Making tamales for Christmas is a taste of home for Philly’s Mexican diaspora

Juana Librado always tells her kids the same secret to making delicious tamales: You can’t talk about your problems while you’re making them, and you can’t be sad. In order to achieve the perfect tamale, you have to be happy while cooking them.

As Christmas approaches, Librado is preparing to cook tamales for her family as part of the centuries-old Mexican and Central American tradition for the holiday.

The tamale has been significant in Mesoamerican culture since its existence as early as 8,000 B.C., largely because of the importance of corn in the region. But, as is the case with many labor-intensive foods, the beauty of the tamale isn’t just the flavor — it’s the all-hands-on-deck, community- and family-centric process of making them. Go to any Mexican or Central American special occasion — especially Christmas — and tamales will be there.

Depending on which region a person is from, the tamales may be made differently. But in the diaspora, there is one constant: Tamales are always laced with nostalgia.

On a recent Saturday, Librado stood in her daughter’s South Philly kitchen, a white pot adorned with floral design sitting over the stove. She had finished boiling her corn until it became soft and tender, then ground it into a thick, sweet paste, known as masa. Next up was her arm workout: stirring the dense masa in a large pot of water to cook it.

Slogging through the masa has become muscle memory at this point; some of Librado’s earliest memories as a child were stirring the masa for her grandmother for hours, lest it stick to the pot. Years later, as she stirs the masa, its sweet and floral fragrance still takes her back to her grandmother’s home in Oaxaca, surrounded by her entire family.

It’s been 23 years since Librado moved to Philadelphia from Oaxaca. Twenty-three years since she has last seen her homeland. Back home, Librado’s family used to make their tamales over an open fire outside. Being out in nature, the wood-burning smoke permeating her nostrils — that’s the real way to make tamales, Librado says. And every time she makes tamales today, it never fails to make her miss Mexico.

“In trying to cook the way you used to do in Mexico, it brings you memories when you sit at the table and you start eating and tasting — it’s another way to keep connected with you roots,” Librado said through an interpreter.

But it wasn’t until she moved to Philadelphia in her early 20s that Librado learned to make tamales herself. Far from home and in search of comfort, Librado made tamales over and over as she perfected her recipe, calling her family or friends for advice.

There were some learning curves, namely finding the right quality and freshness of ingredients — especially banana leaves and Hoja Santa leaves, both traditionally used to wrap tamales in Oaxaca. But as immigration to the Philly region has increased, so, too, have immigrant-owned stores filled with imported goods that used to be impossible to find. Librado now finds banana leaves — and although they’re processed and packaged, they still have some of the flavors from home. And whereas Hoja Santa leaves once could only be found dried, Librado has been able to find fresh ones in recent years.

Elsewhere, César Viveros and his cousin Lily Morales fretted over a wooden crate full of corn in the kitchen of his Norris Square home.

In winter, it’s harder for them to find corn that’s big enough for tamales, with husks long and wide to carry and wrap around the stuffing. This corn, at least, had nice and yellow kernels, signifying that it would be sweet and tender. But the husks weren’t large enough — next time, they’ll have to find people who import larger corn from Mexico, Viveros said.

To make the tamales, Viveros started with salsa. He filled a blender with a variety of chipotle peppers, guajillo chiles, cumin, garlic cloves, and tomatoes, and pulsed the blend into a smooth liquid. The spice of the chiles immediately swirled in the air and settled in everyone’s throats — it was perfect for filling the tamales. He poured the salsa into a small pot of piping-hot oil to fry, then hovered over a second pot to stir simmering pork before moving back to the corn.

After shucking, shaving, and boiling the corn kernels, Viveros scooped up handfuls of the dripping kernels and slapped them into a blender.

“At my grandparents’ in Mexico, all of the kids, we had to do this by hand with a small molino,” Viveros said, replicating the rotation of the grinder’s handle in the air.

He began using a spoon to stuff the kernels further toward the blades, which his cousin quickly took from his hand and replaced with a cob.

There were a few more things Viveros and Morales differed on in their tamale-making, such as adding a little baking powder to the blended corn to make it a little fluffier. Viveros looked at Morales dubiously, but followed her instruction. After more stirring, he spooned a little bit of the mixture in her palm, then his own, and they both tasted it. The masa tasted fresh, with a subtle cornbread aftertaste.

“It’s perfect,” they both said with a nod of approval.

As they stirred the corn, memories of Mexico began to churn. Viveros, Morales, and Morales’ 21-year-old daughter, Katherine Lopez, laughed as they spoke fondly of their family’s ranch in Veracruz. And the way Viveros and Morales’ grandmother would make the young boys grind the masa before the girls would prepare the tamales. Or how she would wake her 22 grandchildren at 5 a.m., have them line up with glass cups filled with their choice of either chocolate powder mix or Flor de Caña, a type of rum, for their grandmother to pour fresh milk into. (Lopez and her brother would even milk the cows themselves.)

The trio poured the masa, cooked pork, and hot salsa into bowls, then carried them over to the dining table along with a plate of corn husks. Since the husks were too small, Morales overlapped two of them before carefully spooning the corn on top, then layering the salsa, pork, and dried epazote leaves — the most important ingredient for flavor, Morales says — on top. Then she expertly folded the husks around the filling, before wrapping the tamale in a sheet of aluminum foil that Lopez prepared for her.

This, they said as they placed each tamale in a large pot to be steamed, was what was special about making tamales. The food is delicious, but the process is even sweeter, bringing the entire family together with different tasks to make the tamales possible — although the ritual is never quite like back home.

“[In Mexico], there is joy and family. Here, we’re alone,” Morales said in Spanish.

Still, Christmas without tamales is impossible. And alone or not, to immigrants, making tamales is an important ritual to pass down.

“If I have kids, and hopefully I do …, I want to teach them about what we used to do, teach them about my mother and grandmother’s way we make foods or drinks,” Lopez said. “Even if they don’t talk about it as often, I still want them to embrace their roots and where they come from.”