The Terran carbon-based unit designating itself as "Charles Gifford"
> shared its ideas in alt.food.mexican-cooking
on Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:10:12 GMT:

>
> "Wayne Lundberg" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "fishman99" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > any good, I mean good recipes for green chili and cheese
>> tamales. --snip---
>>
>> If you are serving people who know even a little bit about the
>> Mexican
> food
>> culture, you will do well to forget the cheese tamales and focus on
>> one third of your cooking to be pork with green chile, one third
>> chicken with red chile sauce and one third sweet tamales.
>>
>> Wayne
>
> Well Wayne, not being Mexican I guess I'm covered. I love cheese and
> green chile tamales. I don't make them but there is a good place to
> purchase them not too far from me. Haven't had any for a while. I'd
> better make a visit and get some. Odd though that a Mexican grocery
> and butcher would make and sell such a non-Mexican item. Hmmm.
>
It isn't so much that it is non-mexican. It's just that cheese is
not a particularly common item in tamales. However, since Americans
love cheese, it makes sense that someone doing business in America would
add cheese to different items to appeal to a wider audience. You can
see this in many dishes such as enchiladas, which in the US are almost
always served with cheese, and in Mexico, very rarely, if ever.

--Douglas