Tamale Festival in Phoenix

In the opening scenes of the 1956 movie adaption of Edna Ferber’s novel Giant, a young James Dean and a blossoming Elizabeth Taylor face off over a cow’s head. As it happens, the cow’s head is part of a buffet, and they are serving from the place where the brain might have been earlier in the day. Of course, Elizabeth Taylor faints at the barbarity of it all.

If  Taylor had been a good cook, she  would have grabbed a slotted spoon and looked for the tamales. Way back then they were made with pig or beef brains and lard. Today, the lard is still there (in the good ones) but the brains aren’t.

Tamale, fully wrapped

A tamale is a wrapper of tender corn mush folded around a filling and secured in a corn husk for steaming. Most tamales nowadays are wrapped in aluminum foil as well, as a help in stacking and freezing.

Tamales are made with shredded pork, beef, or chicken, or a vegetarian style  green corn, chile,  pumpkin or pineapple. The first five are savory; the last two, sweet.

The first tamales were probably made in Aztec times. There are reports of early festivals offering cornmeal products to the gods in the 12th month of the Aztec calendar.

Steamed tamale showing corn husk wrapper

Phoenix hosts an annual tamale festival in mid-December. Tamales are traditionally eaten on Christmas Eve in the Hispanic community, and much of the Southwest has taken up the habit.  The Phoenix festival gives tamale-lovers a chance to taste several varieties and then stock up on favorites.

Being familiar with green corn, beef, and chicken, I tasted the pork and pumpkin ones. The tamales were crammed with mildly spicy, flavorful shredded pork in a red chile sauce. They were spicy, but not fiery. The corn wrapper was tender and soft, almost fluffy,the hallmark of an excellent tamale. If the cornmeal is packed and heavy, it’s simply not going to be a yummy tamale, not matter what’s in it.

It's easy to follow the sign's instructions

The pumpkin tamales were amazing. Fragrant while still in the wrapper, the pumpkin filling was made from scratch and spiced with pineapple pieces, chile, molassas and nutmeg. The rich steam was tempting, but the spicy hot filling was perfect for the cool and windy winter day.

The workers steaming the tamales were in a good mood, laughing and pointing to the street sign that said “No stopping anytime.” It was a tempting sign to follow, but after sampling a few of the excellent tamales, we purchased a dozen to take home for December 24th.

—Quinn  McDonald is a writer and creativity coach who loves discovering the foods and music of her new home in the Southwest. She helps her clients open door to new experiences that include new careers, interests and journeys.