The importance of family tradition.
Today, I waited in the check-out line at the grocery store when the lady behind me sniffed, “My children will not help me make tamales this year. My daughter is a nurse and said it is too much trouble to come make tamales with the family so she ordered hers from a tamaleras.”
I understood her sadness. It’s a very special time to gather family together. They unite for dinner, everyone shares conversation and it’s really special, even kind of a beautiful time.
During Christmas in Texas among Hispanics is the family tradition of making tamales for family and friends. If you are the lucky recipient of one of these bundles of six treats, you are treasured friend indeed. The immediate family and sometimes a lucky friend get together for a simple supper and then an assemble line begins of making tamales.
I grew up without a family and lost my first immediate family to a drunk driver while deployed in the Marines to carrier duty, so family is especially important to me.
In December of 1979, Lenny, a civil service employee invited me to join his family for dinner. We had a homemade meal of carne asada, then Lenny’s wife Izzy, sister-in-law Nana, his son Paco and his daughter Bella prepared the assembly line for an evening of making tamales.
My job – the easiest - was to spread a layer of masa, a corn dough, onto a moist corn husk laying flat on my opposite hand. I handed off to Bella who placed a filling of shredded pork drenched in red chile sauce and then handed off to Paco, who quickly rolled the husk and tucked in from the bottom.
Then the process is repeated as Nana and Izzy made up bundles and then last, Lenny handled the final process of cooking them. We made eighteen dozen that evening. Bundles of twelve would go to family and bundles of six to close friends. One dozen was for me!
Now it seems the old tradition has given way to a new one — buying tamales just to serve at holiday dinners. None made with love for family and special friends. My grocery store acquaintance was clearly hurt by this. It made me think back to some interviews for The Other Side Of Courage for the American home front (https://www.joematlock.net/homefront ) and how much we (and the world) has changed…and not for the better.
I understood her sadness. It’s a very special time to gather family together. They unite for dinner, everyone shares conversation and it’s really special, even kind of a beautiful time.
During Christmas in Texas among Hispanics is the family tradition of making tamales for family and friends. If you are the lucky recipient of one of these bundles of six treats, you are treasured friend indeed. The immediate family and sometimes a lucky friend get together for a simple supper and then an assemble line begins of making tamales.
I grew up without a family and lost my first immediate family to a drunk driver while deployed in the Marines to carrier duty, so family is especially important to me.
In December of 1979, Lenny, a civil service employee invited me to join his family for dinner. We had a homemade meal of carne asada, then Lenny’s wife Izzy, sister-in-law Nana, his son Paco and his daughter Bella prepared the assembly line for an evening of making tamales.
My job – the easiest - was to spread a layer of masa, a corn dough, onto a moist corn husk laying flat on my opposite hand. I handed off to Bella who placed a filling of shredded pork drenched in red chile sauce and then handed off to Paco, who quickly rolled the husk and tucked in from the bottom.
Then the process is repeated as Nana and Izzy made up bundles and then last, Lenny handled the final process of cooking them. We made eighteen dozen that evening. Bundles of twelve would go to family and bundles of six to close friends. One dozen was for me!
Now it seems the old tradition has given way to a new one — buying tamales just to serve at holiday dinners. None made with love for family and special friends. My grocery store acquaintance was clearly hurt by this. It made me think back to some interviews for The Other Side Of Courage for the American home front (https://www.joematlock.net/homefront ) and how much we (and the world) has changed…and not for the better.
No comments have been added yet.
