When vendors apply to participate at the annual Tucson Tamal & Heritage Festival, held each December at Casino Del Sol’s AVA, they’re asked by the event’s organizers to bring at least 1,200 (or 100 dozen) tamales to feed the masses.
With more than 50 tamal vendors slated to attend this year, that’s more than 60,000 tamales ready for consumption on the day of the event, Saturday, Dec. 7.
With so many tamales in circulation, moving swiftly from booths to plates to stomachs, it pays to stand out from the crowd, says Maria Sotelo, a tamal vendor at the festival for the last four years.
Sotelo takes the fest as an opportunity to be creative.
One year, she served an all-vegan menu. Last year, she dished out strawberry tamales, a variation of tamales dulces, or sweet tamales.
“The strawberry tamales sold out quickly,” said Sotelo, who works as a cashier at Walgreens. “People are looking for something sweet at the festival. I wanted to try something different.”
Theresa Meraz, the director of marketing operations for the casino and a coordinator for the Tamal fest since it first started, said she has seen vendors get very creative over the years.
“I’ve seen pineapple, shrimp, even chocolate cheesecake,” Meraz said. “I never imagined I’d see a chocolate cheesecake tamale in my lifetime or that it would have tasted as good as it did.”
Meraz said the casino doesn’t dictate to its vendors, many of whom are regular folks without formal tamale businesses, what kind of tamales they can make.
“You’d be surprised at how creative some people get,” she said.
The Tamal Festival started as a community event in 2005, as a way to celebrate Southwest culture and give Tucsonans a chance to show their talents and raise some money during the holiday season.
Meraz said in its first year, they didn’t know how many tamales each vendor should make.
“It was hard to gauge what we needed,” she said. “Many of the vendors didn’t bring enough. They all sold out within a couple hours of the start of the event.”
Meraz said they have a better grasp these days, but with an estimated 8,000-10,000 people expected at the free event on Saturday, nothing is set in stone.
“Some vendors still run out, depending on the quality of tamales they are providing,” she said.
The event will also have live music, folklórico dancing, local artisan booths and vendors serving other types of food, including fry bread and burritos.
Sotelo said she has sold out or come close to selling out each year she has participated.
Sotelo applied to be a vendor at the Tamal Festival four years ago after hearing that the casino was looking for talent.
“My family always said my tamales were the best, and I loved to cook,” she said. “I thought it would be fun.”
For Sotelo, who grew up in Hermosillo, Sonora, tamales were a big to-do during the holidays growing up.
Each year, Sotelo, her mom and her sisters would make piles of tamales for family gatherings.
Sotelo’s mom, her aunts and her grandmother would then gather and trade the different types of tamales they made for the season.
“One aunt would have beef tamales,” Sotelo said. “Another would have pineapple tamales. I have a big family. There would always be a lot of people.”
The variety is what inspires Sotelo to be creative today.
All this week, Sotelo has been working with her own family to make the 1,200 tamales for Saturday’s show.
She plans to have fan favorites: more strawberry tamales, spinach tamales and red chile-beef tamales.
Her secret weapon is a jalapeño tamal, a traditional tamal stuffed with a jalapeño, which in turn is stuffed with several cheeses, including cream cheese, Cotija cheese and queso fresco.
The new flavor has already been given the seal of approval by her coworkers at Walgreens.
“They had a taste test and gave the OK,” Sotelo said of her colleagues. “I always let them taste first. I wouldn’t bring them if they didn’t like them.”
