Birthday Bash

The next Sunday was Cesar’s 6^th birthday! 

Tamales are the traditional Guatemalan meal for any special celebration, birthdays in particular.  So on Saturday, I had the opportunity to help make a huge batch!

First, the corn is boiled and drained.  It’s combined with rice, and taken to the mill to be ground, resulting in a tub of wet dough.  Dina slowly passes it through a sieve to remove any granules, leaving only a milky liquid.  

This liquid is cooked with margarine on their wood stove until it begins to thicken.

In the meantime, a “caldo,” or sauce, is made from tomato, red pepper, guaco chiles, pasa chiles, pepitas, sesame seed, pepper, cinnamon, and vanilla.

The next step is assembly.  Carmen and Rosario, the helps of Dina and Margoth, respectively, helped me out.  First, one takes two banana leaves in hand, cupping them into a bowl.  A glob of corn dough is applied first, followed by a splash of the recaldo.  Then a piece of cooked chicken is pressed into the dough—notably, all parts of the chicken except the head are used, including feet, liver, etc.   Add a few raisins, prunes, strips of red pepper, and olives, and the tamale is set to be cooked!

The inner leaf is bent down to cover the tamale, and the outer leaf is folded over to completely enclose it.  The tamales are placed in another cauldron to be steamed for an hour.

We ate the tamales almost all day, and everyone who came by was invited to enjoy one.  I have a terrible, secret confession to make:  I don’t care for them at all.  But it was a blast to make them and watch everyone else enjoy the birthday feast!

For lunch, we headed into town to meet Cesar’s cousin and aunt at Pizza Hut.  I’ve never been particularly enamored with fast food joints in the US, but here in Guatemala it’s like dying and going to heaven.  We feasted upon greasy pizza and cheesy poppers, and to top off our ecstasy, had birthday cake!  I was beyond blissful.

Afterwards, we headed to the mall to the Guatemalan equivalent of Chuck-E-Cheese.  The boys flitted between racing, soccer, and basketball games, and eagerly turned in their tickets for prizes.

Another two entertaining photos:

How would you like to play this game??

This is how the US fights drugs in Central America—video games:

It was a fantastic day—and I’m not sure who had more fun, Cesar or me!