About Tamales

Everywhere in Mexico tamales are fiesta food—the equivalent of “Let’s celebrate!” On all occasions like weddings, baptisms, and village saint’s days when only the best will do, some kind of tamales will be the most treasured item on the menu. The further south you go in the country, the more amazing and inventive the range of different tamales becomes. Chiapas, Oaxaca’s next neighbor and the southernmost state of Mexico, is considered the premier tamal state. But Oaxacan tamales are nearly as famous. The more of them I discover, the more there still is to discover.