Welcome to my L103 Final Project!

Hello! My name is Ceilidh Christie and I am taking LATS-L103, or Introduction to Latino Cultures at IU Bloomington this semester. For the final project of the course, I planned to study and explore Mexican tamales because my initial interest in Latino/a/x cultures stems from my love of Mexican food. However, I have never tried a tamal, but have learned about the importance and role of tamales in Mexican cuisine, culture, and celebrations in this course, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to learn more about the history and culture associated with tamales as well as try a few at local restaurants around Bloomington.

I have decided to try tamales at La Poblana, Bivi’s Tamales, and Juannita’s. I am interested to see how their tamales compare and contrast with each other since there are a large variety of tamales in México. Then, my goal is to find a couple recipes for tamales similar to the ones I try and recreate tamales in my own kitchen.

So, breaking up my project into portions:

1. Historical background and cultural significance of tamales in shaping Mexican identity: I have read a few papers and plan to share a couple posts highlighting the major takeaways from the articles and how this information will be helpful as I begin tasting tamales and then eventually making tamales.
2. Trying out tamales from each of the selected restaurants: I plan to create a post for each of the restaurants where I describe the tamales I try and relate it back to what I learned in the research portion of this project.
3. Then, I plan to research recipes and try out a few in my own kitchen, comparing the advantages and disadvantages of each recipe.
4. At the end, I plan to share the recipe I prefer and why, or a recipe I created by combining multiple recipes together. Also, at the end of the project, I plan to share a reflective piece on what I learned and gained from this process, especially how this will affect my thoughts on the relationship between food and culture in the future.

Now, before I wrap up this introductory post, here are some pictures of tamales and tamal-making to get your taste buds excited 🙂

Enjoy!