December 2020 The Truth in Tamales
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1 Moreno-Trevino Family Newsletter For questions or suggestions, send e-mail to [email protected] My mother once recalled to me making tamales when she was a little girl. Back then they made their tamales outside. They steamed them over an open fire pit in a huge black cauldron piled high with a delicious teepee of cornhusks. Her family saved or bartered for the ingredients needed from wherever they could manage. Over generations, people have tried to simplify tamale making with shortcuts and updates: pork shoulder instead of pig’s head, ready-made masa, and fancy tamale trucks with your choice of gourmet fillings. When I suggest we try them, my mother gently entertains and dismisses most of it. The making of Mom’s tamales is a labor of love. There is a truth wrapped in them that doesn’t leave room for shortcuts. We now make tamales in my home, surrounded by family and new friends of all shades and colors that know there is some magic in tamales. For the hours it takes to make our tamales, the secrets of our women are revealed. Every time I wrap tamales, as my knees go weak and my back grows tired, I continue on. That is what tamale making is – an assembly line of continuity and strength and love. It is a meditation and a prayer and a ritual all at the same time. Over the hours I sit together with my mother to make tamales, stirring chiles and removing seeds, boiling meat that has simmered in pots that bear the patina of loss and love, I stare with reverence at mama. I look over the counter at her like I did when I was a girl watching her make her silent, soulful magic. In those moments, I feel the cord that runs through us. It is a fiber. It is a connection. It is a knowing that the same blood and strength and magic that runs through her hands runs in mine. This is my Christmas gift each year from my mother. I am cradled and wrapped and strengthened in the stories of my family, of her tamales. This is her legacy to me, one made of cornhusk and grit and love. Each year, as the Texas air chills, we assemble four generations of family for our annual tamalada. My sisters, my aunts, my cousins, my mother, my grandmother, my daughter and I gather. Family fills my kitchen. We are an aproned army guided by women. We carry on a tradition that dates back centuries, to the Aztecs and Mayans, to the generations before us. Our tamales bear our signature in corn masa; a soft, moist dough spread like thick, golden paint on a cornhusk. The masa is filled with just the right amount of pork, beans, chicken, cheese or peppers. The tamale is then wrapped in water- softened cornhusks and steamed. When we’d fill our tamales, my grandmother would say “never too much, never too little.” The balance between the inside filling and the outside layer is the secret in each tamale. Joined by friends and family, our kitchen packs a revolving crew of cooks, choppers, spreaders, fillers and wrappers. Tejano music mingles with Christmas carols. Gossip and stories of our family fill the hours. My 90-year old grandmother Maria works among us. Her body has slowed but her critiques have not. Our tamale matriarch, she sits in her signature white winter cap like a Mexican Ms. Claus, vetoing or blessing our work. My mother is the tamale artist -in-residence now. She is our guide in passing on the craft of all her mother taught her. For the hours we are bound together making tamales, I stare at mama’s hands. They are the hands of an expert, trained to take the heat. Over and over, I watch her spread the masa on the cornhusk with the backside of a spoon. