De los manos de mi suegra: tamales and other goodies

Don't spread the masa too thin; don 't spread the masa too thick. Put two olives in each, not one. Squeeze the meat to get out the caldo -- broth or liquid -- before putting it into the tamal.

Expertise, advice, instruction, guidance all flowed freely at Sunday's tamalada in the kitchen of my suegra, Ramona Martinez. A small but focused and ambitious group of us turned out 14 dozen plus of the delicious beauties in a little more than two hours.

That is, after Ramona stoked us with a home-made breakfast of huevos rancheros, followed by a dose of sobrina Luna B. Ruiz's made-from-scratch banana and walnut pancakes.

The making of tamales for the holidays is a tradition of long standing in families of Mejicano descent. The tamale-making is the focal point, but the reconnection and renewal of family ties become the important byproducts of the day.

We mixed not only the masa with the manteca (corn meal with fat) to make the foundation for the tamales. We mixed the catch-up conversations of recently missed meals together with the richness of the busy lives we all live, sometimes farther away from one another than we like to be. And that becomes a renewed foundation upon which the structure and ever-changing dynamic of the family rests.

We walked away feeling rejuvenated in many ways: with family, with culture and with panzas full of good food and anticipating more.

(Photos, from the top: bagged dozens of tamales awaiting the freezer or cooking; my suegra's hands expertly spreading masa on an hoja (corn husk); beauteous masa blenders Hilda Oropeza (my wife) and Luna B. Ruiz nearly up to their elbows in the basic tamale ingredient; the all-important masa floating in a glass of water. When a small ball of masa floats, it has been mixed and kneaded properly and the masa is ready; when the ball sinks, more mixing is necessary.)

Deconstruction: pork tamales to tacos, enchiladas

Corn is the foundation of Mexican food.

Whether that corn is roasted on the cob or, in its more common form in Mexican cuisine, dried, milled and turned into masa harina, or corn flour, it is the basis for a vast array of dishes.

That's why I used Mexican food for "The Plate," a research project for culinary school. The assignment in Culinary Foundations II class was to write a paper describing a plate of food and then describing how it could be deconstructed and rebuilt using different cooking techniques and coming up with a different plate.

The idea is to instill in us the ability to think creatively when building menus and learning to use food products in different ways.

I started with pork and red chile tamales and whole pinto beans. I ended with tacos de carnitas, Sonoran enchiladas dipped in red chile sauce and refritos, or refried beans.

The key was corn, more specifically masa harina, the milled corn flour used to make tamales, tortillas and enchiladas. Instead of preparing the masa for spreading onto corn husks and then filled with meat for steaming as tamales, I proposed preparing the masa for making into corn tortillas to be used for tacos and flat enchiladas to be fried and dipped into red chile sauce.

In the original manifestation, the cooking techniques included braising the pork, sauté for elements of the chile sauce, steaming for completing the tamales and poaching for the beans.

For the new plate, the techniques included roasting the pork, roasting for elements of the chile sauce, sauté for making the tortillas, (deep) frying for the enchiladas and a combination of poaching and sauté for the beans.

I will turn in the research paper today. Then will come the true challenge -- actually making the two plates -- tamales and whole beans; tascos, enchiladas and refritos -- from scratch. We don't have to demonstrate that for class, but I plan to do it just for the practice of it.

Same products -- corn, pork, chiles, beans -- but different meals, different tastes and flavors.