Lindsey Nair

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When Irma Ochoa and her family moved from Texas to Southwest Virginia 13 years ago, the Latino food scene was less than stellar.

Sure, she could buy green chilies in a can and salsa in a jar, but the freshest and most authentic foods of her native Puebla, Mexico, were hard to come by. She regularly asked relatives in Texas to mail them to her.

That's no longer necessary. Witness the many kinds of fresh chilies available at places like Wal-Mart and the burgeoning number of Latino groceries in Northeast Roanoke, several along Williamson Road.

That's happy news for foodies of all stripes and especially for the legions of fans who regularly beg Ochoa to make tamales for them.

Ochoa is known in Roanoke's Hispanic community as an expert tamale maker; friends and friends of friends regularly place orders for dozens of the meat-stuffed treasures -- a dinner-table connection to the heritage of past generations.

A laborious food to assemble, tamales require a production line of family members: one person to soak and prepare the cornhusks, another to mix and spread the corn masa, another to prepare the rest of the fillings -- which can include homemade green (verde) salsa or a red (roja) salsa and typically pork or chicken.

Tamale fans don't just make a few when they make them; they make dozens. (Or, they just call Ochoa.) Some women get together every fall to make hundreds at a time, stuffing their freezers with them for the winter ahead.

Aggie Sirrine, a Roanoke banker who was reared in California, recalls families getting together at Christmas to make the husk-enclosed goodies. "All the women would be in the kitchen and the men would be out in the yard drinking beer.

"Even now with my generation, if we're all together -- even if it's not the holidays -- we make tamales because that's what we did as youngsters. If we're all together for a wedding, we put aside one day for tamales and we teach our kids because that's a piece of our heritage that we hang onto."

For the uninitiated Anglos among us (myself included, because I just learned this recently): DON'T EAT THE CORNHUSK WRAPPER. Rather, open it like a package and scrape out the filling, which is typically served with sides of beans and rice and, I would add, a cold Negra Modelo with a slice of lime -- or, better yet, a fresh-made margarita.

Ochoa recalls giving a tamale to a friend at work in Bedford, only to check back later for a report. "He said, 'I liked it, but part of it is no good for eating.' I checked the trash -- empty -- and right away I knew he'd eaten the husk."

According to a Web site devoted to tamale history, they were invented as early as 5000 B.C. Warring Aztec, Mayan and Incan tribes took their women along to battles to cook for them. A millennium or so before the first Taco Bell drive-through came into being, the tamale was created out of a desire to make a portable food.

I watched Ochoa make tamales one morning last week, and I'll try my best to explain it in words (left). But if you want detailed pictures to help you out, go online to sonofthesouth.net/tamales/ Tamales_Recipe_.htm

Or, easier still: Call Ochoa, who hopes to expand her cooking-for-friends hobby into a full-fledged catering and/or restaurant operation: 362-2186.

Notes from the Back Burner

• I can't say enough good things about our newspaper's news researcher Belinda Harris, who cheerfully and thoroughly helps me on a near-weekly basis (near-daily, she might say). She's Sherlock Holmes, Martha Stewart and ex-Virginia Room librarian goddess Carol Tuckwiller all rolled into one. Her latest find: a recipe Web site called recipesource.com, which organizes foods into ethnic offerings and types of dish.In my never-ending search for the perfect scone, this should keep me busy for a while: I found 139 different scone recipes.
• To the readers who sent me recipes for spicy meatloaf, including chef Paul Prudhomme's version: I'll report back soon on my quest to copy my favorite dish from Billy's Ritz. In the meantime, if you have other meatloaf-inspired ideas, send 'em on.
• I'm also still accepting ideas on how to make the family dinner chore more palatable in this crazy-busy season of baseball practices, music lessons and fights over TV, computer time and homework.

I got out the crockpot when I went home for lunch yesterday, defrosted some boneless chicken breasts and, scanning the pantry for something quick and easy to pour on top, came up with: 1 can of stewed, Italian-seasoned tomatoes, 1 jar of drained artichokes and 2 tablespoons of from-a-jar pesto. Even the Picky Eater was hooked (though he scraped off the 'maters and artichokes, of course).

1 bag of tamale cornhusks (available at Latino groceries)

2 cups cooked meat (chicken or pork, reserving broth from cooking)

2 pounds of Maseca, or half a bag (this corn masa mix is now widely available in groceries)

2 quarts of warm broth or water

Salt to taste

2 cups corn oil (Ochoa uses lard)

Salsa verde (recipe below) or salsa of your choice

First, soak the cornhusks in warm water for about an hour. Drain on kitchen towels and allow to air dry.

Meanwhile, prepare meat by boiling chicken or pork in water till cooked, shredding meat and reserving the broth.

To make the masa dough: in a large bowl, add Maseca mix, salt, oil or lard, and water or broth. Add the liquid one cup at a time, until it’s the consistency of hummus or paste.

To assemble tamales, place one husk flat on your hand, with the scoop (pinched-looking) end toward your fingers, then use a flat knife to smear the masa dough thinly on top, leaving about 2 inches from the scoop end uncovered.

Place 1/4 cup (or a little less) of meat along the center of the filling. Add 2 tablespoons of salsa of your choice. Fold left side over center, then right side over top. Fold the scoop end (sans filling) underneath.

Stand the tamales upright in a large steamer pot (with a couple of inches of water in the bottom, not touching the tamales) and boil on medium for 45 minutes, checking regularly to replace evaporated water.

Ochoa makes her salsa verde by pureeing: 10 tomatillos (parboiled and peeled), 1 bunch cilantro, 1 clove garlic, 2 leaves of Romaine lettuce, 6 fresh jalapenos (or to taste) and 1 teaspoon salt.