EVENT: Tamale Festival

Via Erin's Kitchen and Daily Candy

This weekend, starting Friday at 3:00 p.m., The Second Annual Tamale Festival will take place at MacArthur Park by Mama's Hot Tamales Cafe.

The festival will feature a bunch of live entertainment, a tamale eating contest, tamale making classes, and a biggest tamale contest.

If you've never had a tamale, you are missing out on one of the tastiest and most convenient foods around. Tamales are little packages of warm soft masa, mixed with water and steamed in a corn husk. It can be filled with meats, vegetables, cheeses and any combination thereof. It can even be filled with fruit, and can be made in as many beautiful colors as there are colors of corn. And it's portable!

And if you've never been to Mama's Hot Tamale Cafe, you are also missing out. You may have seen Mama's work if you've ever driven by MacArthur Park on 7th St. and noticed a whole row of stands dedicated to tamales of different Latin American countries. Mama's not only is an eating destination, it's a training ground, where local residents can apprentice and learn and prepare for a career in the food service industry.

Tamales are an ancient food that have been served in the Americas for around 5,000 years across several cultures. If you're interested in food, and in Los Angeles, or hispanic culture, you could do worse than head down there and check it out.

Comments

Acme Instant Food said…

"Mama's Hot Tamales"

"Biggest Tamale Contest"

Why does everything turn dirty in my head? As I've said before, I need therapy.

3:40 PM

KT said…

I think you're totally sane. After all, I am pretty sure that "biggest [X] contests" were invented by men for reasons that are totally along the lines you are thinking.

Men are obsessed with having the biggest [X].

3:46 PM

Acme Instant Food said…

Okay--I'll spare your readers and end this now

**hanging head in shame and leaving**

3:48 PM

Unknown said…

Ooooh, I heart tamales!

4:07 PM

Jeremy said…

I'm gonna keep banging this "next big thing" drum.

Deep fried tamales.

Fusion tamales. Particualrly Indian versions sound good.

Tamales are the new wraps.

Serve it with a vanilla bean.

Sorry.

10:35 PM

LA.FOODBLOGGING: Groundworks Coffee

Our local foodblogging establishment, la.foodblogging , has seen fit to allow me to contribute. From now on most of my Los Angeles centered posts will be done there, and linked to from here, in order to avoid duplication. My first post is on my morningtime friend, Groundwork Coffee (as promised to Jeremy and my sweet Auntie). You can read it here: I'll Have the Works . Tags: LA.FOODBLOGGING

RESTAURANT: Ristorante Belvedere, Monterosso al Mare, Italy

We started off our second-to-last day in the Cinque Terre by taking the train to Vernazza for breakfast: There was supposed to be a market that day, but since the weather was threatening, there were only a few meager stalls, mostly selling non-food items. We had our breakfast and walked around the village a bit. Vernazza used to have a river flowing all the way through it, but now the river has been shunted underground at a certain point. If you walk to the top of town you can see it, along with some ducks and geese that hang out there to get fed by whoever comes along. J. and I then went to sit and have an espresso and wait for the train to Corniglia, the only town we hadn't yet visited. Corniglia is home to the local nude beach (which we skipped) and is the highest of the towns, elevation-wise. We had to walk up a buttload of steps to get there. Look at me go: That's actually me going down (a lot faster than I came up), but I did come up them as well. There is a bus that ta...

INFO: How to Dry Tomatoes

It's the end of summer and tomatoes are everywhere. Lovely round red tomatoes and multi-colored lumpy misshapen heirloom tomatoes and cute little cherry and grape tomatoes and oblong, flavorful roma tomatoes. And along with the tomatoes, tomato recipes abound. Capreses and salads and sauces and sandwiches--it seems impossible sometimes to find a dish that DOESN'T have tomatoes in some form. So what's a girl to do when tomatoes are everywhere and ... she hates tomatoes? Why, dry the tomatoes of course! Dried tomatoes are so very different than fresh tomatoes. So different as to be a different fruit altogether. And I like dried tomatoes. Dried tomatoes are sweeter and that green flavor I don't like so much seems to get baked right out, replaced by a rich warmth that is much tastier to my palate. Also the chewy, meaty texture is more pleasing to me than the weird firm-yet-squishy texture of even a tomato grown with all the tender loving care of its farmer. Generally I purc...

Gastronomy 101

Search This Blog