AD: Looking for someone to please retrieve our food processor from storage.

Hello Everybody,

Yup, we miss our food processor, while we can buy one here, probably a better version that can also mince meat, plus a digit or two, nevertheless I want our old helper.  Why?

Well, because I’ve worn down the sole of my hand grinding up spices!  Particularly last week when I attempted to make tamales. Yes you read right…tamales in Germany.  I’ve seen it done once or twice before (not in Germany) and I thought I’d like to make some too.

Why I need my food processor.

Grinding 6 different chiles to make the chile powder, was not easy. Boiling the meat to mix with the chile powder, onions, garlic, cumin and cook for 2 hours, somewhat easy. Making the masa dough, easy.  Assembling the tamales, not easy.  Cooking or should I say steaming, thus began the experiment. 

I wish I could say I took pictures, but I didn’t.  This was a once through for me and before I share with everyone else I’d like to make sure I know what I’m doing.  I’m glad to report that my first batch of tamales was…similar to what one gets when you mix mentos with soda.

Yeah…not that explosive. Let us say, if one was to record the mentos/soda explosion and then played it back in HD slow motion, really extra super dense antimatter slow mo, thick as bees on a thieving bear slow mo. Get it, fast but slow, because you can see the accident happening, but can’t really do much about it.  Picture Mt. Saint Helen after it had exploded and the lava had oozed out the top reforming the geographical area, where then one asked, “Where’d the forest go?” Except in this case it would be, “Where’d the tamales go?”  something like that. 

So my ratios were off.  Ok, my filling to dough ratio was way off.  The filling went all over my tamale landscape.  Tragic, corn husks fighting for their lives, there was no stopping it.  Once the red button that says ignition was struck, it was full tilt boogie and the tamales were swimming in spicy chicken filling.  But I guess a bend in the road is not the end of the road... unless of course you fail to make the turn. 

Then like a godliness light… L said, “Why don’t we try them?” With slight trepidation and after certain geochemical considerations and inspection, I lifted the isotopic matter revealing it’s compositional variations. The first layer hardy resembled tamales. Yes the topography of my tamales had been skewed and suffered the wrath that is spicy chicken and gooey dough, but…but, nestled under this travesty was life and it was tasty.

Underneath the first layer of mush the tamales looked like tamales. In fact newly born tamales and next to that tamale another clone and next to that tamale another clone. Tamale clones born just to serve our taste buds.  Yes the ratios were off, but it tasted like I remember tamales tasting.

There is hope!

I will be making tamales again and this time I’ll include pictures.  If someone told me, when I was 19, that I’d  be living in Germany making tamales with my sweetheart. I’d probably say something similar to, “Yeah, whatever.” 

With that said, “Yeah, whatever.”

missing everyone,

M&L