For the past several days, I have been craving tamales. Not just any tamales mind you, but the ones from Doña Ámes tamale shop on one of the side streets in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas. I had the good fortune to be part of a research team that went down to Chiapas last June for two weeks. We had our base camp in downtown San Cristóbal and ventured out into the surrounding towns to do research on fair trade coffee and its effects on the local population. Most of the time we were there it was overcast and several times, the whole group was caught in torrential downpours, as June is the start of the rainy season. And it means business high in those mountains. They build the sidewalks over a foot off the ground for a reason we discovered as the streets quickly filled to flash flood stage in a matter of twenty minutes or so.
It was after one of these torrential rains, when the skies had lessened a bit that I ventured out for a walk.I needed a break from entering survey data into the computer and we needed food for dinner that night, so I set out to find Doña Ámes tamale shop, as we had read about this place in our guide book.
Keeping my book handy in my backpack, I dodged huge puddles of water, wandering the streets, looking for what turned out to be a tiny place behind huge wooden doors. If I hadn't smelled food cooking, I probably would have walked right by the place. Inside, a man was wiping down tables with a small rag, while behind him, large stainless steel pots sent up bursts of steam. The tamales were still cooking; I needed to come back later, when they were done. Disappointed and now facing a wet walk home, I had another crew member return to the site later to actually collect the tamales. But, because they were so good, we wound up having them again and this time I arrived at the right time.
Doña Áme herself was behind the bubbling pots this second time and I watched while she picked out a sortido of tamales. Some were wrapped in the traditional corn husks and tied with pieces of corn husks while other tamales were wrapped in banana leaves and tied with string. Like a chocolatier knows the flavor of the insides of a chocolate by the design drizzled on its top, Doña Áme knew which tamales were which based on the wrappings.
We wound up with an assortment of house specialties. My favorite turned out to be the pulled chicken, fig and green olives bundled inside the sweet, steamed cornmeal. Others were spicy combinations of roasted pork in a fiery red chili sauce that was just a bit too hot for me to fully enjoy and a mild chicken and cheese tamale. Really, they were all good and at about 80 cents each, how could any of us complain? Combined with a salad a friend invented of thinly sliced onions, chopped tomato, sliced avocado, and sliced mango drizzled with fresh lime juice and a pinch of salt, it was a colorful, flavorful meal that will not be easily forgotten.
And because I have been reading a lot lately about the Mayans, doing research for a new book, I discovered that tamales were/are one of the staple foods of the Mayan people, just like tortillas were/are for the Aztecs and Mexicans of northern Mexico. Which led me to thinking about those tamales we ate in Chiapas and my longing to eat some again...
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