Meet One of Mexico City’s Best Tamale Makers
Meet One of Mexico City’s Best Tamale Makers
September 26, 2015 / 12:00 pm
By Memo Bautista
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Erik selling his tamales at a market in Mexico City. All photos by Margot Castañeda.
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A few months after working at a strip club, he lost his job, so he decided to cook tamales to make some extra cash. And as strip clubs around Mexico City started to disappear, Eric dedicated himself to his tamales as a full-time business.
“I have wasted a lot of food while trying to experiment with these,” he explains as he gives me a steamed tamale in brown paper. I take off the corn husks with one hand, and use a plastic spoon to eat the white tamal. I find creamy pieces of my favorite childhood candy. The tamal tastes a bit like essence of both milk and chocolate. “I made one with tequila, but I ruined that one like ten times in a row before I got it right. That day, I made it with sweet dough and nailed the tequila flavor.”
Everyday, he wakes up around 11 AM, a habit that has stuck with him from his strip club days.
When his customers arrive, they always ask for custom tamales. “I tell them that I can actually prepare that for them, and they look at me with a completely puzzled look,” he tells me as he opens up the steamer.
The guy that sells tacos across from Erik recently asked, “Hey, can you make me a beef suadero tamal, Oaxaca-style, wrapped in a plantain leaf?” The taco vendor gave him a little meat, and Erik began chopping onions, fried them, and put them in the tamal with a bit of cilantro and soaked it in green sauce. Erik tells me all this while making all the gestures over this imaginary tamal on his left hand. “So I took it to him, and that’s how I came out with this amazing and huge tamal that he started eating while he was selling his tacos. People started asking about the tamal, and I got a bunch of new clients out of it.”
More:
http://munchies.vice.com/articles/meet-one-of-mexico-citys-best-tamale-makers
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