The Main Ingredients of the Guatemalan Chuchitos

Here are the two main ingredients for chuchitos, the Guatemalan corn tamales wrapped in maize husks. Here I caught Jennifer, grand daughter, and Anita, grand mother, on their way back from the mill where they had their cooked corn turned into maize dough and the tomato-based blend of pumpkin seeds and other herbs into a Guatemalan recado, or sauce.

Anita told me that first they put all the sauce ingredients through the mill and immediately the cooked maize kernels to clean the mill for other people while they receiving a corn dough mix with a little of bit of sauce. Also, she said that with these much Guatemalan recado [sauce], corn dough and four pounds of pork loin they were going to prepare 220 chuchitos or maize husk-wrapped tamales. That’s 4 pounds of meat for 220 tamales, that’s not a lot of meat per chuchito, right?

Anita sells the order of two chuchitos and one drink for Q8/$1.

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