Fantastic Foreign Food For Me

Walking out of the doctors’ office right after getting a shot, it’s about 6 pm and the sun is starting to come down. I remember my arm hurting and feeling as if I had been in there for days, this thought made me hungry. I reminded my mom to get me the tamales de elote, what I always got after going to the doctors’ office; it was my portal back to El Salvador.

My grandparents live in El Salvador, a place where the culture is great and the food is even better. Sweet corn tamales are a must whenever my family and I go visit, but when I couldn’t go there I brought the memories back with these corn tamales. When I eat a tamal my memories race back to the days that I went to the doctors’ office for a checkup, back then the tamales would carry me to El Salvador. It’s like a memory within a memory. I love the sweet taste that is combined with the saltiness of the crema agria, these can be eaten fried or boiled. The sweetness reminds me of my grandmother and her cooking while the saltiness brings back the humid/hot feeling of the country. The strange thing about this food is that the taste of those sweet tamales from the shop next to the clinic isn’t the same; it’s a memory that I can’t fulfill again a craving that can’t be satisfied. Yet I always find myself looking for that specific sweetness and unconsciously comparing it back to the little shop. It makes me wonder whether when I use to eat them after a doctor visit if I was looking for a taste I had when I ate them at grandmas’ house.

The best part of the tamales now is making them with my mom, homemade tamales. Once I get older and I make a tamal I will probably try to reconstruct the taste of the tamales from my childhood. It is like a cycle, where the daughter tries to recreate that special taste she found in her mother’s tamales. We are always chasing after a memory that brought us happiness, whether it is a snack or a dinner. Taking time and money to make, these tamales aren’t around very often. Here it is considered a special food, while in El Salvador it can be considered a more accessible plate. This food carries many memories for me and it’s a part of my culture, I’ll always cherish my fantastic foreign food.