The LA International Tamale Festival
The LA Int'l Tamale Festival on Sat, Nov 1. The Jalapeno-cheese tamale with salsa from Mama's Int'l Tamale The elote (sweet corn tamale) The sweet corn (top) and the chilean humo (bottom), undressed. The best thing about going to this festival twice (Sat Nov 1 & Sun Nov 2) in sketchy MacArthur Park area is finding out that there is an official name to my favorite sweet corn tamale. It's called " Elote ". The reason why I love Elote so much is because this is the only kind of tamale available in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where I grew up. Of course, the ones I had in Bolivia were much better, containing not only ground sweet corn, but ground hominy as well as bits of Menonite cheese to give the masa some stretch. It's the best balance of sweet and salty. In Bolivia, they just called this "tamale". They also had tamale del horno, which was a drier version wrapped in banana leaf. The other tamales were okay. I was never a fan of tamales with meat. I...