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.<\/p>\n
Created in 2008, La Gran Tamalada is a free holiday community event celebrating San Antonio\u2019s Mexican-American heritage. Tamaladas combine hands-on learning, music, artisanal goods and scores of warm, fresh tamales. <\/p>\n
This year, La Gran Tamalada will host a student culinary competition to \u201cspotlight the next generation of San Antonio culinary talent,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
So much has changed in San Antonio since the Tamalada\u2019s inception, said Mario Moreno, director of learning and development for La Familia Cortez Restaurants, which organizes La Gran Tamalada in partnership with the city. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe just want to make sure that we\u2019re keeping the traditions alive of tamaladas,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want some of these students who are probably partaking in the eating part at home\u2026 why not engage them in the high school level for them to join their family\u2019s tamalada?\u201d <\/p>\n
Students can compete in two categories: \u201cTraditional\u201d and \u201cChef\u2019s Choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cTraditional\u201d category will judge students\u2019 traditional pork tamales, the most commonly-found tamales in the area. \u201cChef\u2019s Choice\u201d is for students to make any kind of tamales they want. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen so many different variations of tamales. We\u2019ve seen sweet tamales. We\u2019ve seen vegan tamales. We\u2019ve seen them using jalapeno and cream cheese now,\u201d said Moreno.<\/p>\n
The point is to get creative juices flowing, Moreno added, and maybe one of those students creates the \u201cnew popular\u201d tamal in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cbragging rights for a year.\u201d <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
La Familia Cortez Restaurants expect between 5,000 and 8,000 attendees across both days of the festival this year.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But the focus, of course, will be the tamales and the community-filled process in which they\u2019re made. <\/p>\n
\u201cMaking a delicious tamal is like the cherry on top,\u201d Moreno said. \u201cThe most important part is the people that are coming together, and, you know, sharing stories. And that\u2019s what we want these kids to experience while making tamales in their kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Gran Tamalada, a local culinary event celebrating the tamale-making tradition of the winter holidays, will include high…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":428883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,193271,43961,199476,199477,199478,7202,7203,358,7453,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,11887],"class_list":{"0":"post-428882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-holidays-in-san-antonio","10":"tag-icymi","11":"tag-la-gran-tamalada","12":"tag-live-like-a-local","13":"tag-mi-tierra","14":"tag-san-antonio","15":"tag-sanantonio","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-top-story","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-typedaily","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-wc-less-than-500"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115672917935168934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}