spelling bee

[shelora]

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed how that smoked jalapeno is being misspelled everywhere you go? From highend restaurants to any Mom and Pop stop that wants do a chicken wrap with a spicy sauce.

Can we all take time to say, CHIH - POHT-lay? Chipotle. There is no T after the L. Its written right on the can of chilies en adobo.

I'm not a purfict speller Ither, but dis one is realie obvius.

s

[rancho_gordo]

...and how much more difficult is it to wrap the American tounge around HAL-I-PAIN-YO than HAL-I-PEE-NO?

Edited October 4, 2004 by rancho_gordo (log)

[hshiau]

I'm sorry. I thought the American way was always the right way to pronounce everything!

[Squeat Mungry]

...and how many times have you heard someone talk about 'a tamale'? And they're not talking about a city in Ghana. I've just about given up on that one.

[theabroma]

...and how many times have you heard someone talk about 'a tamale'? And they're not talking about a city in Ghana. I've just about given up on that one.

←

Cher, you're sounding like the woman I met at a conference in Mexico. Must've had a severe dietary iron deficiency, because she kept eating the liver of anyone who said 'tamale'. That was, apparently either her samba-ji-uma-notche - the totality of her culinary wisdom - or the club with which she beat the northern barbarian invaders senseless. I required intensive therapy before I could speak of the little suckers in the singular again (of course, this also meant that I HAD NO CHOICE but to order them in multiples!!!!).

After some checking reference work, the following seems to be good coin:

chil- from 'chilli' and -potchli or smoked gives chipotle. The actual formation of the word following rules of assembly observed by Nahuatl, language of the Mexica/Azteca at the time of the conquest, and still widely spoken today. In any event, Spaniards heard it through the filter of their language, and set it on its way as 'chipotle.' It is currently undergoing a second realignment at the hands of the English speakers: 'chipolte', largely because the 'tl' combination is uncommon in English phonology.

tamale is also from 'tamal', or food that is wrapped in a leaf and cooked, especially corn masa flavored with sauces. The Nahuatl plural is tamalli. Spanish doesnt like to end abruptly in sounds like 'l', but prefers vowel sounds, thus 'tamale' and 'tamales'.

My undergraduate degree is in linquistics. This kind of follow the word etymology has always fascinate me. It is equally fascinating and disheartening to find the intense wars waged over it.

I am uneasy with seeing 'chipolte' on a menu that I feel is trying to cash in on a trend it has no understanding of, no desire to learn, and generally speaking, disrespect for the culture of its origin. But I also go into orbit when I see things like 'trout almondine' on a menu.

As for tamale, I have usually said tamal when speaking Spanish, or to people who are hard core food types, and tamale to all others here in the States. Often they do not know what you are talking about, or else seem to feel somewhat ashamed of their stupidity for not knowing the "correct" word. I will leave "off with their heads" language snobbery to the French. I find in teaching cooking that there are far too many people out there beaten into submission like so many abalone steaks, so afraid of their stoves, their knives, and their ability to do things 'right' in their own kitchens, that I hardly take any pleasure in further reducing them to pap by assaulting their pronunciation of a foreign word.

There are few feelings that are quite as warm and happy as watching a bunch of students open and eat their own tamales. They actually walk out the door taller. Sometimes they call me up to tell me of their new kitchen adventures. That is the best feeling. And if I can gently nudge a further awareness of what the native inventors of tamales called them, well, great. But nothing beats watching people summit a personal culinary Everest.

Theabroma

PS: Don't have further references handy at the mo'[, but remember that other indigenous groups in Mexico and Central America from different cultural and linguistic traditions also made tamales. The fact that we do not call them commonly by a name other than that given to them by the Nahuatl speaking people is an accident of history ... or a comment on the military and exonomic power-that-was.

T.

Edited October 4, 2004 by theabroma (log)

[fifi]

Cher, you're sounding like the woman I met at a conference in Mexico.  Must've had a severe dietary iron deficiency, because she kept eating the liver of anyone who said 'tamale'. 

←

Picking myself up off the floor after a total incapacitation event. I may have to call 911.

I will need some time to recover to read the rest of this thread and see if I can contribute.

[caroline]

No esta mal. Es tamal.

(it's not bad. It's tamal)

My goodness I felt proud when I figured out that pun,

Rachel

[jsolomon]

...and how much more difficult is it to wrap the American tounge around HAL-I-PAIN-YO than HAL-I-PEE-NO?

←

In one of my groups of friends, one person says "juh LAH puh no"

Gives me shudders.

[nessa]

There are few feelings that are quite as warm and happy as watching a bunch of students open and eat their own tamales.  They actually walk out the door taller. 

←

Oh for the love of chiles, SIGN ME UP!!!!!!!!!!

[Squeat Mungry]

Cher, you're sounding like the woman I met at a conference in Mexico.  Must've had a severe dietary iron deficiency, because she kept eating the liver of anyone who said 'tamale'.  That was, apparently either her samba-ji-uma-notche - the totality of her culinary wisdom - or the club with which she beat the northern barbarian invaders senseless.  I required intensive therapy before I could speak of the little suckers in the singular again (of course, this also meant that I HAD NO CHOICE but to order them in multiples!!!!).

Oh dear. I seem to have given the wrong impression. "Given up on" was just my way of saying that I no longer even expect to hear "tamal".

