Christmas tamales help to connect traditions
Latin American treats now in Lehigh Valley for the holidays
Christmas morning was often special for a young Emilio Orna whenhe was growing up in Lima, Peru.
His grandfather would wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning and go down to the corner bakery, where he picked out fresh bread and tamales for the whole family.
Tamales — in Peru, stuffed with pork or chicken and eaten with bread and coffee for breakfast — were available from the bakery every Saturday morning, but his family couldn’t afford them most of the year.
By the time Orna woke up on Christmas, though, the aromas would waft throughout the house and his family would eat the tamales together for breakfast.
Now Orna, who, with his wife, Melissa, owns Las Brasa’s in Allentown, has started making Christmas tamales himself, after several families started asking about it. The Peruvian tamales he makes are about the length of a dinner plate. He puts a little spice in the doughtogive it a slight color, and adds hard-boiled egg, olives, peanuts, onion, pepper and meat,andwrapstheminabanana leaf and tin foil for steaming.
Last year they sold between 150 and 200 Christmas tamales. This year it was closer to 50.
Tamales — which involve a masa dough stuffed with filling and steamed in either a corn husk or banana leaf — are a must-have in Latin American families for major holidays, including Christmas, which is usually celebrated on the 24th. There are many regional varieties, making some sweet and others spicy.
For many, making tamales is a time-consuming family affair that gives relatives a chance to catch up while they make them.
“It’s cumbersome, it takes a lot of time and a lot hands to make them,” said Jose Antonio Ortiz, the producer and host of “Nuestro Valle,” a talk show on RCN.
Ortiz remembers going to his grandmother’s house in Mexico when he was little. The house would be filled by about 85 relatives, and all the adult women would get together the night before Christmas Eve and make tamales.
This year, families are less able to get together because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think here in the pandemic, maybe there’s a little resurgence in people willing to make them,” Ortiz said. “You can’t just go to a restaurant and eat them.”
At Mexico Lindo, a restaurant in Bethlehem, people usually order tamales by the dozens around Christmas. Owner Jose Avila traditionally makes his holiday tamales a little larger than usual. But this year, there have been fewer orders, with only some, for a half a dozen or a dozen, coming in.
For Avila, the tradition of Christmas tamales is tied to Las Posadas, a holiday that runs from Dec. 16 to 24 and serves as a reenactment of Mary and Joseph searching for an inn. In his hometown of Toluca, certain homes in the community would serve as the “inn,” and welcome “pilgrims” into their homes, with a helping of tamales.
“Everybody that wants to go is welcome and everyone gets a little dinner when they get to the house,” he said. “If you see people having a posada ... you just go there. It’s like a big gathering every night.”
WhenAvila came to the U.S. in the early 1990s, Las Posadas was one of the traditions he missed.
The Sosas have always been adamant that their children learn about their Mexican background and traditions, said Concepcion Sosa, whose parents own El Paisano, a Mexican restaurant in Bethlehem.
“For them, it was important for us to watch them make [tamales] andmakeitwiththem,” Sosa said.
She said some families in the Lehigh Valley feel the same way, while others decide the tamale-making process takes too long and decide to order them. El Paisano fills many orders for Christmas tamales, including for people who aren’t Mexican, she said.
Tamale-making is labor-intensive, she said. Corn husks have to be soaked and cleaned. Her mother, Virginia Sosa, might start making them at 9 p.m. after they close the restaurant, finish forming them by midnight or 1 a.m, let them set overnight and then steam them in the morning. She usually adds a little sauce to the masa to add flavor.
For the Sosas, Christmas is usually a family affair. Sosa said everyone in her dad’s family lives nearby — the furthest relative lives 20 minutes away in Bath — and they gather on the 24th, pray, say the rosary, do a Secret Santa gift exchange, and eat.
Every family brings something different. Her immediate family usually brings the tamales and the barbacoa, or goat, while another family usually makes pozole, a soup with hominy.
This year, her immediate family will be staying home.
Miguel and Virginia Sosa are proud to share their food with their customers, they said through their daughter, who translated from Spanish.
“It’s something that plays a huge role in Mexican culture and in our lives, so being able to share that for people in the Lehigh Valley is very special and we love it,” they said.