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krusty kritter
 
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>From: "Gareth Evans"

>Seriously though, whatever the original reason for the husk, it is an

intrinsic part of the dish, and adds quite a flavor. I have tried making
tamales wrapped in grease proof paper when I couln't get hold of any hojas,
but the masa lacked a whole layer of corn flavor imparted by the husk.

I will have to take your word for that, Gareth, I don't plan on chewing any
dried hojas to find out what they taste like...

Back in the late 1940's or early 1950's when Mom was making tamale pie without
corn husks, we grew our own corn and I suppose that maybe Mom and Dad might
have occasionally used the dried corn husks for something else when they were
kids in the Midwest---when they ran out of pages in the Sears catalog...

My Dad told me that he used to smoke the corn silks, out behind the barn, so I
tried that and couldn't light them. He told me that they had to be *dry*. Oh,
well...

For the longest time, the only tamales I ever ate came in a can, they were
commercially produced and individually wrapped in paper...

Then I started getting bigger tamales that were also produced commercially in
the big city. They were wrapped in plastic, inside an outer plastic wrapper...

And I remember the first time I ever saw tamales that weren't wrapped in paper
or plastic. Our Mexican neighbors made them and shared them with us at
Christmastime. I wondered what was up with that inedible vegetable material
that I couldn't cut with the side of a fork...

And, there's other parts of the corn plant that *could be used* to make
tamales...

The Navajos and the Pueblo tribes of Arizona and New Mexico have a thing about
corn *pollen* in their spiritual beliefs (they deny that it's a religion), and
they throw corn pollen around under some circumstances, like at sunrise, they
throw it in all four cardinal directions...

I wonder if anybody has ever used corn pollen or corn tassels in their tamale
recipes?

The corn tassel might be like the parsley that the fry cook puts on my plate at
Denny's restaurants when I order the $2.99 bacon and eggs and pancake special
for breakfast...

I once asked the waitress what the parsley was for, and she said that some
people would get angry if the parsley was left off their plate...

Same thing with tamales. If I should ever find a piece of corn tassel in one of
my tamales, I'll know it's there for "spiritual reasons"....

But I won't eat it...




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