Zacahuil: One Really Big, Big Tamale
The clay oven was fired to a really hot temperature and the wood allowed to burn down. Then more wood was added until a bed of coals about an inch thick covered the bottom of the oven…this took about three hours.
While we waited, we cooked six kilos of pork meat and bones in a large pot and set it aside to cool. Later the meat and bones were taken out and the broth was left. Then we toasted a kilo of dried ‘chile seco’ afterwards adding some of the broth to make a chile paste. The paste was then added to the meat and bones to make a thick soupy goo…to the paste was added ground garlic, salt and onions.
Several dozen long banana leaves were laid out on a table and a long piece of plastic laid over that. Then another layer of banana leaves. This made a bed for the masa that was two meters or six feet long.
The broth was added to the masa dough until it was liquid. Some like their zacahuil soupy or runny; I tend to like it firm. Next the meat and chile goo was added and thoroughly mixed with the masa. It looked like some sort of paint mix with swirls; the masa mixed until it was all one color. More banana leaves were added until all the masa was covered. Strips of henequen and wire were used to tie the whole big tamale up…great care was taken to make sure none of the masa was exposed or would run out.
In a bucket near the oven some light brown clay was mixed with water to form a runny type of clay paste. The fire was ready and we were ready to put it in.
The large tamale was placed on a metal strip about six feet long. Then the sacahuil tamale was placed in the oven. Very quickly metal strips were placed over both the oven door and the air vent; this has to be done very quickly or the sacahuil will burn. Once the door and vent were sealed, it was time to take a break. The oven was hot and the clay mud steamed until it dried, but no air got in or out.
And there the sacahuil stayed for 16 hours. It steams and bakes and does not burn, if one seals the oven quickly enough. It would have been possible to add several more of these giant tamales to the oven and that is exactly what the commercial vendors do; firewood or lena is expensive so they make as much as they can get in their ovens.
We then took a drive to Poza Rica to get Angelica’s voter credential like we were told to do. It took almost three hours waiting in line and to her disappointment the credential was not ready as promised. Some things have not changed in Mexico… The employees were gruff and checked on their computers but did not know if the credential had been sent or when it would arrive. There was nothing Angelica could do except come back another day or week or month and wait in line again. When she explained she had to go back to the U.S. they said too bad because she had to return back to Poza Rica to get and could not get it any other place including the Mexican Consulate in San Jose, California.
Later we spoke with others that said they had to wait up to six months to get their credential. We certainly didn’t have six months to wait and poor Angelica was very disappointed…it did not make sense. If democracy depends on citizen participation, why does it take six months to get a voter registration card? Something certainly did not seem right and I had my suspicions but I kept them to myself…no need to make poor Angelica more frustrated then she already was.
Later on I kept thinking about it and how the parties are split across socioeconomic lines and was wondering if some really sharp political advisors could figure out a way to make it so frustrating that certain groups would simply get too frustrated and not vote. I would like to think that were not the case but it certainly seemed that way…if not, why would it take six months to get a simple voter card?
In this case, the government of change did not complete its promise. The government of change must know that six months is not acceptable for a free people…Mexico is not Cuba. The transparency that has been promised is not fully transparent, though it tries to give that impression. Such is progress. One can only hope the problem gets fixed so that the process is less complicated and more open…progress sometimes goes sideways.
Not only that, the lines were so long because the last date to register was approaching, a full six months away from the election. I’m not sure if this has always been the case or was it just for this election…it doesn’t matter. Millions of Mexicans won’t vote because they got frustrated or didn’t register in time. Such is politics and the slow march toward democracy. One can complain but one has no recourse…
We stop at the market in a small town called Tihuatlan and I’m surprised at how many young men are chatting idly on the streets. It’s the first of the year so maybe they are still on vacation. Or maybe they are waiting until March when construction and agricultural jobs pick up in Texas, California and Alabama.
I ask one young man about the local job situation and he laughs. My father sold tacos at the bus station and that was my family’s only income, he says, is that what you would call a job? If so, yes, there are jobs. I can’t do that and won’t do that and I’ll do whatever it takes to get back to Louisiana for the farm season, he smiles. I believe him…I’m not sure a career selling tacos at the bus station holds much promise for anyone…
We drove back to the farm and could smell the sacahuil and wanted some right then, but had to wait until the next day – a metaphor for voting, ha! Hurry up and be patient…sacahuil like democracy takes its own sweet time…
It’s not that tainted politics doesn’t play a role in the U.S….we see some sort of complaints in every national election…polls closing early, bad ballots or something like that. It’s human nature and a fact of life and the reason politics often keeps back the march of human progress…hopefully in the coming decades politics will start to catch up to social evolution. It’s certainly not a fast process or an easy one.
If not, politics and governments will become even more alienated from the citizens they supposedly serve…
Jack D. Deal
