Sometime over the Thanksgiving activities, either on that day or the day after when we got together to eat the leftovers, my sister Arianna suggested that the women get together this year and make tamales.
If you’ve never made tamales, you don’t know what a load of work it really is. The word “backbreaking” would be an accurate description.
But there’s a lot of bonding that happens over the whole process. There is this entire cultural tradition thing going with making tamales, with women getting together for a daylong activity of making dozens upon dozens of tamales for the holidays. It’s a tradition my mother followed when we were very young.
Alicia knows about making tamales, her other grandmother makes them every chance she gets. But she’s never participated in one. And I think I may be the only sister who’s actually participated in a tamalada as an adult. Both my sisters only have vague recollections from when we were kids.
I don’t know that we will get together to do this. It’s an awful lot of work. But I like the idea.
