Black Friday in July

This past week I was shopping and saw “Black Friday in July” sales, Wow! It felt like Christmas shopping without the crowd congestion! Por supuesto que, this confirmed that it was ok to linger on the idea of Christmas in July. Tamales on hot summer days!

Tamaladas are a Christmas tradition. A long hard day of making tamales, working along with some family members for the end product of feasting on tamales. 

Come one, Come all

Everyone is called to the dinner table,those who labored and those who cheered on, gleefully sitting down to enjoy the delicious tamales. The expensive, and hard tedious work of assembling dozens of tamales is forgotten. The hot tamales are ready to be served and enjoyed. Dinner plates filled with a “fat” tamal, beans and rice. These portions fell off the European meal portion scale for sure! Frijolitos; tasty refried beans that were perfect consistency, not dry and pasty but neither were they runny; somewhere in the middle, thick enough and moist, refried in lard or oil. Ya se, some people claim that using manteca is the key to delicious refried beans. Pero, mi ama made some authentic delicious refried beans, without lard sometimes, hijole! Her Mexican rice was simple, just enough sazon to make it delicioso, but not take away from the main event; los tamales. 

The heat of the summer does raise the question, is it possible to avoid all the hard work of making tamales to enjoy a nice feast of tamales? Esperate! I cannot deny the reality that homemade is usually the best, my amas tamales were for sure. However, there is such comfort in family gatherings, and side dishes for a tamal dinner can be whipped up.

Suggested Servings:

Asi es que, while you’re in July, celebrate like it’s Christmas! Get your tamales, make your side dishes: Mexican rice, refried beans, salsa fresca and a touch of summer with a cabbage salad. Then call your familia to the table and enjoy the grand finale of a tamalada.