Very Non-Mexican Tamales

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Joan Getzfried, and I’m calling from Valley, Nebraska.

And I’m calling about a dish that has been served in my family for generations.

And it is called hot tamales.

Now, my grandma made it.

My dad’s grandma made it.

And as it turns out, these are not tamales.

Were Germans from Russia, and these are actually cabbage rolls.

They’re hamburger, bacon, and rice cooked and wrapped in a leaf of cabbage and then baked in tomato juice.

And the reason I’m calling is I cannot find anyone in my family who knows why are they called hot tamales.

And my dad and them are around from Albion, Nebraska in Boone County.

So I was wondering, have you ever heard of such a thing?

So what we’re talking about here is a food dish that is called the same thing as the Latin American tamale, but it’s not much like it.

Not at all.

Well, it is a little bit.

Because the Latin American tamale, which, by the way, is probably originally from Mesoamerica, this is contents, including meats and vegetables and other things, wrapped in corn husks or banana or plantain leaves.

Just like the dish your grandmother’s made is also wrapped in leaves.

It’s just cabbage leaves and not plantain or banana or corn husk.

And so the concept is generally still there about using a plant to hold all these fillings.

And then are they steamed or baked, or how are they cooked?

They’re baked.

Now you soften the cabbage ahead of time by steaming it, and then you cook the meat and rice ahead of time, and then you roll the meat and rice into the softened cabbage leaf, and then you put all the tamales in a baking pan and bake it in tomato juice for two hours.

Yeah, and the tomato sauce is also another one of those things.

It’s like the dish vaguely echoes tamales from the Latin American world, but it’s kind of distant from it.

And so there’s this thing that happened with tamales and some other Mexican food where people heard of them in the history of tamales in the English-speaking world, but before they encountered them.

So they had them described to them or saw recipes, but didn’t know exactly what they were.

And so people have done their own versions.

It’s been a long time, but at one point we talked about tamales or hot tamales in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and thereabouts, which are basically sloppy joe sandwiches.

And it’s the same idea.

It’s a little bit of spice, you know, about as much spice as a Midwesterner can take typically.

A little bit of spicy meat on a bun.

And so again and again, you’ll see this where food is not the original.

It’s people’s own modifications.

Oh, -huh.

So I think that’s what’s happened here.

So, I mean, if you were to generally describe the dish your grandmother’s made, it’s fillings wrapped in a leaf.

If we were to generally describe Latin American tamales, it’s fillings wrapped in a leaf or a husk.

Okay.

And the red sauce that’s with the tomatoes is kind of a thing that’s also common in those Central American dishes.

Okay, so you believe Central America influenced the phrase of our Germans from Russia.

Okay.

You’ve got to know that tamales have been known in the English-speaking world for almost 200 years.

Okay.

So it’s not that new.

Okay.

I kind of thought they might have brought it from over there.

Well, I suspect they brought the dish, but then it took a new name.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, probably a different name to start out with.

It’s not all that uncommon for a kind of plainer fare, you know, ordinary fare, to take on a new name if someone just wants to make it seem something special or new or significant.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, that’s interesting.

I grew up with them, and then when I found out what real tamales are, I was quite confused.

Well, now you have two very delicious things that are called tamales that you can eat.

Okay.

Right?

Right.

And I used the same recipe my great-grandmother used.

Your great-grandmother, even further back than I was thinking.

That’s very cool.

Well, I hope we helped a little bit here, Joan.

Thank you so much for your call.

All right.

Yeah, it helped.

Thank you for answering my question.

All right. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.