I’ve only had ground beef, shredded beef & shredded chicken, and the shredded beef one is my favorite so far, but pork will probably be my favorite once I get a chance to try it.
When I ate my first tamale I didn't know the corn husk wrapper had to be removed. The little grandma at the food truck stared at me in shocked horror like I had lost my mind.
President Ford made that same mistake on the campaign trail in San Antonio in 1976, and it was likely part of the reason he lost his "re-election" bid to Jimmy Carter. The More You Know!
Dude I worked landscaping for like 5 years and there was this big ole Mexican man we called “Chiles” long story short I had a very similar first experience with tamales lol
I have a container of 'Xioc,' a dark, unsweetened, heavily peppered chocolate beverage powder. It's mixed into hot water, no dairy, and is *SPICY.* I'm going through it rather slowly, because despite liking hot spices, this is a bit much even for me. Dunno if it's historically accurate, but it's VERY different from the traditional western hot chocolate!
Im an archaeologyst from México and I really love your aproach to tamales. We have archaeologycal records in iconography and micro remanentes of the ingredients that survived in the rock or ceramic. And even we have récord of the process and production of this foods. In Dresde Codex theres a lot of iconographic information. OMG this is so exciting.
@@asamvav being clear about the recipes. As mr. Miller said theres no recipes from mesoamerican prehispanic food but with archaeologycal and historical récord the investigadores can make an aproach on the ingredients and process. The mesoweb, academia.edu and famsi browsers. Dmitri Beliaiev Michael D. Coe Lilia Fernández Karl Taube Erick Boot Nikolai Grube Im a mayanist so im not specialized familiar to central México cultures but with etnohistorical referentes you can make a good investigation. Sahagún as mr. Miller said its a great point of reference because tenochtitlan was a postclasic and contact culture so they had the information on first hand
"She is often seen as a traitor to her own people and is one of the most villainized people in Latin culture, just after Yolanda Saldívar" bless you magic cooking man 😭 💕
My grandmother's tamales are amazing. They are essentially familial currency. We bribe, steal, and horde them. Laughing at family members as they cry, begging for a handout.
I miss the ladies selling Tamales from the trunk of their car. Each would be at a different grocery parking lot on a certain day of the week. My favorite was Tuesdays for Antonia's pork ones. She always brought the fruit ones in blue masa at Christmas, but only for her best customers and I always gave her a live duck or two as a thank you.
I wish people still exchanged things like that. My grandad got a live duck for building an enclosure for them when my mum was little. He couldn't bring himself to kill it so he gave it to my mum for a pet and she had him for 9 years.
@@violetskies14 those kind of exchanges are the best. Between my friends and their families and I, we exchange the fruits we grow on our properties that would otherwise go to waste due to the large quantities in for fruits or something else from the other person. I made my friend's grandmother a tiny jar of fig jam and got over forty pounds of pears in return. I canned those and I'm still eating on them today
I have never been more happy to see a grown man laugh manically while threatening violence and drinking chocolate out of a Pikachu mug... brings back so many Christmas memories.
My Abuela made great chicken tamales I always asked her for the recipe, she always said “not until I am 20”, I’m 23 and now she says “not until your married”
Try this, help her make them one day. Cook them with her and you will get all the tips. You could also try this: Look up a few recipes, try things out, and make some to give to her. Ask her if they are good, and she might give you some tips or show you how to make them.
Wow that surprised me, we had to start learning the family recipes at the age of 10 along side grandma and grandpa (she was the most patient adult) so that by the age of 12 we could make a whole meal if we ever needed to. Now my mom is 93 years old and doesn’t cook because of arthritis so my dad does the cooking while she does the meal planning and instruction and tasting. She’s the Queen at our Tamaladas and she’s taught her great-grandkids how to cook boys and girls alike. So glad she’s still with us and still sharing ALL! the family secrets 😂 . Her famous line that everyone quotes “if you don’t want anyone to know then don’t tell me” “I don’t want to have to remember what I can and what I can’t say” ❤
For real though, I love some of those moments in history. Even if the actual person was good or bad (I don't know unfortunately and know if I look him up I will get sucked into a 12-hour rabbithole of awesome history) but those incredibly witty and savage lines are always amazing. The Spartans might be famous for their "spartanisms", but they definitely did not invent witty insults and there are plenty of them everywhere!
