Tamales

At her restaurant, Maria’s, in Santa Fe, Priscilla Hoback makes tamales in her own kitchen rather than buying them at Rose’s Tamale Factory off Cerrillos Road. Rose’s tamales are good, and there is always a cluster of trucks outside and a line inside to prove it. But Priscilla is first a potter, then a cook, and she finds that making tamales is like making pots: the container conditions the thing contained.

Corn husks have an edge over modern metal or ceramic contai