by waaytoomuchintothis » Sun Apr 14, 2013 11:00 am
Man, you ain't kiddin'. The secret to these kinds of elaborate dishes, it seems to me, is that it takes a large family to get them done. Take tamales, for example. To do it right you need five people in a line, each doing an assembly line task. And you don't get a good batch unless you make dozens of them at a time. I learned from a Mexican lady and her mother and the four little granddaughters that giggled all day, and made four hours feel like four minutes. Its family that makes it happen. The magic of little girls' laughing makes it happen. And you have to clean up as you go when you set that assembly line up, so that you don't run out of room. It takes care of itself. Its the same for stuffed grape leaves, and all the other foods that are complex. When I make tamales, I actually get lonely for those women and the girls. Nice memories.