oh, I forgot to even mention this. Yeah, that teenager the show December tots de who will be he'll be no longer a teenager very soon. recently read kitchen as an assignment and loved it.
Molly 46:38
I feel like I should read it again. I read it as a teenager, and I haven't read it since.
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:44
Okay. Yeah, so I'm excited for a banana Yoshimoto his new book, but also like, go grab a copy of motion mochi. It's great.
Molly 46:50
Excellent. Well, our producer as always is Abby circuit tele.
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:55
As mentioned, Molly likes to write a lot of words and some of those words can be found in her newsletter. I've got a feeling which is available at Molly weisenberg.substack.com. They're good words. I just say I'm not saying too many words. I
Molly 47:07
also write some bad words. That's true. Like poop. Like poop? Yeah. Like but beauty isn't
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:14
the best when like when a kid thinks they're saying a bad word. And it's something like but
Molly 47:19
no, so well. This is no story. She's gonna say the June once use the phrase donkey hole, which I I was so proud. Yeah, I was really proud. Yeah, to loaded
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:35
this donkey Hall. To a donkey.
Molly 47:41
You know, unrelated to this. Matthew sings Matthew plays music. Matthew is in two bands
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:47
stroke. Yeah, my band early to the airport is possibly working on the beginnings of a new EP. I'll keep you posted on that. It's not coming out soon. But I'm really excited about some of the songs. I mean, all of them. Excellent. And how can people find you? Oh, just early to the airport on on any platform, any streaming platform? Well,
Molly 48:07
thank you for listening to spilled milk. The show
Matthew Amster-Burton 48:11
that is extra like like extra crispy on the outside. So you can take us anywhere but please consume us within 20 days. Because it's better for our podcast stats that way. Molly, Matthew Amster-Burton
Molly 48:36
Excuse me. You really you made that work there in the end. Thanks.