A Christmas tradition in Mexico, tamales are becoming a year-round favorite in Kansas City thanks to the women behind The Tamale Kitchen WrItten by ettIe bernekIng
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he kitchen at the Guadalupe Centers in Kansas City is closed for the evening, but inside, Velia, Gigi, Sicilia, SanJuana and Maria are busy preparing 300 tamales for an upcoming order. Hotel pans brimming with warm shredded pork crowd the counters while pots of salsa verde bubble to life on the stove. Across the kitchen, Gigi and Maria make a sweet masa laced with juicy pineapple, coconut and raisins.
“I grew up making tamales all of my life,” Gigi says, kneading
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PhotograPhy by ChrIstoPher smIth
the mound of masa in front of her. “You start with little parts, like cleaning the husks. Eventually, you make the filling.” As Gigi talks, Maria tears open a bag of granulated sugar and pours some into the masa as the commercial-grade stand mixer whirrs to life. Dubbed “the tamale women” by their neighbors and friends, Velia, Gigi, Sicilia, SanJuana and Maria never imagined they would be selling tamales in the U.S. or that tamales would help them become financially self-sufficient, but that is exactly what’s happening. This is The Tamale Kitchen, and these are the tamale women.
Several times a month, the women meet and make hundreds of tamales for special orders. Without a brick-and-mortar location, they bounce around church kitchens and community centers. The hours are long and the work is hard, but the kitchen is always filled with laughter and singing. Mostly hailing from northern Mexico, the women started selling their tamales in 2015 in part thanks to Father Jason Koch, the priest at Our Lady of Peace Parish Catholic Church in northeast Kansas City. Inspired Local Food Culture
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