La Gran Tamalada, a local culinary event celebrating the tamale-making tradition of the winter holidays, will include high schools tamaleros for the first time this year.
Created in 2008, La Gran Tamalada is a free holiday community event celebrating San Antonio’s Mexican-American heritage. Tamaladas combine hands-on learning, music, artisanal goods and scores of warm, fresh tamales.
This year, La Gran Tamalada will host a student culinary competition to “spotlight the next generation of San Antonio culinary talent,” including pupils from East Central High School, Somerset High School, South San High School, Nixon-Smiley High School, Brackenridge High School, Lanier High School and McCollum High School.
So much has changed in San Antonio since the Tamalada’s inception, said Mario Moreno, director of learning and development for La Familia Cortez Restaurants, which organizes La Gran Tamalada in partnership with the city.
“We just want to make sure that we’re keeping the traditions alive of tamaladas,” he said. “We want some of these students who are probably partaking in the eating part at home… why not engage them in the high school level for them to join their family’s tamalada?”
Students can compete in two categories: “Traditional” and “Chef’s Choice.”
The “Traditional” category will judge students’ traditional pork tamales, the most commonly-found tamales in the area. “Chef’s Choice” is for students to make any kind of tamales they want.
“We’ve seen so many different variations of tamales. We’ve seen sweet tamales. We’ve seen vegan tamales. We’ve seen them using jalapeno and cream cheese now,” said Moreno.
The point is to get creative juices flowing, Moreno added, and maybe one of those students creates the “new popular” tamal in San Antonio.
A panel of at least four guest judges will decide which school has the best tamal in each category, awarding winners with a trophy and “bragging rights for a year.”
La Gran Tamala has steadily grown since its inauguration at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, moving to Historic Market Square in 2017 after outgrowing the first venue.
This year, the festival returns Dec. 13 and Dec. 14 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., featuring local vendors and activities for all ages.
La Familia Cortez Restaurants expect between 5,000 and 8,000 attendees across both days of the festival this year.
Attendees can buy tamales from culinary students and local vendors, listen to live music and participate in hands-on tamal-making workshops led by Roberto Gonzalez Fong, executive chef for Mi Tierra.
Younger attendees can visit the Kids Craft Corner for corn-husk doll making, Play-Doh tamal crafting and storytimes by the San Antonio Public Library Latino Collection.
But the focus, of course, will be the tamales and the community-filled process in which they’re made.
“Making a delicious tamal is like the cherry on top,” Moreno said. “The most important part is the people that are coming together, and, you know, sharing stories. And that’s what we want these kids to experience while making tamales in their kitchen.”