Tamales Serranos

The word tamal comes from Nahuatl tamalli, the language of the Mexica, and spread through the Spanish colonial world; but the Andes had its own indigenous corn parcel long before — the pre-Inca humita. As anthropologist Humberto Rodríguez Pastor notes, the humita is the Andean ancestor onto which the borrowed name was grafted. Peru's tamal split into regional families: the highland serrano (corn-husk-wrapped, white mote masa, beef or pork) and the coastal criollo (banana-leaf-wrapped, ají-tinted, with pork, olive and egg). The serrano line stays closer to the older highland maize tradition.

Unwrapped from its husk, a tamal serrano is dense and pale, with the coarse, toothsome grain of ground mote — heartier and less sweet than a fresh-corn humita. At its center sits a piece of pork or chicken, sometimes a sliver of egg. The masa is rich with lard, mildly seasoned, white rather than red; it is filling, warm and plain in the best highland way, brightened by a forkful of sharp onion salsa on the side.

The character of a serrano tamal comes from its corn. Mote is maize that has already been cooked — its kernels swollen and split — then dried and reground into a coarse masa, so the starch is gelatinized once before steaming. This gives a denser, more cohesive, less sweet crumb than the fresh choclo of a humita. Lard worked into the cold masa coats the starch and tenderizes the body. Wrapped tightly in a corn husk and steamed upright, the parcel rehydrates and the starch re-sets around the filling into a firm, sliceable cake.