Chasing Sunrise

Sixteen

Matt set down a plastic washtub full of water and cornhusks in front of me and the guys at the end of the table finally put down the heavy pots. The whole table and bench tilted slightly under their weight.

"Okay," said Pedro, reaching into the tub between us on the table and taking out a cornhusk. "I'm going to cut the strips we use to tie the tamales. Liana, you want to take one cornhusk at a time and put filling in it?"

Noah handed me a plastic plate while Pedro pulled the tub over so that there was space for me to put it down on the table. Amy also got a plastic plate.

"Take one cornhusk," he said, "and lay it on the plate."

Someone, I didn't see who, set a bowl full of steaming corn mush next to me, and another bowl of what looked like a chile stew. The two smells together made my stomach rumble, even though lunch had been less than an hour ago.

More people were crowding around the table, ready for this whole production to begin.

I took a cornhusk and shook off the excess water, then set it down on the plate.

"So I usually take one spoonful of the cornmeal mix and spread it out on the cornhusk, and half a spoon of the chile in the middle." Pedro demonstrated

I did my best to follow his lead, then passed the cornhusk and filling to a woman who I assumed was Amy's mom, seated next to me. She had Amy's same smile and cocked her head the same way when she was concentrating.

Pedro handed her a little strip of cornhusk and she deftly folded the tamale shut and tied it off, then passed it to Gina, who put it in a casserole dish.

Amy began filling cornhusks like a machine and her mom was folding them even faster.

I had to up my game.

The water was slightly warm when I dipped a hand in, but the air was so dry and wicked the water off so fast that I found my fingers trembling slightly from the cold. This slowed me down, so I decided it was better to do it right than to do it fast. No matter how copious the fillings were, I didn't dare waste any.

"You guys using the oven or the horno?" asked an older man who came around the side of the house, walking stiffly as if his hips ached. His graying hair was pulled into a tight braid down the middle of his back.

"El horno!" said Amy, as if that alone was reason for a party.

Everyone else had their heads down, working. "What's an horno?" I asked Pedro.

"Outdoor oven," he said. "An old-fashioned kind that's made out of adobe."

"Oh."

"I'll show you once we're done here," said Amy. "It's kind of an adobe dome and you heat it up by burning a fire inside, then you pull out all the ash and it stays hot for hours. Long enough to do loaves of bread and a whole bunch of batches of tamales."

"So that's what you guys used before modern ovens?" I asked.

"Yeah..." said Pedro. "I think the Spaniards brought them, actually. I dunno what we used before."

"I think it was a technology called fire-in-an-open-pit," quipped Amy. "An ancient tradition among our people. Not sure I can explain it to you."

"I think my ancestors mainly used fire to burn down other people's villages so that they could steal all their stuff," I replied, before my brain could catch up with my mouth.

Everyone around me laughed at that, much, much harder than I would ever have expected.

"Is Linacre a Viking name?" Amy asked.