"tamalada"

Every December, once a year, when my family gets together we do a tamalada, an activity which we all take part in. First, we buy all of the ingredients necessary for all of the tamales we make. For this, a massive trip to the store is necessary where we get two shopping carts and everyone has to find a certain item or product necessary for the tamales. Everyone in the family takes part in the shopping; the younger kids always get the easy stuff like sodas or cups while the more experienced cookers get the meat and the spices necessary to make the banquet successful. It looks almost like a military battalion trying to accomplish a mission just with way more laughs and jokes.

​After all of the ingredients are bought and everyone is back in my grandfather’s house we start preparing the delicious food. You can tell delicious food is being prepared just by the smell you perceive as soon as you enter the house. Everyone takes part on the preparation of the food: my aunt Josefina and my mom are usually the leaders giving orders like they were the captains of a company, my other aunts make different guisados for the stuff that goes inside of the tamal itself while the guys work on the dough, and even the kids put the dough on the tamal leaf.

Although  the job tires everyone it is very worth it, because it brings my family together by making us work together, and creating a bond, plus tamales taste delicious.