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Farmer's market

'It's tamale time'

Forget the turkey. Hold the green bean casserole. Hispanic families have one dish in mind, and lots of it, at Christmastime.

By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published December 23, 2005

	[Times photo: Skip O'Rourke]
	Virginia Moreno-Alfonzo pulls tamales from a pot at Don Pollo Mexican Restaurant on Reynolds Street in Plant City. Between now and Christmas, she will be extremely busy making the signature Mexican Christmas dish.

PLANT CITY - The avocados gleam a hunter's green; the granadas, a lipstick red.

But taking center stage at Tierra Mexicana grocery store are the white corn husks in piles on the display floor for making tamales.

This time of year, nothing - not the raw sugar cane for punches, the rainbow-colored candies for pinatas, the chayote vegetable for soups - can compete with the importance of tamales for Mexican and Central American families.

"December is very busy for us," store owner Fabricio Molina said.

Weeks before Christmas, a crush of trucks start making deliveries to East Hillsborough stores and the Plant City Farmer's Market, catering to a growing Hispanic population and their holiday culinary traditions.

Tierra Mexicana sells the husks, which wrap the meat and a variety of chilies, peppers and vegetables that go into a tamale. Shoppers also find tubs of lard and corn mix, the basic ingredients for tamales. An aisle away, huge aluminum tamalero pots sparkle with Christmas bows.

Inside the pots, a shelf with holes rests a quarter of the way up. Water in the bottom boils and steams the dozens of tamales placed inside, atop the shelf.

Some families start cooking massive amounts of tamales for the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe on Dec. 12. Then they make more to get ready for the start of the Posadas - a social and religious tradition celebrated every evening from Dec. 16 through Christmas commemorating Mary and Joseph's search for shelter before the birth of Jesus.

The real feast begins Christmas Eve, or Nochebuena.

"Then it's tamale time," Joe Sanchez said.

Sanchez of Wimauma stood in a chilly drizzle one recent morning at the farmer's market in Plant City selling eggplant from the back of a truck. Boxes of green peppers and tomatoes covered by a pink umbrella were stacked around him.

"Christmas Eve night at 12, everyone starts eating tamales," he said.

Fresh back from Mass, the eating begins along with the opening of gifts, he says. His wife makes hundreds of tamales for the 70 members of his family who gather at his home for the holiday.

"It's the best night for tamales," he said.

Some don't go to bed until dawn, if then.

On Christmas morning, "you can see outside everyone cooking a hog or a goat," Sanchez said.

At the market, tomatoes, chilies and peppers used in the tamales peek out of boxes at stalls along with fruits like watermelon used in punches.

Felton's Market has been getting ready for almost a dozen years. Seeing the change in population, owner Felton Williams went from carrying products for Southern dishes for almost five decades to including meats and produce for families from Mexico, Puerto Rico, South America and the Caribbean.

At Christmastime, he sees it all.

"The Mexicans want corn husks for tamales. The Puerto Ricans want whole white pigs," store manager Mike Mondsini said. "The Cubans buy almost everything Americans buy. They buy hams and pork. It depends on the family."

The demand at the holidays sends Alfonso Lopez Jr. to the Carolinas for more vegetables several times a week, he said.

"They buy a lot of tomatoes and peppers, you know, for tamales," Lopez said, edging his pickup truck through the Plant City Farmer's Market. His family's business, Lopez Produce, is based in Wauchula and North Carolina. But instead of just selling produce at the market on a recent day, he was buying.

His mother's store in Wauchula was running low on tomatoes, he said. The Christmas rush was on.

Saundra Amrhein can be reached at 813 661-2441 or amrhein@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 22, 2005, 09:28:03]