As soon as the temperature drops and I bring my puffer jacket out of the closet, I know it is tamale season. It was a time filled with stories and laughs while filling and rolling corn husks. A labor of love that results in one of my favorite foods. A tradition that originated in Durango, passed down through generations. It starts with a trip to La Bonita Supermarket to haul all the ingredients, the smell of pan dulce filling my nose as I browse the store sipping on my horchata. Checking each item off our shopping list one by one, corn husks, masa, pierna de puerco, queso, rajas (hatch chilies), and lastly treating ourselves to a concha to fuel us through the lengthy process that is in our near future. Once I get home I fill with excitement as the time comes to begin.  While spreading the masa on the wrapper we continue the lyrics with my grandpa while he plays the guitar, the sound of the old mariachi and banda songs he loves to play fill the room as we sing along.  The rich chocolaty smell with a hint of spice of champurrado, Mexican hot chocolate,  fills my kitchen, as it is tradition to sip on something while stuffing the husks of the tamales with pierna de puerco. We had a factory set up. My mom would carefully spread the masa, my grandma would stuff them with either meat or cheese and rajas, and I would delicately roll and tie them up. Once we had roughly 100 tamales ready, we would plop them in our huge tamalera, which cooks them overnight.

– leilani nevarez

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant