TWIN FALLS - Tamales are like the families that make and share them.
No two are the same.
Oh, and in case you didn't know, never criticize another family's tamales, which are made "al gusto" - to the taste of the family.
It took Carmen Martinez more than 20 years to perfect her tamales, arousing the biggest possible grin from her husband, Gabriel. Their opinions are all that matter now that their children have moved out to raise families of their own.
And he gets tamales exactly the way he likes them: Bulgingly plump. Rosy like Santa's cheeks. And absolutely Juarez-style.
"I like them nice and fat," Gabriel said Friday, smiling at his wife in their Twin Falls kitchen.
How to make them "a la Martinez" rests exclusively in her domain.
Gabriel rubs his tummy, watches her knead tamale dough and smear a thin coat of it over a corn husk, which she will wrap around a short rope of shredded pork that has been simmering in a tomatillo and garlic sauce. This is the scene Gabriel longs for every year around Christmastime.
Between Christmas and New Year's Day is when hundreds of Hispanic homemakers bring ancient tamale-making traditions they learned in their birth homes across Mexico into their kitchens in the Magic Valley.
Some regions produce similar tamales. In the Magic Valley, Carmen also has encountered some families from other regions in Mexico who have very foreign ways of cooking.
"Every Mexican family does it differently. And it depends on what part of Mexico you are from. I learned from watching my mom," Carmen said. "I do it this way because this is how my mother did it. My mom, I'm sure, learned it from her mom, or else her mother-in-law."
She admits she's been improving her tamales since her marriage to Gabriel in 1980, but she quickly discounts comparisons between her tamales and those made by other women.
Because tamales cater to a family's taste, Carmen first had to start a family before she could sift through the many tough decisions: how spicy to make her tamales, how big, whether to include cheese, beans, pork, chicken or beef and how to color the dough, if at all. Oh, and not until she had her two sons did she know how many she should make.
Carmen's education began in her mother's kitchen in Juarez.
As a girl, she observed her mother, and later her step-mother's distinct styles. Shortly after she married Gabriel, she made an urgent phone call home. She copied down her mom's recipe step-by-step. Taking those steps in her own kitchen, however, produced something of a dud.
"The first time was not so good," Carmen said. "They were missing flavor, I believe."
Cue Gabriel's thinly veiled disappointment.
"Then I started getting better," she said.
No longer was she going through the motions. She was developing a style of her own. As a result, Gabriel's grin has grown wider.
"I learned to make them well when I got married," she said, unaware that Gabriel had overheard her and was coming near.
"Yeah," he said. Then looking downward, he poked out his tummy and rubbed it in circles. "See."
The tamales would not be ready until later that evening. Then the couple would head to Gabriel's sister's house for a party. She, too, had made tamales. And no comparisons would be made.
Already, Carmen had all the materials she needed set out before her. Nothing was cooked yet, except the pork, but last year's memory of devouring delicious tamales was enough to make the couple's stomachs growl.
Cassidy Friedman is a staff writer for the Times-News. He can be reached at (208)735-3241 or by e-mail at
cfriedman@magicvalley.com.
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MEAGAN THOMPSON/Times-News
Chilly peppers hang from the ceiling in–Carmen Martinez's–kitchen at her home–in Twin Falls.–––