I’m from rural, coal mining Pennsylvania. This was my first experience with tamales: In the Navy, 18 years old, stationed in Orlando for training. Two older guys, both from Texas, both recently married, invited me and my future best friend over for Christmas dinner. Both of their wives were of recent Mexican ancestry. (One of the guys was too.). They made tamales, first time by themselves without their mothers. They were embarrassed because the tamales weren’t pretty. But I remember… they were delicious. And to this day, when I see tamales on a menu, I think “Oh, this place is good.”
Heh, funny. Im of Mexican descent but didn't get the benefit of any cooking instruction from that side of the family. I make them now and I feel the same as those girls, mine are never pretty but always delicious!
History of chocolate, yes! When teaching kids how to do a research paper, I was advised to have them research "how to make chocolate." It always worked well.
@@voiceineheadphones I would be the happiest person among us if someone brought let it be full of incorrect issues of pronunciation and spelling even 1 percent of mr. Miller interest to mesoamerican culture to my native language and culture. That never happens :(
My parents were mexican and, as a ~7 year old little pocho (what the paisas call us mex american kids), I tried ordering a “tamale” at our favorite Mexican restaurant {Casa Jimenez in Ontario, California - can’t give it enough props}. I learned two things that day: 1) the singular form is “tamal” not tamale and 2) my parents were happy to laugh at me along with literally every other adult in the building as if my ignorance wasn’t a reflection of their teaching. Tl;dr it’s tamal not tamale. Love the video, this isn’t some pedantry from a random RU-vid comment… it’s just all I think of when I hear the word “tamale”.
since your parents are paisas you should call yourself paisa american not mexican american. pochos are paisas american. and tamales are paisa food.atually mexican restaurants should be call paisa food.
Tamales here in the Philippines are made with rice flour and coconut milk, topped with a peanut sauce, shredded chicken, and sliced egg. It's wrapped in banana leaves instead of corn husks. As a kid, when I'd see Mexican tamales on TV, I always wondered what they tasted like! To this day I have yet to try them... It's on my bucket list.
Hope you get to try them one day they're amazing. Really want to try the Philippine tamales now. I've never heard of them made that way and they sound really good.
Suddenly all my family's weird Tamales traditions make sense. Eat away from the table, watch everyone else, and if they steal one from you, fight them and win.
As a child, I thought I was so cool because I was helping the grown-ups. Now at almost 40, I duck out of the room the moment I see the steam basket or crock pot come out!
Hahahaha so true! On my last visit to Guatemala, I asked one of my aunts if she could teach me how to make proper Guatemalan tamales. What a, um, humbling experience. It’s a marathon of strength and endurance. (The thing that makes them much more exhausting than Mexican tamales is that Guatemalan ones are made not with raw corn dough, but with a cooked corn porridge. This makes the finished tamales much juicier. But stirring the porridge - which you cannot take breaks from because it will burn if you stop - requires strength and endurance. It starts thin and runny, but gets stiffer and stiffer as you go. So as your arms tire, it gets harder and harder to stir.) Then while the cooked dough cools, you can get to work on the sauce…
My Mother who died would have loved this programme! It is witty and insightful! This is educational tasteful and well done research in one go ! I applaude you !! You are great ! Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱
This has got me, bro. Seeing native cuisine from around the world, in its oldest form, is fucking amazing! Pointing out natural and historical ways to get those ingredients that leave you shaking your head, does it for the survivalist in me too. Keep up the stellar work!
@@tenebris9994 Nonauatlahtol ka amokuali. Is that right? Sadly, I grew up in US and poor. Learning has been a problem. There’s a lot of access to old religious knowledge, translated, when I felt the gods call me. So in that way I’ve been blessed.
Me to myself after surviving a mental breakdown: "I'm actually kind of surprised at how well it's holding together. I really thought that this was going to absolutely fall apart."
Regarding lard: my understanding is that turkey tails have a significant amount of fat in them, and are big in today's export markets. They may have supplied the necessary fat.
These would have been wild turkeys, which can still be hunted. If they kept turkeys penned up, they still wouldn’t be the fat breasted and tailed that we generally eat now. I would suspect there wasn’t much fat on those birds to add to tamal ingredients.
