‘Tis the season for tamales! Here’s some masa-filled joy to celebrate
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- A writer, an editor and readers share what tamales season means to them.
- More than 3.2 million people are expected to make their way through LAX during the holidays.
- Need a dose of sparkles and joy? 39 dazzling holiday light displays that make SoCal shine.
- And here’s today’s e-newspaper.
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year: tamale season!
Yes, you can make or buy hundreds of varieties of the beloved Latin American dish any time of year, but the masa-dough-covered delights hit different once the holidays pick up.
That this ancient and ancestral food remains such a staple across countries and continents speaks to the joy steamed into every bite and the tradition millions of families have kept alive for thousands of years.
So, in honor of the seasonal staple, I assembled some memories, tips and guides to keep the tamales flowing through the holidays, and my editor Christian Orozco has emerged from behind the scenes to share his own masa memories.
The secrets to a great tamale
My family wraps the final weeks of the year in the warm embrace of corn husks, masa and spiced pork.
My grandmother once ran the show. A steam cloud rich with chiles, garlic, onion and meats created its own weather system in our kitchen.
Now that she’s passed, my dad is head chef. I typically work support with my siblings.
For years, it was standard for abuela and dad to make roughly 150 tamales to serve our family and friends during weeks-long holiday gatherings.
The parties are scaled back these days, which is more manageable for pops.
Secret #1: Take all the time you need
For him, making tamales — passed down for generations in his Mexican family — means creating the meal for celebrating and being together.
“It takes time to make them and that’s something that people are getting away from — they’d rather buy them because of time,” he told me recently. “To us, that was part of the festivity … to come together and make tamales as a family.”
Secret #2: Don’t sleep on the masa
The sauce is important, dad says, but well-flavored masa is the key. You have to add broth from the meats being prepared — chicken broth for the chicken tamales, pork broth for the pork tamales.
Due to this year’s travel logistics, dad is prepping the meat and sauces early, but when his kids show up Christmas Eve, we’ll be put to work mixing up masa, prepping veggie offerings, assembling our tamales and loading up the pots to cook them. All pops will have to do is sit back and judge our amateur skills.
“I’m looking forward to that,” he tells me.
My editor Christian also grew up with tamales: Here’s what they mean to him
Green or red, savory or sweet, meat or cheese — it’s hard to get tired of tamales. Wrapped in husks, stuffed in ziplock bags and thrown into grocery bags, the culinary Russian nesting dolls represent more than just a holiday tradition for me, but a punctuation mark to end the year and an ellipsis to enter the new one.
Tamales are a meal that evoke my friendly ghosts of Christmas past and present. The aroma makes me think of my grandma who is no longer here to celebrate with us. The taste brings out a regional pride that leads to a cultural debate whenever I see my Salvadoran friend who claims El Salvador makes the best ones. (Sorry, bud, it’s Mexico.)
We had our annual debate last week over Korean BBQ. Our designated meat flipper played neutral third-party moderator while the two of us listed off ingredients that make Mexican and Salvadoran tamales better.
In the end, we needed the meat flipper to make the call. Mexican tamales won, again.
Readers shared their own tamale tales, which we’ve edited for clarity and brevity
“Every year, my family friends host a massive tamale party out in Whittier where they make around 1,000 tamales in a single night. Everybody pitches in. In the kitchen, the hosts wear aprons with the words ‘Tamale Party 1999’ — a sign that this tradition may predate me. It’s so popping that even the cops pull up … to eat tamales, rather than shut it down.”
— Carrington Walsh, Venice
“We have been making tamales as a family for at least thirty years. Many things during that time period have changed. We started making them with my mom back when we lived in Tustin but after our move to Michigan, we started shipping them in from SoCal for Christmas and a tamale party for our son’s Dec. 29 birthday. After a couple of years we decided to make them ourselves (with help from a Dec. 1995 article in the L.A. Times) for our annual tamales party. After moving back to California in 2016, this time to the Bay Area, we restarted the tradition of making them with our more extended family. It’s pretty noisy with five grandkids and one grand dog running around with lots of beer and wine being consumed. But it’s a tradition that is important to the whole family to maintain as it is a connection to our Mexican roots that we want to pass on to our grandchildren.”
— Sandra Mann, Fairfield
“I was raised in a real tamales house. My mother made 100 dozen tamales one year. She gave them away as gifts to neighbors and mechanics who worked on her vehicles. All of her many brothers and nephews came from Southern California to sit at her dining room table in Tucson to eat them. They were extra special because she cubed the meat rather than shredded it. This year I am making the same exact tamales — except I’m replacing lard and shortening with beef tallow.”
— Maria Borbon
Looking to get your tamale on this week? Start here
From local tortillerias to revered restaurants, here are 10 places to shop for tamale masa, compiled by our De Los team.
If you prefer to buy yours premade, check out this 2023 guide to the best tamale makers in L.A. and O.C. (please note: this list is a year old, so double-check that businesses are still open).
