La tamalada: la celebración de tamales

La tamalada is a tamale making party, where families gather together to reconnect, share stories, and make delicious tamales.

A tamalada is a casual, yet organized event with each family member working on some part of the tamal-making process, like it is an assembly line.

Tamaladas are a historical event, reaching all the way back to the Aztecs, in which the work of tamal-making is divided, with some people kneading the masa and others washing the corn husks, for example (Knepp 199). Tamaladas are not just for making tamales, but also for family and friends to catch up, sharing “[g]ossip, jokes, and personal stories” (Knepp 199).

I read one story of a tamalada tradition, a Christmas tamale tradition. In this family, the matriarch of the family, Mamo prepared a tamalada every Christmas, but kept her exact recipe close to her chest, only allowing two of her children help her prepare the masa dough and filling. The rest of her children helped in the tamales assembly process. Mamo supervised the whole process to make sure the masa, filling, and assembly was just right. The family listened to music, gossiped, and enjoyed each other’s company; the perfect celebration of family and tradition.

However, when Mamo passed away, her grandchildren, including Laura Wilmot Sheehy, stopped carrying on the tradition until they had had enough of “second-rate tamales from vendors and grocery stores” (Wilmot Sheehy). Together, along with her siblings and their spouses, Wilmot Sheehy resurrected the tradition, but without the exact recipe that Mamo had used to make tamales, the family members decided to create their own tamales and then have the family judge to see which was the favorite. While the family members used different ingredients and recipes from Mamo’s, they still honored Mamo through using her techniques and trying to recreate her famous tamales.

Most important of Mamo’s traditions, they have kept laughter and gossip a part of the tamalada as they sit around the table making tamales. The tamales, laughter, and love shared during a tamalada makes it the perfect Christmas tradition, in my opinion.

Laura Wilmot Sheehy also included a video of the tamalada process, which was very enlightening and especially interesting for me to watch how they prepare and fold the tamales.

Works Cited:

Knepp, M. Dustin. “Spreading Tradition: A History of Tamal-making and its Representation in Latino Children’s Literature.” Cincinnati Romance Review, vol. 33, 2012, pp. 194-205.

Wilmot Sheehy, Laura. “La Tamalada: A Christmas Tamale Tradition.” Folklife, 17 Dec 2018, https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/foodways-holidays-tamalada-christmas-tamale-tradition.