The Many Layers of Tamales and Life

On Sundays and at Christmas, especially at Christmas, we return to East L.A. Those of us Southern Californians who began our family histories here and moved on--to Brea, to Burbank, to Mission Hills or Pasadena--come back to the old neighborhood and we remember.

We drive up Whittier Boulevard and down the avenue some still call Brooklyn--no matter what the sign says now--and we point out the landmarks of our youth: the stand where our parents took us for giant burritos; the bakery with our favorite pan dulce, the one with the gingerbread pigs; the cop hangout that still sells the world’s best flautas; the blocks-long cemetery that dominates the geography of the area, the final resting place for so many relatives.

Some of our memories are filtered through the eyes of our parents and grandparents; others lived the life long ago. Yet we always return for the food because, for many of us, that’s all that’s left here from our childhoods. And at Christmas, no matter where we spend the rest of the year, we know that in East L.A. there will always be tamales.

In preparation for Christmas Day, the ambitious among us head toward their favorite tortilleria for the masa or nixtamal we will need to make tamales. The merely nostalgic buy tamales ready to go from a favorite tamale maker, whether it’s the woman from work who makes a nice profit once a year on her cooking skills or the tiny stand that everyone in the family knows makes the best red chile tamales.

Even within families there are disagreements on where to get the best tamales in East L.A. La Indiana? Cinco Puntos? Your mom’s friend Armida? The auntie with the time-chiseled face who stayed behind?

For several years now, I’ve bought tamales every Christmas from Juanito’s, a tiny shop that has been a part of East L.A., on the once-thriving Floral Avenue, since 1956.

The tamales here are big, messy things. To eat one requires several napkins and a big appetite. Instead of opening easily like a neatly wrapped package, a Juanito’s tamale reveals itself in layers. Two corn husks are pasted together with masa, topped with long-cooked shredded pork and fragrant red chile sauce, then rolled like strudel and simmered, not steamed, in a kettle of the broth that remains from cooking the pork. They’re saucier than the average tamale, which is typically more masa than meat.

When you walk into Juanito’s, which is painted a clean sky-blue these days instead of the dark brown of the time when the late Don Juan Gomez ran the place, you see a friendly group of women chatting and busily rolling tamales. It’s said that one of the tamale makers from the old days, Margarita, could roll 120 tamales in 20 minutes. But Elvira, Gladys, Beneranda and the other women of Juanito’s today are plenty fast, and on a good day, the woman who now owns Juanito’s, Yolanda Delgado-Garcia, can get her own speed up to 120 tamales in half an hour.

This time of year, rolling speed is important: Last Christmas Eve, Juanito’s sold 8,000 tamales.

No matter what the season, a visit to Juanito’s is sure to jog memories. Weekends, when menudo is sold along with the tamales, customers swap stories about Don Juan, Juanito’s founder, and of occasional sightings of his invalid wife Cleofa, the woman who came up with the shop’s original Indian-style tamale recipe. Some remember when Juanito’s started out across the street from its present location; a few knew Don Juan when he went door to door with a tamale cart, like the paleta vendors selling their frozen fruit bars today.

Many more remember Juan Jr., who started helping his father at the tamale shop when he was 5 years old and who left Juanito’s to his fiance, Yolanda, when he died of lymphoma, still in his 30s, before he had a chance to start a family of his own.

Some day I will tell the long, heartbreaking story of Juanito’s. But there are still too many hurt feelings, too many wounds that have yet to heal. Like every family of those who return to East L.A., behind every apparently simple life, there is always a hidden novela, full of passion and betrayal. Like the many-layered Juanito’s tamale, there is always more to be revealed.

* Juanito’s, 4214 Floral Ave., East Los Angeles. (213) 268-2365. No phone orders during holidays. Tamales available on first-come, first-served basis.