STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
On holiday tables across this country, there will be tamales - masa dough wrapped in corn husks and filled with meat or beans or jalapenos. Many are made during family celebrations known as tamaladas - a party where you can get wrist-deep in traditions that span generations. Texas Public Radio's Joey Palacios takes us to one tamalada in San Antonio.
JOEY PALACIOS, BYLINE: Anna Fossom grabs a bottle of champagne, and...
(SOUNDBITE OF CHAMPAGNE CORK POPPING)
UNIDENTIFIED PARTYGOER #1: Wahey.
UNIDENTIFIED PARTYGOER #2: (Laughter).
(CHEERING)
PALACIOS: It's time to make some tamales.
ANNA FOSSOM: It's the official start.
PALACIOS: You can think of a tamalada as a very labour-intensive party. This is a tradition for Hispanic families in which the whole family is put to work.
FOSSOM: I feel like it's a reunion, and it's a reconnection with my family history.
PALACIOS: She remembers doing tamaladas when she was younger. Her mom was one of the main organizers. Her mom died in 2008, and her grandmother died during COVID. She says this is about reconnecting with family from all branches.
FOSSOM: That's what the tamalada means to me. Yes, we're making tamales, but we're also making new memories.
PALACIOS: We're in the kitchen of Anna's cousin Jessica Brunatti (ph). The goal is to make 27 dozen tamales. I asked Jessica, what's the most they've ever made?
JESSICA BRUNATTI: Oh, I don't know. We haven't counted. Fifty dozen.
(CROSSTALK)
LYDIA CEDILLO: Fifty was the most that we've made at one time, and we were dying.
PALACIOS: That's Jessica's mom, Lydia Cedillo (ph). There's four generations of the Riojas (ph) family here. Also here are Lydia's sisters Irma (ph) and Sylvia (ph) and their mother, 85-year-old Mary Alice Garcia (ph). They're hands-deep in cooked shredded pork when suddenly, there's the doorbell.
BRUNATTI: 'Cause he has a big one.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOORBELL RINGING)
BRUNATTI: Oh. They're piling in (ph).
PALACIOS: It's Jessica's daughter Bella, who just drove in from Austin. She's recently married, husband Cooper Young in tow.
BELLA: So Cooper's from Indiana, so he's new to our traditions.
PALACIOS: Bella wants to pass down this tradition to her future children.
BELLA: I feel like it's very important for me to learn these things 'cause of my great-grandma. She's not getting any younger, and she has all these stories and these memories that I don't really get to hear other than around this time.
PALACIOS: This is an all-hands-on-deck process. They're wearing Christmas aprons and buttons that say Las Tamaleras - or The Tamale-Makers. Music is echoing through the house, from Christmas carols to Mexican classics like "La Chona."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA CHONA")
LOS TUCANES DE TIJUANA: (Singing in Spanish).
PALACIOS: This is a carefully choreographed operation. The family sits around a large table in the living room, spreading masa onto corn husks, then stuffing them with the deep red pork or refried beans. There's one more ingredient - shared family stories. And it turns out there's a secret in 85-year-old Mary Alice's hand. It's the silver spoon that belonged to her mother and is inscribed with her mom's name.
MARY ALICE GARCIA: You can just go ahead and spread it, see? It's just - I mean, you just spread it. Go ahead and...
FOSSOM: Look. It does...
GARCIA: And then...
FOSSOM: ...Spread easily.
GARCIA: Yeah.
PALACIOS: Mary Alice was born in Lockhart, Texas, in 1940. And she says tamale-making goes back much further than that.
GARCIA: My mother is - she was saying, you know, that it came as a tradition from way back from her mother. They were from the valley, from the Rio Grande.
PALACIOS: And the fact that it happens around Christmas is by design - to get the family together and pass on this tradition.
GARCIA: If I leave this world, they can just go ahead and continue because I know that they already have that in them of being together, keeping the family together. And that's more - I'd say more important to me.
PALACIOS: As the first 80 or so tamales are stuffed and wrapped, they're put into a big steaming pot.
(SOUNDBITE OF POT CLANKING)
PALACIOS: The first batch is done about two hours later. The first taste test is full of their hard work and decades of tradition.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: [inaudible].
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: What do you think?
PALACIOS: Now there's only about 20 dozen to go.
For NPR News, I'm Joey Palacios in San Antonio. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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