Talking about food...
I wonder how many of our members have heard of "Pinole" ? Pinole is
a high energy food made from dry roasted corn ground-up and mixed
with

Talking about food...
I wonder how many of our members have heard of "Pinole" ? Pinole is 
a high energy food made from dry roasted corn ground-up and mixed 
with brown sugar (Piloncillo, o panocha) and cinnamon and sometimes 
either lemon or orange peel for flavoring. The Tarahumara indians of 
Chihuahua use it as a staple food. Tarahumaras are basically 
vegetarians, with meat accounting for about less than 10% of their 
diet. They eat Pinole it or drink it ( can be mixed with water 
or ? ) before they run the ultra marathons.  Pinole is a very 
convinient high energy food because in its powder form can keep  
for months. It is carried in a pouch during long trips and is 
used to sometimes replace whole meals. The Tarahumaras are 
universally known as runners. Tarahumaras have run the 100 mile 
marathon from Nevada to California.  They think nothing of running 
50 miles or more to go visit friends or relatives in a distant 
village.  When was the last time you did that!
They hunt by

--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "Erlinda Castanon-Long"
wrote:
> When I was in Mexico for the first time 2 years ago while in
> Guadalajara our hostess stopped to buy corn tamales from a
roadside
> stand that she frequently buys from.  They were pure corn made
with
> corn oil, no meat fillers, no sause just pure corn tamale.  I had
> never seen that before but they were very sweet just as they were.
>
> As an American born Mexican I was surprised at all the foods I
> didn't recognize both in Jalisco and Zacatecas.  I did find eating
> more healthy, cooking much plainer and portions much smaller.  In
El
> Durazno, District of Jerez, the white cheese was delivered to the
> door wrapped in a cloth, the corn tortillas were made by 2 local

--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "Erlinda Castanon-Long" 
 wrote:
> When I was in Mexico for the first time 2 years ago while in 
> Guadalajara our hostess stopped to buy corn tamales from a 
roadside 
> stand that she frequently buys from.  They were pure corn made 
with 
> corn oil, no meat fillers, no sause just pure corn tamale.  I had 
> never seen that before but they were very sweet just as they were.
> 
> As an American born Mexican I was surprised at all the foods I 
> didn't recognize both in Jalisco and Zacatecas.  I did find eating 
> more healthy, cooking much plainer and portions much smaller.  In 
El 
> Durazno, District of Jerez, the white cheese was delivered to the 
> door wrapped in a cloth, the corn tortillas were made by 2 local 
> women who started at 5am and closed at 8:30am.  People came by and 
> bought them by weight including just masa if they wanted to make  
> tamales.  I had never seen corn taken from the husk to a corn 
> tortilla, they

Esperanza,

So you want to be a food anthropologist, uhh? That must be an 
interesting field!  Did you know that tamalli is Nahuatl for tamal?

You're right about the pork tamales, pork (and lard) became an 
available filling until after the Spanish colonization.  But before 
that, tamales came in a much wider variety that what we can now 
imagine, for example, tamales were made of fish, tadpoles, bees, 
honey, seeds, frogs, ants, tomato, corn, sweets, anything that was 
available at the time.

According to some, the original recipe of this millenary dish came 
out of the need to create a portable food, one that warriors could 
easily take with them to the battle fields, etc.  The tamal wrap was 
ideal as it protected and preserved the food from contamination, etc.

There is plenty of information available online if you do a search 
for a combination of keywords, like tamalli, tamal, nahuatl, masa, 
etc.

Now, speaking about the indigenous (Amerindian) diet versus what 
experts say is

When I was in Mexico for the first time 2 years ago while in 
Guadalajara our hostess stopped to buy corn tamales from a roadside 
stand that she frequently buys from.  They were pure corn made with 
corn oil, no meat fillers, no sause just pure corn tamale.  I had 
never seen that before but they were very sweet just as they were.

As an American born Mexican I was surprised at all the foods I 
didn't recognize both in Jalisco and Zacatecas.  I did find eating 
more healthy, cooking much plainer and portions much smaller.  In El 
Durazno, District of Jerez, the white cheese was delivered to the 
door wrapped in a cloth, the corn tortillas were made by 2 local 
women who started at 5am and closed at 8:30am.  People came by and 
bought them by weight including just masa if they wanted to make  
tamales.  I had never seen corn taken from the husk to a corn 
tortilla, they let me help since I was family.. they did use a 
machine to shape and cook them. They typically ate twice a day with