Digital Abuela: Learning Family Recipes Over FaceTime

So apparently I’ve been making tamales wrong my entire adult life. Mom decided to break this news to me today during our regular Sunday FaceTime call, right as I was about to start my “world famous” batch.

Digital Abuela: Learning Family Recipes Over FaceTime

Twenty minutes later, I had my phone propped against the olive oil bottle like some kind of cooking show setup while she walked me through the REAL family recipe.

Turns out the secret ingredient isn’t love – it’s the specific ratio of lard to masa that Abuela Rosa taught Mom forty years ago, and that Mom has been trying to teach me for ten.

Hands deep in masa, following Mom’s instructions

“Mija, you never listen,” she said, which is fair because I absolutely zone out during the technical parts and just wing it. But today I actually took notes like a good daughter.

The best part was when Mom started telling me the story behind why Abuela Rosa always added that extra pinch of cumin – something about making the tamales taste like home even when you’re far from it.

Mom’s telling the story behind the recipe

I got a little emotional standing there covered in masa, thinking about three generations of women passing down the same recipe through different kitchens, different decades, and now different screens. Technology is weird and wonderful.

Of course, Marcus walked by and documented my entire cooking disaster because that’s what we do in this house. The man has trained himself to capture chaos. The tamales turned out incredible, by the way. Mom was right about everything, obviously. She always is.