Steven, how interesting! My mother, who was a native of New Mexico, used to make "tamales de dulce" but she would only use sugar and raisins, no pineapples. She learned to make tamales from her family's Mexican cooks. Also, she had told me that she had seen dessert tamales that she thought were tinted with food coloring since they were pastel pink or green. Her family really didn't know how to cook Mexican food---for special occasions (weddings, etc.) they would hire cooks or caterers from across the border (probably Juarez). Her cooking was more like food found in the American South, bisquits, stews, beans served whole, not mashed, home-made bread (influenced by the Anglos who moved there after the Civil War). When we moved to California, she was exposed to different Mexican food and learned to make meatball soup and a pork stew made with pork shoulder instead of "tripa", since I refused to eat "menudo" because of the "tripa". She would also make enchiladas flat like stacks of pancakes with a fried egg on top. Her cousin's restaurant (Chope's) in La Mesa, New Mexico, still serves them like that. She did not roll them up, and they had only cheese and onions (I refused to have mine with onions) in them, never meat. When she did use meat and beans in them, she would serve them stacked also with a salad on top, like she had had at a restaurant in Santa Cruz, CA. I went on to develop my own cooking influenced by all the cultures found in California. Emilie Garcia Port Orchard, WA ----- Original Message ----- From: Pacorro73@... Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 2:46 AM To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [ranchos] Tamales de Zarzamora Over ten years ago when I accompanied my uncle (my dad's first cousin Arturo Hernandez Lozano) to Michoacan, we made a short pit stop in Zacapu, Mich. While at a roadside tamalera, we noticed two women speaking in a strange language we later discovered was Purhechepa (or as they said Tarasco). But we bought several smaller than normal tamales. When I opened them I was shocked because they were pink. I gave my uncle a weird look and asked him, "!Que es esto!" He just told me, "Nomas pruebalo." Well being very open minded about food and eating, one of my favorite activities, I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious they truly were. They were sweet and tasted like strawberries. Different than my mom's world famous "tamales de dulce" which she makes with sugar, pineapple, and raisins. Oh, delicious memories of Christmas. Mi Tio Arturo told me they were called "tamales de Zarzamora" which are a wild variety of raspberries or blackberries. I'm guessing they were more like raspberries to make the nixtamal masa look pink. My uncle Arturo bought a bunch of them to take back to the family in Ocotlan, Jalisco. Good thing...I couldn't resist to have another one on the trip back. Has anybody ever heard of tamales de zarzamora? Are they just unique to northwestern Michoacan? Steven H.
-----Original Message-----
From: latina1955@...
To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 14:10:14 EDT
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Tamales
Linda, As a side note, Mexico is not considered 3rd world. In fact, Mexico is probably the most economically progressive Latin American country. While I am not an expert in economic classification, I have traveled to various countries in Africa which were true 3rd word applications were provided - and the difference from these countries and Mexico were enormous! Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can expound on this...?? In Michoacan, I think I had those tamales - they were called tamales ochepos (spelling is phonetic)- certainly not the dulce tamales that I was accustomed to here in the states - we were provided these tamales for breakfast, and they were divine, but I didn't know they were made of corn oil - now you might have answered my question about lard.....Maybe I should try using corn oil instead of lard to make them? Any recipes out there? Esperanza Esperanza
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
|
by Date 
-