When Guadalupe Galicia came to the United States from Puebla, Mexico, in 1996, it was with tears in her eyes. She had come with her husband to find work and had left her sons, ages 2 and 3 behind. “I cried all the way.… I left my two children, what I love most.… I was supposed to have gone out to bring popsicles, and I hadn’t returned.” Guadalupe didn’t want to leave Mexico, but she had to. There were no opportunities there for her family. When she arrived in New York, she took a job as a nanny caring for a couple’s children six days a week, often for twelve hours a day, for only $400 a month. It was her sister who came up with the idea to sell the tamales. She said, “We would make one hundred. Fifty for her and fifty for me.” Guadalupe had never made tamales before back in Mexico. Her family always bought them at the store. “I arrived when I was eighteen years old. I started cooking here. The need made me do it.”
Guadalupe’s sister didn’t last long selling the tamales. “We sold them for one month, but she didn’t like it,” Guadalupe says. It was too much work to wake up at 4:00 a.m.… I had my children brought over, and I started selling my tamales.” Her husband, the father of her sons and oldest daughter, Julie, “would drink and wasn’t responsible at all.” When he left the family, it was up to Guadalupe to provide for her children.
As a single mother of now five children, Guadalupe has faced challenge after challenge but kept her family together and provided for them with her hard work and ingenuity. “The police bother me a lot since I started in ’99. Bother me a lot, two or three tickets a week. Others wondered why I wasn’t taken away, and it was because I paid the tickets. I would go to the court. If I had the courage to go out and sell, then I could have the courage to go to the court.”
Guadalupe sells both corn husk wrapped tamales and Oaxacan-style tamales which come wrapped in plantain leaves. Her flavors include: rajas con queso (chiles and cheese), green tamales with pork, red tamales with pork, rajas con pollo (chiles with chicken), sweet pineapple, and mole. She uses the same recipes that she created when she started the business. On Saturdays and Sundays from 7:00 a.m. until around 1 p.m., you can find her selling from a shopping cart in Bushwick at the corner of Knickerbocker and DeKalb. These days her oldest son, Marcos, is selling, too. “During the week my son is selling Monday, Tuesday. We are selling four days.” Marcos graduated from high school in Bush-wick and initially found work as a waiter, but he was wasn’t making much, maybe $20 plus tips for 12 hours of work. Working for his mom made much more sense.
On the weekends, Guadalupe sells as many as 100 tamales a day. Tamales go for just $1.25 each. “I’ve only raised [the price] a quarter in the past two years,” she says. “Those who buy $20 or more, I add arroz con leche free or a tamale.” In many parts of Latin American arroz con leche is a rice pudding, but where Guadalupe is from in Mexico it’s a hot sweetened beverage made with rice and milk that’s typically served with tamales at breakfast. “There are many people who make the tamales but they don’t make them well … sometimes I have seven or eight persons waiting for my tamales, and they wait until they get them. They like my tamales.”
How good are Guadalupe’s tamales? So good that she’s had more than one person offer to buy the recipe from her, saying, “‘I’ll give you $1,000 just for one day that you teach my wife,’ but I say no that is my recipe not even if you give me $5,000. I will only give it to my children if one day they want to continue with the business.” Guadalupe’s sons don’t even know the recipe, only her daughter, Julie, does, and Julie has plans. “My daughter now wants to open a restaurant because it’s very cold on the street. It rains. She doesn’t want to see me there, but the rent with the food and bills—it’s two thousand monthly, and I have to make them. Otherwise we will be thrown out. But I told her it’s the way it has to be.’”
Guadalupe was named a Vendys finalist in 2011. In 2012, she received the Boot Strap Entrepreneur Award from Business Center for New Americans and the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. But perhaps the highest praise comes from Guadalupe’s youngest daughter, who tells her, “I want to be like you—you make tamales, you have your children, you take care of them. I want to be like you. So, first I say: Be good at school and you’ll be like me.”
“If you are not in a good mood, the tamales won’t cook.”
