By Andrea Juarez

Arcelia Garcia fondly remembers Christmas as a child, particularly the “tamaladas,” where the women in her family and neighbors gathered to make tamales at her mother’s house in Tamaulipas, Mexico.
“Me, my mom, two sisters and neighbors made tamales,” she says. “My mom had the taste for flavors; she was the cook. The rest of us were just workers.” 
While her father boiled fresh pork from a pig, butchered for the occasion, outside on the “chimenea,” her mother orchestrated the rest of the tamale-making production:  soaking and cleaning the dried corn husks, removing the brown silk, making the red chile salsa from dried chile caribe for the pork filling, and making the “masa,” corn dough.
Back then, her mother made the masa from scratch. She boiled dried corn kernels, soaked them in a lime water mixture overnight, removed the skins of the corn, and finally ground the kernels by hand with a metate, a large stone tool that pulverized the slippery kernels. The resulting corn paste, called “nixtamal” in Spanish, was mixed with “mantheca,” which is pork lard, plus a little flour, baking powder and seasonings to create the masa.
“When the ingredients were finally ready, we made the tamales,” Garcia says. “Actually, I was the baby of the house, so they made the tamales and I stacked.”
The assembly process for making tamales has three steps: (1) the smooth side of the husk is smeared thinly with masa; (2) then a spoonful of the chile and meat filling mixture is added in a row near the center; and (3) the husk and contents are carefully folded and stacked ready to be steamed.
After hundreds of tamales were assembled and steamed to perfection, it was time to eat.
“We ate them plain, ‘nada arriba’ (with no toppings). It kills the flavor,” she insists. “We ate them with a side salad of tomatoes and lettuce or cabbage with a squeeze of lemon.”
Garcia, 59, now lives in Thornton, and continues the tradition of making homemade tamales, although her recipe has been modified. Last year, she made chicken, beef and pork filled tamales for her family and friends.
 
The Changing Tradition
“Tamales originated from the Aztecs,” explains food anthropologist Mario Montano, a professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. “When Hernan Cortes arrived in Veracruz, he found people selling tamales in corn husks with fillings like tadpoles, fish, berries and other sweets.”
According to Montano, the tamales were made without lard in pre-colonial times. Because the Spanish arrived in November, they identified tamales with the Christian holiday of Christmas.
“Anthropologically, it’s been a Mexican women, food event,” he says. “But, men certainly have and do help.”
He says the tradition continues today but due to the amount of work and time involved, it has undergone a few changes.
Many Latinos no longer wait until Christmas Eve to make their tamales, and some like Hilda Talmadge-Baca, 71, buy the masa already prepared, reducing some of the labor and holiday stress.
“When I was 18, I was married and my mother-in-law made them the day before Christmas,” recounts Talmadge-Baca. “As I got older I got tired on Christmas Eve, so I make them earlier in December. I also buy the ‘masa preparada’ (pre-made dough) from La Popular.”
La Popular is one of downtown Denver’s longtime tamal venues that also sells freshly ground corn masa by the 10-pound bag to those who still make the homemade treats.

Tamales Made Convenient
There are many Latinos who completely forego the homemade part of the tradition and line up alongside others to purchase their Christmas tamales.  
“Christmas is a peak season for tamales,” says Daniel De La Torre, owner of La Popular.
According to De La Torre, the business has been selling tamales since 1946 and uses the same recipe from the original owner, Mariano Galindo.
La Popular sells red chile tamales for $10 a dozen and green chile and pork for $10.75 a dozen year-round from its 2033 Lawrence St. location. Its tamales received Westword’s Best of Denver in 2004.
De La Torre also sells handmade sweet tamales, a traditional holiday dessert, a few days before Christmas. The sweet version sells for $14 a dozen and contains coconut, raisins, pineapple, nuts and anise. This year, he plans to make only 300 to 400 dozen, which he’ll start selling Dec. 20, but he will take advance orders.
At Tamales by La Casita, another award-winning Denver tamal-locale, business spikes during the holidays.
“We make thousands upon thousands for Christmas,” says Paul Sandoval, about his family-owned restaurant. “We literally can’t make enough.”
According to Sandoval, the business easily sells tamales in the six digit range from Thanksgiving to Christmas. His tamales are handmade fresh daily at two northwest Denver locations – W. 35th Avenue and Tejon Street and also at W. 44th Avenue and Tennyson Street. They garnered a Best of Denver by Westword in 2001and again in 2007 as a Reader’s Choice, and have also been recognized by local publications such as 5280 and the Rocky Mountain News.
Sandoval started selling tamales 35 years ago when he was a Colorado senator looking to start a business that would not create a conflict of interest. Today, his traditional red chile and pork tamales as well as vegetarian green chile and cheese tamales are touted by many locals.
Sandoval thinks his products are popular because they taste good and are reasonably priced. Many commercially-made tamales are made with too much masa and are skimpy on chile and meat filling, he says. A dozen of his red chile tamales can be purchased for $8.75 and the green chile go for $9.85 a dozen.
“Their red chile tamales are the best,” says Francis Flanagan, 51, who grew up making tamales with her family in California, but stopped when she moved to Colorado 20 years ago. “I like them better than the green chile because they are more traditional, like the ones I had growing up.”
Every year, Flanagan buys six to eight dozen of Sandoval’s tamales for Christmas Eve. She recommends getting there early because the green chile go fast. The restaurant doesn’t take advance orders so it’s first come, first serve.
“Everyone is about saving time these days,” says Sabrina Camacho-Smith, 31, Flanagan’s daughter. “There’s convenience in being able to pick them up.”
For the last three years, Camacho-Smith has brought her extended family together for Christmas Eve dinner, a tradition she took over from her mother.  Her family, her husband’s family and their friends gather to celebrate the holidays and feast on Mexican food at her home in Highlands Ranch.
“I remember making tamales when I was growing up, but things and schedules got busier,” she said. “Making tamales is a big process.”
Camacho-Smith thinks the tradition of making homemade tamales is being lost, but eating tamales during Christmas is definitely not. Sandoval’s tamales are always a staple at her Christmas Eve fiesta.
“The whole family and my in-laws look forward to Christmas Eve, especially for the food, because it’s so good,” she said. “They know we’re going to throw down.”

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