Spreading the tradition
Tamale Sale
Friday, Nov. 21, 4-7 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 22, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
Parish Hall, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church
Dine-in or take-out
Tamales $8 for a half dozen
Flautas or quesadilla plates $5
For more information, contact Brenda Bullock at 803-5421 orhispanicministry@sfxbirmingham.com.
Brenda Bullock’s grocery list will be extra long this month. She’ll need at least 160 pounds of pork and 160 pounds of chicken, along with multiple large sacks of cornmeal.
That’s what it took to make 2,500 tamales last year for St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church’s tamale sale the weekend before Thanksgiving. This year they are planning to make as many or more to benefit the Hispanic ministries of the church.
The sale began within the church four years ago but later expanded to other Catholic parishes and the community at large. Last year, yard signs drew in new people and organizers extended a special invitation to the staff at Trinity Medical Center across the street and the fire department just down the road in Crestline.
“I had no idea it would evolve into this,” Bullock said. “It’s a fun way we can learn about our community and meet people from different places.”
Tamale varieties include pork, chicken and cheese, and this year they are adding a beef version. The pork is always the most popular, Bullock said, and by request, they make sure to put plenty of meat in them.
Tres leches cake and flan are also on sale, as well as quesadillas and flautas. Tamales come with a side of mole sauce, red salsa or green salsa to serve on top.
Some people who buy the tamales freeze them to pull out after Thanksgiving or for other occasions. Bullock said the average person eats about three tamales for a meal.
Preparations for the tamales start in the St. Francis Xavier kitchen at 5 a.m. on the Wednesday before the sale to ensure the tamales are fresh to order on Friday and Saturday. Bullock said they wouldn’t want to have to freeze them first.
A group of about 10 ladies, originally from Mexico, who grew up making tamales bring their skills to St. Francis Xavier’s kitchen. Each of their mothers taught them a slightly different way but for the sake of the sale, Bullock appointed one woman to take charge. Her recipe, Bullock said, is not too spicy yet not too simple. In fact, it was her red sauce that made Bullock like the red flavor for the first time.
The process begins with meat seasoned with salt, onion and garlic, which they then shred. Next, they peel and seed green and red peppers from the Alabama Farmers Market on Finley Avenue. Those peppers go under the broiler and then in a blender to create salsas. The red salsa goes in the pork tamales, and the green goes in the chicken.
To create its casing, cornmeal is mixed with the right proportion of oil and water, and then the outer cornhusks are cleaned and soaked in water to make them soft enough to fold.
One part meal and one part salsa goes inside, and then the final product is cooked in a watertight double boiler until the lid moves to make way for steam to emit. Now in their fourth year, the women have learned how to avoid overfilling the pot with tamales, which would slow the cooking.
“It’s a long process,” Bullock said. “Some would rather buy them than make at home.”
The sale started, and still acts, as a fundraiser for St. Francis Xavier’s Hispanic ministries.
For the nine days leading up to Christmas, church members participate in the tradition of Las Posadas, knocking on doors of people they know to ask for a place to stay, just as Mary and Joseph did in Bethlehem in the Biblical account. Another day of festivities features a party for kids where they all receive gifts.
On Dec. 12, their Our Lady of Guadalupe celebration marks the day Mary appeared dressed as an Aztec princess in Mexico before a man named Juan Diego, which inspired the start of a movement of Mexican conversion to Christianity. As a part of the day, a parade processes from the Irondale Walmart to the church with dancers, drummers and costuming. A reception then follows the 12:30 p.m. mass, held 30 minutes earlier than the Hispanic mass at the church is regularly scheduled.
St. Francis Xavier was the first Catholic church in the area to offer a Hispanic mass back in 1988, and today people drive from all over Birmingham to attend mass there, many because it was the church where they grew up.
Today, they have extra motivation to come out to the church on a Friday and Saturday in November too, and to bring friends, for a taste that reminds them of their mothers’ kitchens.