Making Tamales

One of the families here in the mountains killed their pig a few days ago. Later the same day, Daniel, the husband, showed up at the house where Arehmi & I are staying to give us some chicharrones - fried pig skin - and to tell us that Loretta, his wife, was inviting us and Machelle Bender to help make tamales the next day. So, the next day we walked down the trail to her house and made tamales with her and her mother & sisters who had come from other villages to help.

One of the first things to do is get out the corn husks saved from the last harvest & wash them. Lydia Bender is "helping" Arehmi get that done!

The corn sits in water and cal for a while to get the shell off each kernel. Then, the kernels are ground up by hand. The grandma out-grinded everyone! That grinder is hard work!
Then the ground corn is mixed with pig fat a few ground up chilies, some salt, and hot broth. You mix that up into a dough. I did that! (Pig fat is good moisterizer. My hands and arms felt great afterwards!)
Then what takes the longest is filling the husks with about a fistful of dough.

We had to change locations several times to follow the shade!
Then the corn husk is folded up and tied with strips of other husks. Here I am trying to figure it out!
These are just a few of the tamales that we made.

Then the made tamales get dropped into boiling water and they cook until they are done.

Then someone with heat resistant fingers fishes the tamales out of the pot.

Now they're ready to eat. Yum, yum.