Eating Your Way Through the Holidays

Holidays in the Southwest

Every region has its own traditions, whether it is over the river and through to woods to grandma’s house in the one horse open sleigh, or in our more temperate weather cocktails amongst the cactus.  I foreswore snow after leaving Germany, though was lured to New Mexico – the part of NM I was in, though considered part of the Southwest, has snow.  Anyway, now safe at lower altitudes on the verge of the great Sonoran desert snow is something mothers use to frighten their children into behaving, as in “When I was bad my mother would leave me out on the snow for the wolves.”

The lack of snow is great, but another SW tradition is even better – Tamales.  Many Southwestern families get together in the kitchen and make tamales as part of the holiday festivities. The Christmas tamales generally have a piece of black olive in them.  While a Yankee I craved cheeseburgers, which accounts for my lithe physique, but now that I have adopted the SW my tastes have changed and I have become a tamale addict.  Mrs. Phos shocked me to my very core the other day when she told me she didn’t like tamales.  That may well be a big a sin as adding beans to chili in Texas. I still shudder at the words.  Pork, chicken or beef with green peppers wrapped in a masa cocoon and steamed in a corn husk – what’s not to like about that?  Hell they don’t even need sauce, though I wouldn’t refuse a tamale with a nice red chili sauce over the top.

You can have too many tamales, but they freeze well so no worries. I was really fortunate in that some friends  of my wife and I observe the tradition and also know that I never met a tamale I didn’t like. So I have had plenty of tamales to help me through the holidays. I would trade tamales for snow any day!