Adapted from Guadalupe Galicia’s recipe
You can make these tamales a vegetarian affair by substituting vegetable shortening for lard. Guadalupe always uses Maseca® brand masa harina, or corn flour, which can be found in the international aisle in many supermarkets or at Latino grocery stores. Making tamales isn’t hard, but it is a very time-consuming process and goes much more quickly with help. Get your friends together and make a party of it. The quality and size of corn husks can very greatly, so it’s best to prep two packages of corn husks, just in case.
2 (3-ounce) packages of dried corn husks (about 50 to 60 corn husks)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 (29-ounce) can black beans, undrained
2 tablespoons salt
12 ounces whole milk mozzarella cheese
2 pounds masa harina (corn flour)
8 ounces lard or vegetable shortening, cut into ½ tablespoon–sized pieces
Add the dried corn husks to a large pot and fill with enough water to cover. Add a heavy plate to submerge the husks and soak for up to 2 hours to soften the husks.
In a medium saucepan, combine the oil, cilantro, and garlic, and sauté over medium heat until garlic is translucent and oil is fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the black beans and ½ teaspoon salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until liquid has reduced by half, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer to a bowl to cool.
Cut cheese into 24 long thin, strips, approximately the width of a finger.
Mix the masa harina with the remaining salt. Use your hands to add the lard (or shortening, if you prefer), slowly adding about 3 to 4 cups of warm water mixing as you go to form a soft and only slightly sticky dough. The amount of water you’ll need can vary based on the humidity, you don’t want the dough to be too sticky or so dry that it’s hard or crumbly. Turn dough out onto a a clean and flat surface and knead until the dough is well mixed and the lard or shortening are fully incorporated. Dough should be soft, slightly moist, but it shouldn’t stick to your fingers.
Once the corn husks are softened, remove from water and pat dry with a towel. Examine your corn husks, separating the smaller or broken husks from the rest. Rip 48 long, thin, pieces, the small and broken husks set aside. These will be used as ties to seal your tamales and to line your steamer, or if you prefer you can use kitchen string or twine to close.
Divide the dough into 24 balls, slightly smaller than a tennis ball. On a flat surface lay out a large tamale husk. If your tamale husks are not wide enough to accommodate 4 inches of dough, double them up by laying one husk out narrow end facing down then lay another husk on top overlapping slightly with the narrow end facing up.
Take a ball of dough, center it on the corn husk and flatten it into a 4-inch square that’s approximately ¼-inch thick. Spread a tablespoon of black beans lengthwise down the middle of the dough strip and place the cheese next to the black beans. Use the edges of the corn husk to draw the sides together, folding the dough and closing the tamale. If your tamale dough is at all brittle or delicate you can use the structure of the corn husk to lightly press the tamale dough and smooth it out. Fold the short edges of the corn husk inward, then fold the long edges, so that the husk forms a small packet around the dough, like an envelope. Tie the long pieces of husk (or string) around the husk to seal the tamale. Repeat with the rest of the dough and husks.
In a large steaming pot, add water to just below the depth of the steamer. Line the steaming rack with leftover corn husks to protect the tamales from direct contact with the steam. Pack the corn husk packets tightly together on a steam rack above the water. Cover the pot with a lid and place over medium-high heat. Steam tamales for about 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes. When tamales are steamed completely the corn husk will release easily from the tamales. Serve immediately with Jitomate Salsa (page 213).
NOTE: Guadalupe likes to add a small piece of avocado peel in between the dough and the corn husk to give the tamales more flavor. Keep in mind that when the tamales are served, both the corn husks and the avocado peel (if used) should be removed before eating.
Adapted from Guadalupe Galicia’s recipe
This cooked tomato sauce gives pleasant brightness to the tamales but also works well in place of any traditional tomato sauce recipe with meat or pasta.
8 large red tomatoes
3 cloves garlic, peeled
½ of a medium-sized white onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
In a food processor or blender add tomatoes, garlic, onion, and cumin and salt, then blend together. In a medium saucepan, heat vegetable oil over medium heat until hot but not smoking about 1 to 2 minutes. Add tomato mixture, reduce heat to low, and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally for 40 minutes. Store covered in refrigerator for up to 2 days.