@@reginaromsey They would definitely be smaller than the modern variety but their fat content shouldn't be that much lower. Turkeys aren't particularly lean birds.
This is great programming: educational, calming and entertaining. I can tell great effort is put into these videos. I could see this being on KCET, food network, PBS, etc, as well.
Yes, please! There's distressingly little First Nation and Inuit material available, and it would be great to add your accessible and diligent style to the mix.
Our tamales are a pork/beef mixture with olives and they are so so good. Grandma's recipe. It took us from noon to almost midnight to make a batch of 80ish but we love freezing bags of 10 and giving them to loved ones. It's a really fun bonding experience usually on Christmas Eve. Hoping you're having a wonderful holiday season!
Olives were in all the ones I remember from childhood. Someone once used unpitted olives and I was afraid of tamales for awhile after. Just curious, are you from California? I am wondering if olives are a regional thing.
i learned the other day that many native peoples throughout central and southwest north america kept flocks of turkeys not just for the meat, but also the feathers - apparently turkeys regrow their chest feathers when plucked, unlike other birds who bleed to death if plucked, so they can be used kind of like other cultures use sheep for wool.
@@TastingHistory yes there's a really interesting video from Mary Weahkee where she makes a turkey feather blanket, and she talks a little about native turkey feather farming! it's worth a watch: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6L4qRn3RIDc.html
12:00 "They said: "What shall we do, we who are *ill-fated* ...😖? Evilly hath the feast day come! To *what vain end* is *our ill fortune* 😖💰? Unhappy are *our little ones* ...😔!"
@@primerprime596 Yolanda Saldivar was a close friend and business associate of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (popularly known simply as Selena). Saldivar murdered Selena, and is still in jail for it. Selena was already very popular, and became utterly legendary after her death (they sell Selena-themed cups at a gas station chain here; she was murdered 26 years ago). Texans especially love her, and you still hear her music played a lot at weddings and such (from both Tejanos and Anglos).
The tamales you made really remind me of zacahuiles!! Zacahuiles are a local type of tamal you can find in the area in Mexico called "La Huasteca Potosina". Rather than masa, zacahuiles are made with grilled corn, and it's a GIANT tamal broken down to pieces to give individual servings. They are absolutely delicious.
In Chile we made something similar, it's called "humita". It's just corn, onion, and basil, but the process is a little bit different. We eat them with tomato or sugar jajajaja
That hydroxide soak is creating "homminy", a thing done by Native American tribes all along the southern and south-eastern US. The Iroquois Nations made it also.
My father always said that you need three generations in the kitchen for tamale making. Abuela, her children and her children's kids. Which makes sense, making the large batches are a labour intensive form of love.
True. Many things were destroyed by the Spanish en masse; they actually had a huge burning of Mayan texts which guts me as much as the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
@@AstarionWifey Not all humans, just some humans. After all, there are some quite wonderful people in the world, like the charming host of this channel for example and I am quite sure he's human... or possibly a tiny alien gourmand, piloting a mechanical Max Miller suit but...
One of my childhood memories was helping my uncle at my grandmas house in Mexico, to grind some corn for making masa. Did it by hand! Or by foot, I should say, as you had to walk in circles to push a wooden plank that spun the grinder.
Max, I freaking LOVE your show... it's steady giving me ideas to surprise my family with a history lesson with dinner... I'm so glad you have switched to videos full time, your content is AMAZING!!!
Him: “My fiancé...” Men and women everywhere: *My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.* Seriously tho, congrats! 🥳 ❤️ EDIT: Corrected “fiancé” 😊
@@KetchupwithMaxandJose I didn't mean to rush you guys ;) I just thought that you were already engaged when the channel started. Congratulations btw :)
I miss when we would make tamales. We had an assembly line of family filling, wrapping, filling, wrapping etc. And would make so many that we needed a (clean) paint bucket, and a gigantic paint mixer for the masa/lard.
Awww, I loved that book growing up! At the time I had no idea what a tamale actually tasted like, so when I finally got to try one I was very surprised they didn't taste like McDonalds hashbrowns which is how my 7 yr old brain had decided they would taste. Now they're one of my favorite meals.
