Tamales oaxaquenos for everyone
52 weeks of cooking, Week 3: Sea Monsters
From my hammock I tried to conjure up my favorite city sound, that of tamalero who’d announce dusk with his disembodied cry….The man’s voice had apparently been recorded at his uncle’s house when he was a teenager, and had, like most city features, proliferated over time, eventually spreading to every corner, becoming the soundtrack to many people’s evenings, not only mine. Tamales oaxaquenos belonged to no one, a mantra released at dusk like an orphaned balloon.
Sea Monsters, Chloe Aridjis
Part of the allure of 52 weeks of cooking and my 52 weeks of books meta is the challenge exposes me to cuisine and books I never would try out on my own.
This week’s theme, Oaxacan, pushed me in new directions, both gastronomical and literary. I tried tamales for the first time, inspired by Chloe Aridjis short novel, Sea Monsters.
The book:
Sea Monsters is a brief, poetic novel, light on plot, but full of teenage angst and strange characters. Seventeen year-old Luisa escapes her life in Mexico City, to travel to a beach in Oaxaca with Tomas, a boy she barely knows. In Zipolite, she meets beachcombers, hippies, a “merman” and other eccentrics before her father arrives to bring her back home.
The strength of the book is its lyrical writing and beautiful descriptions and I think I would have enjoyed Sea Monsters more as an audiobook; then I could just listen and immerse myself in the dreamlike beach setting. If you think of it more as a poem or a series of short vignettes, rather than a novel, it is easier to digest.
The food:
While I adore Mexican cuisine (I was born on Cinco De Mayo, so maybe it’s in my blood), I’d never tried tamales, either making or eating them.
Oaxacan tamales differ from other tamales in that they are wrapped and steamed in banana leaves, rather than corn husks. My local Kroger sells banana leaves frozen, and I found masa in the international section.
I didn’t have time to make my own mole scratch, but I found a good mole paste through Amazon and mixed it with shredded chicken thighs to form the filling.
Banana leaves are fiddly and tear easily, but after a few mishaps and some YouTube instructions, I rolled about 10 tamales, and steamed them for little over an hour.
The result was a filling and delicious meal, perfect for a winter night. The mole sauce was flavorful but not heavily spiced. I don’t normally like dishes made with cornmeal — too dry — but the masa moist and wonderful. You can dress the tamales up however you wish; I added pico de gallo, avocado and queso fresco.
Next week: Instant.