It’s Masa Mania at Busy Family Bakery

Ten tons. Ten tons.

Based on Christmases past, that’s how much masa Pepe Pena expects to sell today to thousands of customers, who line up outside his Cypress Park bakery to purchase the seasoned ground corn, an essential ingredient in making tamales.

Patrons for whom tamales are a holiday tradition, including one who bought 1,000 pounds of masa, come to La Morenita from throughout Southern California.

Preparing the Christmas specialty “becomes a family affair--even the young ones make the tamales,” Pena said. “The smell of tamales kind of gives them the Christmas spirit.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre dropped by Tuesday to pick up the fixings for about 35 dozen tamales for family and friends to share on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

“The beautiful thing is that they prepare” all the tamale ingredients, he said. “This is a one-stop operation here.”

La Morenita was one of the first tortilla plants in Los Angeles, selling tortillas and pan dulce, Mexican sweet bread, to chain stores and restaurants all over Southern California.

But it is busiest this time of year, as are similar businesses throughout the region, when masa is in demand for tamales, a traditional Mexican dish during Christmastime. Some Central Americans also use masa to prepare tamales wrapped in banana leaves for cooking, instead of the corn husks preferred by Mexican families.

The bakery’s regular staff of 11 increases by five part-time employees during this season.

“All the owners work double shifts,” from opening at 7 a.m. to closing at 8 p.m., said Cesar Pena, Pepe’s oldest son.

La Morenita is a modest-sized place, rich with the smell of pastries and candies. A sign on the register announces the price of masa: 75 cents a pound, which hasn’t changed in 10 years. An old-fashioned stone grinder behind the counter shows the old, hands-on method of preparing corn for tamale-making.

The phone rings constantly with people calling in their orders. Waiting customers pick up packages of corn husks or banana leaves and spices. Pepe and Cesar work the counter as a team with a practiced efficiency.

In addition to the masa, they sell an average of 2,400 tamales a day during the Christmas season.

Corn for the masa is cooked in massive vats, 3,000 pounds at a time, then ground into a paste within 12 hours to prevent spoilage.

“Our grinders don’t stop from 5 in the morning to 5 p.m.,” Pepe said. “The grinders prepare 500 pounds at a time--it takes 20 minutes.”

The bakery had to institute a number system to move its many customers along. A numbered checklist offers buyers the choice of prepared masa, which is ready to be spread on the corn husk, or the unprepared, coarsely ground corn. Other products, like tortillas, are also listed. The order is processed and the number called, much as in a fast-food restaurant.

“We used to get a line all the way around the building and up the street until we got this system,” Cesar said.

Pepe and his three sons, Cesar, Alex and Ernesto, have owned La Morenita for 10 years, but the business has been in the same location for half a century.

Cesar works there full time, as does Alex, except for the one weekend a month he serves in the Marine Reserves. Ernesto, just out of the Navy, goes to DeVry Institute in Pomona full time, studying to be an engineer. Pepe’s wife, Rosie, works nearby at Albion Elementary School as a secretary.

“But everybody comes to help out on Christmas Eve,” Pepe said. “We’re all here serving masa.”

The holiday rush doesn’t slow until after Jan. 6, the Day of the Three Kings, a celebration of the biblical story of the Magi. For that holiday La Morenita sells Kings Day bread, a wreathlike pastry.

“We sell about 1,000 in one day,” Cesar said.

Among the customers for their various products are Paramount Pictures and specialty restaurants like Odyssey in Granada Hills, Pepe said.

Spurred by requests from customers such as Luminarias restaurant in Monterey Park, La Morenita created miniature tamales, tortillas and pan dulce to add to its line of products.

“Restaurants order them for brunches, and they want everything in miniature,” Cesar said.

Pepe Pena, 56, started taking orders and selling his mother’s homemade tortillas door to door when he was 9. But he never thought he would own his own business.

A credentialed teacher, he plays classical guitar and the harp. He says he once gave guitar lessons to Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez, who grew up in the Cypress Park neighborhood, northeast of Dodger Stadium.

“He never learned guitar,” Pepe said. “But he became a councilman.”

Pepe relishes the tradition that brings people to his store year after year. “We have a lot of generations that come for the masa. For many years they have come,” he said. “Some came as kids, grew up and moved away. But they still come back to La Morenita for the masa.”