- Nixtamalized corn masa, lard or vegetable shortening
- Fillings: chicken in green salsa, pork in red salsa, rajas con crema, sweet fillings
- Corn husks or banana leaves for wrapping
Tamales
Tamales steamed in corn husks. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Tamales are corn masa dough filled with meats, chiles, cheese or sweet fillings, wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves and steamed. They are one of Mesoamerica's oldest foods, made for thousands of years.
They are breakfast and street food: vendors sell them from giant steamers in the morning, often with atole (hot corn drink). Every region has its own: Oaxacan tamales in banana leaves, Yucatan's vaporcitos, the giant zacahuil of the Huasteca.
Key ingredients
Where to try it
- Street steamers on any Mexican city corner in the morning
- Oaxaca's markets for banana-leaf tamales oaxaquenos
- The Huasteca for zacahuil, the three-foot festival tamale