Tamales

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These are instructions for celebrating Christmas in Ethiopia with a Southern California tradition: Tamales!


  1. Tell people that you miss tortillas and Mexican food initiating the sending of Masa Harina packages
  2. Wait 3-8 weeks for packages to arrive, celebrate
  3. Ask for recipes from friends with experience.  When none come look up some on Internet.
  4. Drive 5 hours north and procure Pork Fat and Pork meat from Addis Ababa
  5. Render Lard from Pork fat for 2 days in crock pot through various power outages
  6. Cook delicious pork
  7. Look for Corn Husks and and find that they are unavailable in Soddo right now
  8. Substitute banana leaves from tree outside
  9. Make Chili Salsa from dried chili brought from America
  10. Make Masa dough by mixing Masa and Lard
  11. Realize the recipe you found is way way off on ratio
  12. Panic
  13. Find new recipe and do your best to salvage
  14. Blanch banana leaves
  15. Make Tamales
  16. Wrap tamales in splitting banana leaves
  17. Wrap banana leaves in foil because banana leaves aren't holding up
  18. Steam tamales for 75 minutes
  19. Taste and realize masa dough was likely not done correctly
  20. Pressure cook longer to try to soften masa dough better
  21. Embrace disappointment in quality of masa and salvage what you can
Sampling our Lard
So our first experiment in Tamales was only a mild failure, but it was a learning experience. So with those 21 easy steps we can have another try soon.

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