The Giant Guatemalan Tamales from Oriente

Believe it or not, not all the Guatemalan tamales are created equal. Some tamales are bigger than others. This is a self-evident truth; don’t you agree?

In Guatemala alone, there must be 100 different kinds of tamales if not more. Tamales are an ancient American food, made throughout the continent for over 5000 years. How about that for trivia, thanks to Wikipedia. There are so many kinds of tamales that if one was to try a different kind per day, it would take you over twenty years to try all the different kinds. That is right, I said twenty years.

Often I come across photos of things or places which are remarkable because of the sizes, but the photos do not make it obvious. One such image was taken at Salto de Chilascó falls, Central America’s tallest waterfall, but because no reference size element was included in the photograph the height and magnitude of the waterfall is lost.

So, it is important to include a reference element for comparison whenever the size of something needs to be highlighted. That’s why I included a “normal” Guatemalan tamal next to the “tamal de oriente” (Easter Guatemala) so we can determined how much bigger the tamal is. That was my intention, but I failed to convey the size of the tamal de oriente since in the picture above the normal tamal looks like one-third the size of the bigger tamal when in realty the normal tamal is at least 20 percent or even smaller. Anyway, you can’t blame me for trying.

The giant tamal de oriente is not only bigger, but it also included lots of meat and the seasoning is different as well.

Have you ever had a giant Guatemalan tamal de oriente?

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