Sunday Dec 13 we went to Phoenix for the Tamale Festival. There was a Mariachi band and singer, lots of games for kids, Santa, and lots of Mexican food! These photos show the various cooking demonstations. One show a woman making the outer shell for husk tomales. She has a spreader tool in one hand that they use to spred the masa on the corn husk. Then the thicker inner base is laid down and on top of that is the meat filling. It is all rolled up and steamed for the finished tamale. They come in lots of flavors, pork, chicken, beef, red chili, green chili, pineapple too.
The lady with the deep fryer is making empanadas. They are like a Mexican ravioli, a tortilla like disk with a little filling, folded over and deep fried. You can see a woman adding the filling to the mini tortilla. They make a big bowl of the tortilla mixture, pinch off a little ball of it and put it into a regular tortilla press. Out comes the little mini tortilla, and then it is filled, folded over and deep fried.
Here is Santa arriving for the festival. There was a large crowd, lots of kids and families. We got there early enough to pick up tamales (a Christmas tradition for Mexicans and sold everywhere during the season) for the freezer, for Christmas eve dinner and for lunch that day.
