At Florinda Miguel Paz's home in Hillsboro, her homemade tamales are a cherished specialty, drawing family and friends together to savor them.

In Florinda Miguel Paz’s Hillsboro home, hours of prepwork have culminated in six stainless steel pots and bowls of fresh ingredients scattered over the floral tablecloth in her kitchen.

Miguel Paz assesses the ingredients in front of her: corn husks, masa (maize dough), shredded pork, cheese, chili peppers and homemade salsa verde (green salsa), all the ingredients she needs to make a batch of tamales.

Assembling one tamal at a time, she explains how long each ingredient took to make. All the prepwork: hours. Slowly constructing each tamal is another labor in itself.

“I learned it by myself,” Miguel Paz said in Spanish, recounting the first time she tried to make tamales. “They didn’t turn out well, but I did it again and again until I found the right way to do it.”

The tamales are a favorite in her community, and many people have asked her to sell them, especially since she is not currently working. However, Miguel Paz explained that her homemade tamales are a treat reserved for family and friends, as arthritis in her knees has made it too difficult for her to produce them for sale. Besides, she doesn’t have a big enough pot.

Starting with a dried corn husk, she spreads a handful of masa along the bottom half before choosing her fillings, alternating between pork with green salsa and cheese with red chilis. Rolling each corn husk tightly closed, she places the filled tamales in a bowl to be steamed.

The tradition of making tamales is being embraced all over North America as families prepare for the peak tamal season: Christmas. These small bundles of flavorful filling, encased in masa and wrapped in corn husks, are undoubtedly among the most delicious holiday treats to unwrap.

And with a rich history that traces back thousands of years to ancient Mesoamerica, tamales have stood the test of time, remaining a cultural staple in many Central and South American countries. It all begins with the maíz, or corn.

“If we go back to the Aztecs and Mayans in Central America, that has been the main source of food, the maíz,” said Jaime Miranda, founder of M&M Marketplace in Hillsboro. “The tamales, it’s representative of the maíz and one of the main three foods that Mesoamerican cultures used as their main source of food for many years.”

Traditionally enjoyed during colder months, tamales pair perfectly with a warm mug of champurrado, a rich, spiced chocolate drink made with masa, said Miranda.

“Most people eat it every morning when they go to work,” Miranda said. “Between 5 and 8 a.m. in Mexico, I remember that being traditional. People who make their tamales come out earlier in the morning. And by 9 a.m. they’re already sold out.”

Miguel Paz’s memories from living in Oaxaca are similar.

“Food always sells in Mexico,” she said. “That’s what Mexican people have always done. It’s important for them to not lose that type of culture.”

At M&M Marketplace, a hub for entrepreneurs in Hillsboro, Miranda organizes the Annual Fiesta de Tamales, a fundraiser for the Hillsboro Schools Foundation. Beyond raising money with tamal sales, makers from the market submit their creations for a friendly competition.

The tamales, made with an array of fillings, were evaluated by community members and a panel of judges. Attendees sampled bites from each entry and cast their votes for their favorites. As a lover of tamales, I took this opportunity very seriously. Taking a bite of each tamal opened my eyes to the variety of fillings and cultural flavors that exist.

Growing up in Texas, my mother always made savory tamales filled with beef or chicken. The event introduced me to tamales made with sweet corn masa and fruit fillings. As the owner of an insatiable sweet tooth, these were near life-changing.

Beyond M&M Marketplace, countless restaurants and food trucks offer a wide variety of tamales, from traditional pork and chicken to sweet corn and pineapple. Many of the distinct styles represent the cultural variety in Mexico and Central America.

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“For example, in Oaxaca, tamales are wrapped with banana leaves,” said Miguel Paz. “Where I’m from, a small town in Oaxaca, they make another type of tamal that is like a tortilla. You prepare the mole, the chicken and everything and you put it in the same way, but it is a tortilla.”

But the way Miguel Paz makes her tamales is all her own, she said. Cooking has always been something she has enjoyed that brings her family together. Making a big batch always brings her sons, scattered over the state, back to her home with their growing families.

Regardless of how they’re made or where they come from, tamales tend to bring people together.

“I feel like tamales are a good representation of bringing family together,” Miranda said. “So, it’s a good food to have every time you’re going to be joining friends and family.”

Over time, they evolved into a meal for special occasions, revered for their long history and cultural significance in Mesoamerica. Today, they can be found in most Latino households during Christmas.

“Most people make them for their special events,” Miranda said. “For example, whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, birthday, quinceañeras. But mainly during the winter events.”

Even in my own family, I’ve seen the tradition bring people closer during the holidays. Gathered around my mother’s kitchen island in my childhood home in San Antonio, the entire family is wrangled into an assembly-line of sorts, filling and wrapping tamales with practiced efficiency.

Armed with a newfound appreciation for tamales, I’ll certainly have some new recipes to test out this year.

— Chiara Profenna covers religion, faith and cultural connections. Reach her at 503-221-4327; cprofenna@oregonian.com or @chiara-profenna on BlueSky.

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