Moving to a foreign country, I had to take on the task of providing homeschooling for my son. Making sure that his education enticed and stimulated him was a real task on my part. I so wish that I had known of your YT channel back then. It would have been perfect for his history education, as well as cooking experiences, which he has a propendency for being a great chef in profession. Thank you so much for the efforts that you put forth in your channel!! Regardless of the loss in using them for my educational purposes with my son, I still love your videos. I, myself, am getting a history education, along with trying out cooking techniques of times past. It's glorious!!
"as for the fillings, again not very traditional" idk man, i'd say you cant get any more traditional than using what the people from hundreds if not thousands of years ago would use for the fillings
well, when it offendes what people have in mind as traditional . . . In europe many "traditional" dishes rely on ingredients that where only somewhat "recently" imported, it is insane to think about. Old pizza recipes would be seen as a crime by neapolitanian pizza standarts of today, lots of traditionaly chinese dishes rely on japanese ingredients and the other way around . . .given the timeframe the differences between old and traditional can be imense
@@SingingSealRiana There is some evidence that Pad Thai is not a traditional Thai dish at all and was made in the 1930's. For one thing is it's full name Kway Teow Pad Thai translates to Thai Style Stir-fried Noodles and Kway Teow is Chinese for Rice Noodles which came from China and is not a traditional Thai food itself.
@@WintersMinion as far as I know Pad Thai is a dish invented by the state of Thailand to encapsulate the Thai Palette while also catering to tourists. Basically edible propaganda.
It doesn't matter what you prefer when you are recreating history. I respect and enjoy the fact the length you have gone to be as accurate as possible.
"...just after Yolanda Saldivar" I am DEAD!!! lol I vote a resounding YES to the Mexican chocolate episode, and as always I am truly impressed by your attention to pronunciations of foreign words. Just another reason to adore your channel!!
Yes, I remember a rather obscure show about a scientist who goes broke and finds out he's dying, and to support his family he begins makes tamales, being drawn ever deeper into a "maize" of darkness. Think the show was called "Grinding Bad."
As a South TX boi, tamales and Xmas just go together. Nothing beats fresh tamales in cold weather. Pork (shoulder), or cheese & jalapenos were always my favorite. Very cool to see the ancient version be so close to the ones I still enjoy today.
My hubby just ordered your cook book for me...I'm so excited to experiment with these different dishes...so out of our norm. Love your video format and content Max!! 🖤🖤🖤
We have similar food in Java, Indonesia, called lepet/lepeut. They are made of mashed corn, shredded coconut, and sugar, wrapped in corn husks, and steamed. It looks so much like the ones in the picture 😊
Came here early in hopes you'd see this, I'm so glad you've blown up dude and you're so wholesome! Thank you for putting consistently great content out!
Something you will thank me for. Once I was making chocolate ice cream and realized I didn't have any chocolate so I used abuelita bars. It's amazing, I just ground it up and the little bits of chocolate and sugar were just spread throughout.
Aqui no Brasil tem a famosa pamonha, que é o cozido do milho, doce ou salgado, e é bem parecido com essa, porém aprendemos com os antepassados. E com um bom café é excelente.
I love that you dive into different cultures and teach me things I didn't even know about my own. You are the only channel I have actually felt the need to show to other people I asked my friends to check you out even though I never do that and they seemed to love you too keep up the great work man
My Hispanic wife had to leave the room when you said you were making turkey tamales. It is a running joke in the house after I joked that we should make turkey tamales after Thanksgiving a couple of years ago.
@Alexander R history has a long span, my dude. Whenever speaking ‘historically’ we must specify when. And these are not someone’s grandma’s traditional ingredientes.
@Vincent Benoit: I’m of Mexican descent and the thought of turkey tamales makes me ill. My thought is of turkey tamales were so delish, they’d still be made. To my knowledge my family hasn’t ever put turkey in tamales, at least not in the last 100 years. If there isn’t pork or beef, we’ll put in beans, cheese, corn, and/or potatoes. i feel for your wife!!!
@@Anwelei I've made chicken tamales plenty of times and I thought they came out well. I can see why they're shunned though. The poultry will inevitably be overcooked.
