Handmade Tamales From Bolita Masa Highlight Culture and Family This Season

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When I catch up with Bay Area masa mogul Emmanuel Galvan, he is about to enter his busiest time of year: the December tamalada.

Tamales are available year-round, but they hold special meaning and significance during the holiday season for many Latine families.

Galvan, founder of Berkeley-based Bolita Masa, sells pre-mixed masa — dough for making tamales — and ready-made tamales in both savory and sweet varieties made with his company’s signature heirloom corn masa from Mexico.

For December, Bolita expanded its workforce from three people, including Galvan, to nine workers who will make close to 6,000 tamales by hand. The term tamalada refers to making tamales as a group and turning it into a festive occasion.

“I always found it so important to make food with your parents, your grandparents, your cousins,” Galvan said. “That’s how you kind of share information, and you retain kind of a familial culture. And it’s also how you develop family traditions.”

On the surface, tamales are rather simple: corn dough stuffed with a filling — or not — placed in a wrapper of some kind and then steamed. They date back thousands of years in Mesoamerica and appear in a multitude of varieties throughout Latin America.

When I searched for tamale vendors in the Bay Area, I found options from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua and El Salvador that vary in fillings, size and toppings.

The concept may be simple, but the execution is not. As Galvan pointed out, tamales require a lot of work to prepare all the ingredients and assemble them, which is where the tamalada comes in.

“The association with the holidays has to do with the fact that tamales require so much labor,” Galvan said. “You have your whole family together around the holidays or a big celebration, so you get everyone together and then you use as many people as possible to help you make all these tamales. You’re doing something that takes time and you’re chatting and catching up.”

I have spent many Christmas Eves on masa duty, donning one of my mom’s plaid aprons, slathering a pre-soaked corn leaf in masa and handing it to the next person to fill and fold. Sometimes I’ve used a spoon or spatula, but my favorite hack involves lugging out my mom’s wooden tortilla press to spread a ball of masa into an even surface area.

For several years, my older sister hosted a tamalada at her home in Seattle, where dozens of friends and family would join in assembling hundreds of tamales and then taking home their own stash, because it’s fair to expect some compensation for hard work.

The party became my sister’s signature annual event, one that friends would plan for months in advance to attend. Many invitees weren’t of Mexican descent, but they loved partaking in the tradition.

The most important thing about tamaladas, my sister told me recently, is to pass on recipes, techniques and knowledge to younger generations. Many young people balk at the amount of work it takes to make a pot of tamales, but the tias and abuelitas families rely on to make tamales and pozole won’t be around forever, she said.

Bolita starts taking orders for tamales the day before Thanksgiving and typically sells out within a week, Galvan said. Customers will pick up orders at various pop-up sales held at different locations throughout the month.

This year’s menu includes savory options such as pork en salsa verde, turkey in mole negro, braised beef shoulder barbacoa with potato, and squash with black beans. The sweet versions — which Galvan says pair well with coffee on winter mornings — include chocolate and quince. Bolita sells a half dozen for $30 to $48, or about $5.50 to $8 each.

“People get a little bit of a sticker shock initially,” Galvan said of his prices. “Our tamales are made of the best possible maize in the world. And I’m not saying that lightly. It’s always a little bit of a conversation when people ask how much they are, but then once they try them, you know they’re worth it.”

I recently saw a meme on social media that said, “Instead of Black Friday deals, could tamales be $10 a dozen again?” That price was normal about 20 years ago — and ignores the skyrocketing cost of ingredients and labor in recent years.

Many people expect tamales, like many other types of Mexican dishes or street food, to be cheap, Galvan said. But that’s not possible if you are paying your workers a living wage and using top-quality ingredients.

“A lot of it is people’s internalized racism of what a thing should cost because they’ve seen it made cheaply before. But they should really be asking themselves, is that person able to pay themselves?” Galvan said. “I’m not trying to shame people into paying more or something, but it’s really thinking about the whole system — like the labor at every level.”

Bolita’s mission is less about charging as much as possible and more about working with vendors and family farms in Mexico that are preserving heirloom varieties of corn that might otherwise disappear. Hosting your own tamalada offers a great — and more economical — alternative if you have the time.

After talking with Galvan, I felt more inspired to embrace the comfort of tamales this holiday season, whether that means holding my own tamalada while my mother is in town or supporting local makers.

Months of harsh immigration enforcement have taken an economic and psychological toll on many Latino businesses and community members this past year.

Our indigenous ancestors created tamales millennia ago, leaving us a gift that encapsulates culture, tradition, love, family and connection. That’s what I — and I’m sure many others — am craving more than anything else.

Here are some tips for hosting your own tamalada:

• Consult experts: Sit down with the tamale maker in your family ahead of time and collect all the tips and information you can. You can also find countless tamale tutorials online.
• Preparation is key: Assembling and prepping ingredients takes time. Stores sell many of the main ingredients ready for cooking, including pre-mixed dough.
• Involve as much help as you can: The purpose of a tamalada is to build a connection with your family and community. The more hands available, the easier it will be to make tamales. Just make sure everyone has a clear task.
• Galvan’s tips: Keep your masa cold while making tamales, or it won’t stick to the wrapper. Don’t overstuff each tamale — make sure the dough fully encloses the filling to avoid spills during cooking.
• Make it fun: Enjoy holiday-inspired drinks like ponche, a Mexican-style punch made with fresh and dried fruits and cinnamon. Play music. Reminisce. Ask questions. Make the type of memories you’ll want to remember years from now.