Tamale - South America

South America

Tamales are found in northern Argentina (the provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Catamarca and Tucumán). Tamales salteños are made with shredded meat of a boiled lamb or pork head, and corn flour wrapped in chalas. Tamales jujeños use minced meat and corn and red peppers.

Another version, called a humita, is found in Peru, Argentina and Chile. It can be either savoury or sweet. Sweet ones have raisins, vanilla, oil, and sugar. Salty ones can be filled with cheese (queso fresco) or chicken. Humitas are cooked in the oven or in the pachamanca. They are not tamales by Peruvian and Argentine standards. In Chile, the food known as humitas is almost identical to tamales.

Peruvian and Bolivian tamales tend to be spicy, large and wrapped in banana leaves. In Lima, common fillings are chicken or pork, usually accompanied by boiled eggs, olives, peanuts or a piece of chili pepper. In other cities, tamales are smaller, wrapped in corn husks and use white instead of yellow corn.

In Brazil, a similar food is called "pamonha", but is not really a tamale and has different origins.

In Venezuela, tamales are called hallacas. They are wrapped in plantain leaves and filled with stewed pork, raisins and olives. They are traditionally eaten for Christmas. Also, the Venezuelan bollos are similar to tamales, wrapped in corn husks, filled with hot peppers or plain, and eaten as a side dish.

In Colombia, they are wrapped in plantain leaves. The several varieties include the most widely known tolimense, as well as boyacense and santandereano. Like other South American varieties, the most common are very large compared to Mexican tamales — about the size of a softball — and the dough is softer and wetter, with a bright yellow color. A tamal tolimense is served for breakfast with hot chocolate, and may contain large pieces of cooked carrot or other vegetables, whole corn kernels, rice, chicken on the bone and/or chunks of pork. Related foods are the envuelto and bollo limpio which are made of corn, cooked in a corn husk, and resemble a Mexican tamale more closely but have simpler fillings or no filling at all for they are often served to accompany various foods, and the bollo de yuca made of yucca flour, also cooked in a corn husk, eaten with butifarra and sour milk (known in the country as suero costeño).

Ecuador has a variety of tamales and humitas; they can be filled with fresh cheese, pork, chicken or raisins. Ecuadorian tamales are usually wrapped in corn husk or achira (canna) leaves.