Guatemalan "Efficiency" Part 2 ...and Tamales!

It's been another interesting day at the office today. I was trying so hard not to snooze, it was boring.

So I left. I went upstairs, and the ladies were assembling tamales. They asked me if I wanted to learn. Por supuesto! (Of course!) This is one of my goals here in Guatemala, to learn how to make a tamale! I spent the next hour bungling my way assembling tamales and analyzing the tamale making process:

Here's the basic recipe for making a Guatemalan tamale. DISCLAIMER: Don't yell at me if your tamales don't turn out like mine. I'm not going into any details because I don't know them yet and I am just trying to share some observations.

Ingredients-

• First of all, you have to have the masa (dough) ready
• and you should have the sauce ready
• small chunks of raw pork (with or without bones, doesn't matter)
• lots of banana leaves
• tule (sp?) - it's some natural string thing they use to tie the tamales together

Process-

1. First you have to lay out 2 somewhat equal sized banana leaves on top of each other
2. Dump a scoop of masa on the banana leaves
3. Dump a scoop or two of sauce
4. mix well so that all salsa and masa is mixed somewhat well
5. dump a couple shreds of raw pork on top
6. Add more sauce if needed
7. roll banana leaves the long way at least twice like you're rolling a sheet of paper together with mixture inside
8. fold over the sides
9. Lay tamale down so folded side is under tamale
10. (Usually another person) Tie tamales with string thing
11. Cook tamales
    

Well there were 3 of us involved in the process. Doña Silvia and I were making tamales, and Sandra was tying. She was way behind. Anyways, I thought hey this is a lot of steps. After participating a while, and analyzing the process, I thought the process could be improved maybe if the masa (dough) and the salsa were mixed in a huge pot beforehand. It wouldn't take so long to make the tamale and it wouldn't be so messy. I asked Doña Silvia, and she said no, that's not possible. I thought maybe the consistency gets ruined if it was mixed a bit better.

Or, one of us could have assembled, another could fold, and then Sandra could still tie them up. This would have been a good idea, but...

Another idea comes to mind, I should have moved to the end of the line and helped tie. I was making a bit of a mess anyways.

I've eaten my fair share of here I'd like to say I can be a pretty good tamale tester. I can tell when there's too little sauce, and/or if it's not mixed, it's not good. So I asked her and tried to probe deeper, and the response again was the same, no es posible.

Mike or my mom might have an answer for the tamale thing. Any other tamale makers, maybe you know why? Haben Sie eine idee, Mike?

I think I understand something now. She can make the tamales well by following the instructions she was taught, but she doesn't try to understand the way it works, only thinking in the box I guess. Hmm, does this seems to be a recurring theme in Guatemalans?

Well I should go back to the office. I can watch Don Efraín using a calculator to add 1+1, because that's just the way he functions.