Read more about tamales’ history and cultural staying power from holidays past:
- From Mesoamerica to modern day, tamales have persisted as a dish for all seasons.
- Making tamales brings my family together. But can we keep the tradition going?
- In my Jamaican Mexican household, we make jerk chicken tamales.
- How hot tamales in the Mississippi Delta helped me find a piece of home.
Today’s top stories
More than 3.2 million passengers expected to travel through LAX this holiday season — still below pre-pandemic levels
- The airport expected a peak of roughly 215,000 passengers each day this past weekend, and again on Dec. 27 and Dec. 30.
- This morning, American Airlines flights were grounded for an hour due to a systemwide technical issue that impacted all U.S. routes.
Scientists say we are fighting H5N1 bird flu with one hand tied behind our backs
- When, where and how the H5N1 bird flu virus may evolve and its capacity to spark a pandemic is hard to predict — in part, some researchers say, because of federal restrictions on gain-of-function research.
- The concerns come as California researchers say just one mutation can make bird flu a threat to humans.
Why Disney’s Bob Iger is trying to avoid hot buttons
- Walt Disney Co. and Chief Executive Bob Iger have made a sharp pivot since doubling-down on diversity and inclusion efforts in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis 4½ years ago.
- Disney recently acknowledged that a transgender athlete storyline had been removed from an upcoming Pixar animated series, the latest sign that Disney wants out of the culture wars.
As Blake Lively sues “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni, collaborators take her side
- Lively sued Baldoni, alleging sexual harassment, retaliation and several other claims in a recently filed complaint. Some of her former collaborators, including America Ferrera and director Paul Feig, have spoken out in support of Lively.
- Here is a primer on the “It Ends With Us” controversy and the key figures involved in the scandal.
What else is going on
- As a cop in England, he was unarmed. Now he’s in charge of reviewing shootings by LAPD.
- A “durable” solution or flawed fix? A new California water delivery plan stirs debate.
- One man is dead and another is missing as California reels from a storm’s crushing waves.
- Here’s how the high-speed rail project trains workers and provides thousands of jobs in the Central Valley.
- Christmas could come early this year for anyone playing Tuesday’s Mega Millions jackpot worth an estimated $970 million.
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Commentary and opinions
- Here’s why California should go back to offering free college tuition, columnist George Skelton writes.
- The University of California used to be beacon of opportunity. Columnist Mary McNamara asks, What went wrong?
- Our words about the Israel-Hamas war can add to hostilities — or help on a path to peace, writes Amir Sommer, an award-winning poet and author.
- Mitt Romney’s Senate exit marks an end to the bipartisanship Washington desperately needs, writes Lanhee J. Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and the director of domestic policy studies in the public policy program at Stanford University.
This morning’s must read
Cops lie to suspects during interrogations. Should detectives stick to the truth?
California law enforcement is in the midst of a culture war, as experts inside and outside the system question a commonly used police interrogation method that they say can lead to false confessions and wrongful convictions.
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].
For your downtime
Going out
- 🎄 Need a dose of sparkles and joy? Here are several dazzling holiday light displays that make SoCal shine.
- 🎱 Meet the queer Gen Z women giving billiards a rebrand in L.A.
- 🎸 A contentious fight over one of Southern California’s most iconic music venues came to an end.
- 🎥 “The Brutalist” producers are betting on a 3.5-hour independent Adrien Brody film.
Staying in
- 📺 The “Doctor Who Christmas Special: Joy to the World” asks what is home?
- 👭 The creator of Apple TV+’s “Bad Sisters” discusses Season 2’s finale: “What if it happened again?”
- 🕵️ Mystery writers reveal their go-to books for holiday gift-giving.
- 📚 David Cronenberg is much more than a master of body horror, an author argues.
- 🥗 Here’s a recipe for the Caesar salad that came to Christmas.
- ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.
A question for you: What is your New Year’s resolution?
Barb Smith writes: “I lost my husband. This year, I will honor him by slowing down and enjoying each day with my family and friends. In the blink of an eye your life changes. It makes you realize not to take anything for granted. My pets are so special.”
Share what you hope to accomplish in 2025 and your response might appear in the newsletter this week. Email us at [email protected].
And finally ... your great photo of the day
Today’s great photo is from Stephen Blakesley of San Diego.
Stephen writes: “Many of us are fortunate to live in Spanish colonial-style apartments, with tile roofs, palm trees and bougainvillea vines. I woke up to this foggy winter solstice view outside my door.”
Show us your favorite place in California! Send us photos you have taken of spots in California that are special — natural or human-made — and tell us why they’re important to you.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Ryan Fonseca, reporter
Defne Karabatur, fellow
Andrew Campa, Sunday reporter
Hunter Clauss, multiplatform editor
Christian Orozco, assistant editor
Stephanie Chavez, deputy metro editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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