BUEN PROVECHO

by Arturo Echeverría

Of the many culinary pleasures that weekends bring is the tamal, or better yet, the tamales, as there is a wide variety. The generic concept is a cake made with ground and then boiled corn, sweet or salty with color and flavor added and, in most cases, stuffed with a big chunk of meat. When Guatemalans refer to tamales, we usually mean the red ones, which are usually eaten on Saturday night and during the Christmas season. They’re usually made at home by an entrepreneurial señora, who undertakes the hard work of preparing tamales in the hopes of making a nice profit. Her advertising will be a red light in the window, despite the usual connotation elsewhere.

Never order two tamales together, as Guatemalan etiquette calls for eating one at a time. Of course, you may help yourself to more tamales as often as you want, just like my dear Uncle Rafa, who in his good times started a Christmastime competition of eating red tamales and once consumed 17 in a row.
Another warning: The big leaf on which red tamales are served is a plantain leaf and is not edible. I can never forget my dear grandmom´s joke about a gringo telling his Guatemalan hostess that the tamales were very good — only the lettuce was too hard.

Besides red tamales, you could try black tamales, like the red ones but sweet with a touch of chocolate; or paches quetzaltecos, potato tamales from the western province of Quetzaltenango (watch out for the hidden huge hot chili pepper); or chuchitos, something like a compressed version of red tamales, usually served for the refacción (Guatemalan for mid-afternoon snack); or pink tamalitos de cambray, the sweet, delicate counterpart of chuchitos. Or many other kinds of tamales. Hope you enjoy your selection. •