One in a series
By George Potter
In summer, when the corn began ripen my mom and aunts would buy elotes, ears of ripe corn, to make tamales de elote, green corn tamales. We went to Pomerene or St. David to buy the corn in large gunny sacks. My Tia Rachel had a hand grinder and all of us cousins would have to take turns turning the crank to grind up the corn kernels which had been stripped off the cobs by the women. That is how the masa, the dough, was made. Tamale making was a long process and many were made at one time. My favorite were the green tamales de elote. They were flat and besides the masa had only cheese and green chile in them.
Of course we made red chile, meat tamales also. They were always served after midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. We would go to farms and pick green and red chiles and fill many gunny sacks for salsa and tamales.
Nolan Smith and I were two of the Protestants going to BUHS in the late 1950’s early 1960’s. We went to mid night Mass on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and since the Mass was in Latin we did not understand anything. After mid night Mass we went to all our Mexican Classmates homes to visit, eat a tamale or a bowl of menudo, drink a coke or cool aid and then move on to the next house. If you missed anyone’s home you would hear about it when school started again in the New Year. The sweet bean tamales were a favorite around Christmas time. The beef and pork tamales were always a big hit too. It was a great time to be a teenager in Benson AZ
You were honorary Catholics. Thanks for the great memories and thanks for giving me a ride to school everyday so I didn’t have to ride the bus.