THERE ARE TAMALLLLLEEEEIIIIIIIIIS!
By Patricia Jiménez Pons
Delegate of the CCGM State of Morelos
This delicious tradition that unites two parties through food, starts on January 6, Day of Los Santos Reyes or La Epifanía, when the family, the friends, office workers, merchants, students and even politicians, share an enormous thread, adorned with dried fruit and sugar, that inside it hides one or several tiny little children, of porcelain, sugar or plastic, that sometimes, the elbows prefer to swallow and end up in the hospital before being responsible for the tamales for the Day of Candlemas …
While this tradition, in its second part, marks the end of the Advent period for the Catholic Church and commemorates the Presentation of the Little Child Jesus in the Temple, as well as the Purification of the Virgin Mary, it now unites in pachanga all kinds of diners who see on February 2 an expected date to continue with the party committed on the day of Kings.
However, this celebration is a factor of union of the community: families and friends who become compadres when they dress and present, in the church, the Child God venerated at home. This is the heart of La Candelaria: the real reason to celebrate the one who has found the little boy in the ring, because from that moment he will be considered part of the family and, as “little boy” of the little boy, he will celebrate with a great tamaliza and atole
The tamal or tamalli has an ancestral origin with more than 20 centuries old and reflects one of the healthiest and most substantial ways to cook. The “carefully wrapped”, as the word tamalli is translated, is elaborated from the northern border of the country to the borders with Guatemala, and although the base word is Tamalli, the juxtaposition of indigenous names that reflect the type of tamale elaborated gives us a huge range of dishes whose basis is steaming, with or without corn dough: so we have the nanacatamalli or mushroom tamale; the xocotamalli or tamale of fruits or tamale rosa; tenextamalli or lime tamale; the ayegotamalli of fat beans, among many others.
Morelos has in its gastronomy a cascade of tamal forms that make the delight of the communities, so Morelos offers to the world, tamales like: the onion tamales of the Valley of Amilpas; the tamales de cabellito de Tlayacapan; the exquisite tamales de cinturita; pupal or puxi tamales from Tetelcingo; the broken bean tamales from the north of the state and wild plum tamales from Jojutla, among many others. Today we offer you the recipe for the Tamales de cinturita
CINTURITA TAMALES
(Center and Southeast of the state)
For six people
Ingredients:
4 zucchini
1 cup of cooked corn teeth
2 poblanos peppers
1 chayote
2 tender nopalitos
1 onion
1 handful of epazote
Salt
Totomoxtle leaves or corn for tamale
Cream and cheese
preparation:
Chop the zucchini, onion, nopales and chayote into small pieces. Poach poblano peppers, remove the skin, open and devein, cut into slices. In a pan with very little oil, sauté together the zucchini, chilies, onion, corn kernels and chayote, just for two or three minutes seasoning with salt.
Fill with the vegetables, placing an epazote leaf per tamale. With the totomoxtle leaves, which have been previously soaked, wrap the tamales and tie them in half with a bow of the same sheet making the little belt that gives name to the tamalitos. Place them in a tamalera and let them simmer for 25 minutes. Serve by presenting an open one with a teaspoon of cream and sprinkled with cinchona cheese or enchilado … They are served two per person.