I was raised with "southern manners", and would never dream of correcting someone's pronunciation or grammar in public, much less go after anyone's liver!

Moreover, I learned long ago (and keep relearning) that my knowledge is but a speck of dust in the vast void of my ignorance, and try not to preach in order to reduce the number of incidents, such as this one, in which I have to eat crow!

My sincere thanks for the linguistic and etymological info! (Both are keen interests of mine as well, though you'd hardly know it.)

I'm sure 'tamale' will continue to grate on my ears for a while, but now that I know it is my ears and not other people's vocabularies that need correction, I'll start working on it forthwith!

Cheers,

Squeat

[theabroma]

No esta mal. Es tamal.

(it's not bad. It's tamal)

My goodness I felt proud when I figured out that pun,

Rachel

←

My dear, you be the Sexto Sol!!!

Theabroma

[theabroma]

Oh dear. I seem to have given the wrong impression. "Given up on" was just my way of saying that I no longer even expect to hear "tamal".

I was raised with "southern manners", and would never dream of correcting someone's pronunciation or grammar in public, much less go after anyone's liver!

Moreover, I learned long ago (and keep relearning) that my knowledge is but a speck of dust in the vast void of my ignorance, and try not to preach in order to reduce the number of incidents, such as this one, in which I have to eat crow!

My sincere thanks for the linguistic and etymological info! (Both are keen interests of mine as well, though you'd hardly know it.)

I'm sure 'tamale' will continue to grate on my ears for a while, but now that I know it is my ears and not other people's vocabularies that need correction, I'll start working on it forthwith!

Cheers,

Squeat

←

Squeat, Dear

Didn't take your post as a sermon. Here in Texas most of us don't know what a 'tamale' is ... here they are 'hot tamales.' (The edibles, and then waggishly by extension, any curvaceous young lady.)

I hear you when you say it grates, that's how I am about something prepared 'almondine.'

It is so rare that I get to dip into what's left of the linguistics training that it's kind of a treat. I was motivated to do that 'research' not by what you said, but by the public unshucking I got from the woman at the conference in Puebla.

So, I say that we call them what we're most comfortable with, or else get out of denial and call them what they are: world-class, seductive Calorie Bombs.

What I really want to hear you say is where you get tamales, and what you think makes a good one.

I'm all ears ...

Theabroma

[Richard Kilgore]

As long suffering taqueria cooks will attest, it's a good thing you can't really hear my Spanish pronunciation here on eGullet.

Thanks for the linguistic history, Sharon. I love that stuff.

No esta mal. Es tamal.

Thanks, Rachel.

[Squeat Mungry]

    It is so rare that I get to dip into what's left of the linguistics training that it's kind of a treat.  I was motivated to do that 'research' not by what you said, but by the public unshucking I got from the woman at the conference in Puebla.

    So, I say that we call them what we're most comfortable with, or else get out of denial and call them what they are:  world-class, seductive Calorie Bombs.

    What I really want to hear you say is where you get tamales, and what you think makes a good one.

I'm all ears ...

I'm really sorry about that horrid woman!

Well, here in San Francisco, the best tamales I know of are made by a woman who peddles them at various points in the Mission District. She is known as the (groan) 'tamale lady'!

I like all kinds of tamales. I have had some especially good cheese and pepper tamales at the Friday Farmer's Market in Oakland's Old Town.

The best I have ever had, though, were made by my friend's mom and a bunch of other friends in her kitchen in Santa Fe: a pork roast was gently simmered until tender enough to be pulled apart by hand, the masa was then mixed with the broth from the pork and some spices and we all sat around and made the tamales together and talked and laughed. They were then steamed low and slow for at least a couple of hours, and then eaten with a freshly-made salsa verde as soon as they could be handled. Yum!

Cheers,

Squeat

[theabroma]

Can someone explain to tonta moi, step by step, how to post a photo from an album? I have a picture of chipotles being smoked.

Thanks,

Theabroma

Edited October 6, 2004 by theabroma (log)

[theabroma]

Ha! Did it!!

I was driving north on the coast highway between San Blas and Santiago Ixcuintle, Nayarit, Mx, when I saw this going on in a field by the road. Just kinda said a prayer, made a hard right, and drove into the field. Got a series of photos, and talked to the people. They were smoking a small jalapeno, known in its smoked, dried stage as a 'chile morita.' The elevated 'sidewalk' is about one meter off the ground, and the wood is a combination of mangrove and amapa. The ripe, picked chiles are dumped at one end of the sidewalk, and gradually shovelled and turned down the surface. The material looks like really heavy duty plasterer's lath. This takes a day or so, and then the chiles are shovelled into the large wicker baskets, which are carried a few feet away where the ground is covered with many plastic tarpaulins. The chiles are dumped and spread on the ground and left for 4-5 days. They are turned by foot, which is to say that an elderly man in a rather oddly colored pair of Nike's shuffle-walked through the chiles creating furrows, which the next day he would 'turn over' by shuffling through them again. The dried chiles are bagged in 20 kilo jute sacks.

The head 'dude' was sitting under the palm thatch palapa in the background, drinking beer, and urging everyone on.

Theabroma

Edited October 6, 2004 by theabroma (log)

[Richard Kilgore]

Nice image and interesting narrative, Sharon.

Edited October 6, 2004 by Richard Kilgore (log)