/ck/ - Food & Cooking

I have never made tamales but we have a similar preparation to the Salvadoran version. Pasteles are wrapped with banana leaf but instead of corn we use a masa made of root vegetables (primarily yuca).

I make the masa the night before, and then wrap some or all of them the night before, because fuck spending an entire day making pasteles/tamales. In the old days the women stayed home all day preparing this stuff and the men would work, drink, play games or whatever, so I would have never made any myself anyway.

I usually boil my pasteles, although steaming would work. Preparing the fillings, though, is a lot of work. I love the end product but I rarely make these for myself. And mine are nowhere near as good as my grandmother's. I wish she hadn't taken her secrets to the grave.