Mexican food is more than tacos, part one

After I moved to Mexico from Norway, one of the first things that my friends are asking me about is Mexican food - "So, do you eat tacos everyday?" Well, I do eat them pretty often but Mexican food is more than tacos! Mexico has a big food culture as you can imagine. And food is everywhere. You can find food stands on every corner, or even food can "come" to you. A couple of times a day (ok, maybe ten times a day – it feels like it at least!), a guy on a bike appears in our neighborhood. He is biking with a huge bucket screaming «tamales, tamales, ricos tamaleeeees!». Tamales to us was so far an unidentified weird looking object wrapped carefully in banana leaves. And we were told that is a typical Mexican food and that it is very delicious. So we got curious about it.

This is how tamales look like.

Luckily we found some of these at the fandango fiesta Marcela and me went to. We tried them and we loved them. These little wraps are nothing more than a steamed corn dough with different fillings e.g. meat, cheese, fruit, vegetables. They can be salty, sweet or spicy or everything at once.

This dish was invented by Mesoamerican civilizations, a good 7.000-10.000 years ago. The Aztecs and Mayas used them as take away-food for their armies, as well as for hunters and travelers. Something tells me they burned few calories more than us...

In case you got hungry and you would like to try to prepare tamales yourself, you can read about last years' dreamers attempt to make them. Otherwise, just follow this you tube tutorial.

Till the next time,

Gunnhild