A Caribbean Christmas Means Tamales
A Three Kings' eve party in the home of a farm laborer's family. The woman is serving pastellas a tamale-like dish made with plantain, Guanica, Puerto Rico, 1942, Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Many people from the Caribbean Basin are busy this time of the year preparing dozens of various types of pastellas or tamales. Tamales are small packets of corn or green mashed plantain dough filled with just about anything and then wrapped in a corn husk or banana leaf and steamed until firm and easy to remove. The late Afro- Panamanian scholar George Priestly, would tell me how he would spend hours in his Brooklyn home making tamales for his Christmas table; it was a labor of love for him.
Tamale Pie Recipe
Ingredients
1 can tomatoes
1 can corn
1 ½ cups yellow corn meal
1 cup milk
½ pound diced salt pork
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, minced
1 bell pepper
1 large clove of garlic
Meat from 1 chicken, cooked and cut into large pieces
1 cup small black olives
2 tablespoons chili powder
Salt to taste
3 eggs
Directions
Put 1 can of tomatoes and 1 can of corn in a double boiler and cook 15 minutes. Moisten cornmeal with milk and stir into corn and tomatoes. Cook another 15 minutes. While this is cooking, fry salt pork in olive oil. Remove pork and fry until light brown, onion, bell pepper, and garlic. Add this, with chicken meat and olives to mixture. Add chili powder and salt. Beat 3 eggs and fold into mixture. Pour into buttered dish and bake in moderate oven ½ hour.
The Pittsburgh Courier, October 18, 1941
Food Historian Dr. Frederick Douglass Opie
