On Feb 5, 7:50*pm, Sqwertz > wrote:

> That's not a tamale.

Sure it is. It's a tamal de olla or tamal de cazuela.

Don't confuse the cooking method with the ingredients, which taste
exactly the same, regardless of whether they are cooked in a corn
husk, a banana leaf, casserole, or pot.

In Yucatan, they make a tamal gigante which is so large it could never
be cooked in a single corn husk, so they use multiple banana leaves
and steam it in hole in the ground which is called a "pib."

But it's not necessary to use natural leaves at all, a tamal gigante
could be steamed in a plastic bag.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamal_de_olla

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamale

> Even if you don't sell them in parking lots but
> rather eat them at home with your family - like 95% of all the other
> tamales made by humans.

Among assimilated Mexicans, tamales have acquired the same status as
Christmas fruitcake, according to a journalist who writes a column for
the Orange County Register called "Ask a Mexican."

He says that Mexicans make more tamales than they would ever want to
eat at Christmas time and then they try to give them to other members
of the family who really don't want them.

And I get approached by Mexican women in supermarket parking lots
every year when there's a bad freeze that prevents the citrus harvest
along the western slopes of the Sierras.

The women will try to make extra money by selling corn husk wrapped
tamales.

I always tell them that I make my own.