Literally, this Spanish phrase means "avail the punishment," which is a little harsher than the figurative meaning: "worth the effort," which is an apt description of how I felt after spending a day making tamales with one of our colleagues, who was nice enough to invite us to participate in one of her family's Christmas traditions. It reminded me a lot of my family's tradition of making popcorn balls, where a third of the time is spent cooking, while the other two-thirds are spent socializing and eating, totally undermining the task at hand.
It was also similar in that people take on different roles in contributing to the food production. For example, as a kid, I was always put to the easier and more mindless task of popping popcorn. In Costa Rica, the assessment of my prowess was much the same: My first task was to clean off the banana leaves that make the casing for the tamales, not to be confused with the corn husks that are used for the Mexican version. As you can see, I was assisted by an equally able toddler:
The heavier lifting, literally, was left to the more experienced in the kitchen, where they made the masa, the doughy mass that binds all the fillings together. Masa is a simple recipe, mostly just corn meal and chicken stock (the preferred option over lard by the nutrionist matriarch), but the procedure requires more upper body strength than I have acquired. But they were good-natured enough to at least let me have a go of it. Once again, though, the toddler got a shot, too, and I think she bested me:
The masa-making gets even harder because after the ingredients are mixed together, they must cook on the stove, with continual stirring, a difficult prospect while standing. And as the mixture cooks, it gets thicker, requiring even more effort to stir. This is one reason men should definitely be in the kitchen:
As the masa simmered, I and most of the rest of the family were left to the less strenuous task of preparing the fillings. This included cutting peppers, beans, pork, chicken, a mixture of vegetables in a mustard-based sauce, and twine as well as putting peas, prunes, olives, and rice into serving bowls, ready for the assembly line. I was more than happy with this assignment because it afforded the possibility to drink wine in between cutting and pouring:
When all the prep work was finished, we took a break for lunch, to fortify ourselves for the upcoming ordeal. When production began, the pros were in the lead, with the mother splatting just the right amount of masa on a banana leaf, followed by one daughter on rice and mustard vegetables and another on pork and chicken:
Then Tim and I got in on the action, with him on beans and carrots and I on peas and peppers. I was followed by the granddaughter, who had fun mooshing in a date and prune for each tamale. But man, sometimes that toddler got distracted, and I had to cover her station as well as mine; I guess that's what you get from free child labor:
Last but not least, the son-in-law had just the right knack for folding the leaves around the stuffing (and I do mean stuffed). The whole assembly line shut down whenever he had to chase down the aforementioned distracted toddler. Then dad tied two tamales together with twine to create a piña, or pair:
The magic number of the day was 80: 80 pieces of carrots, 80 pieces of pepper, 80 slices of beans -- the list goes on and on, because we were shooting for 80 tamales. Once we reached our goal, it was time to relax (or in some toddler's cases, nap, or in some adults' cases, drink more) while the piñas boiled for a couple of hours:
By late dinnertime, our payoff was to be had. Normally, we'd get to take the fruits of our labor home with us, but since we were leaving the country the next day, we took our loot on site. I only had enough energy to eat one, but Tim demurely accepted double the pleasure:
The heavier lifting, literally, was left to the more experienced in the kitchen, where they made the masa, the doughy mass that binds all the fillings together. Masa is a simple recipe, mostly just corn meal and chicken stock (the preferred option over lard by the nutrionist matriarch), but the procedure requires more upper body strength than I have acquired. But they were good-natured enough to at least let me have a go of it. Once again, though, the toddler got a shot, too, and I think she bested me:
The masa-making gets even harder because after the ingredients are mixed together, they must cook on the stove, with continual stirring, a difficult prospect while standing. And as the mixture cooks, it gets thicker, requiring even more effort to stir. This is one reason men should definitely be in the kitchen:
As the masa simmered, I and most of the rest of the family were left to the less strenuous task of preparing the fillings. This included cutting peppers, beans, pork, chicken, a mixture of vegetables in a mustard-based sauce, and twine as well as putting peas, prunes, olives, and rice into serving bowls, ready for the assembly line. I was more than happy with this assignment because it afforded the possibility to drink wine in between cutting and pouring:
When all the prep work was finished, we took a break for lunch, to fortify ourselves for the upcoming ordeal. When production began, the pros were in the lead, with the mother splatting just the right amount of masa on a banana leaf, followed by one daughter on rice and mustard vegetables and another on pork and chicken:
Then Tim and I got in on the action, with him on beans and carrots and I on peas and peppers. I was followed by the granddaughter, who had fun mooshing in a date and prune for each tamale. But man, sometimes that toddler got distracted, and I had to cover her station as well as mine; I guess that's what you get from free child labor:
Last but not least, the son-in-law had just the right knack for folding the leaves around the stuffing (and I do mean stuffed). The whole assembly line shut down whenever he had to chase down the aforementioned distracted toddler. Then dad tied two tamales together with twine to create a piña, or pair:
The magic number of the day was 80: 80 pieces of carrots, 80 pieces of pepper, 80 slices of beans -- the list goes on and on, because we were shooting for 80 tamales. Once we reached our goal, it was time to relax (or in some toddler's cases, nap, or in some adults' cases, drink more) while the piñas boiled for a couple of hours:
By late dinnertime, our payoff was to be had. Normally, we'd get to take the fruits of our labor home with us, but since we were leaving the country the next day, we took our loot on site. I only had enough energy to eat one, but Tim demurely accepted double the pleasure:
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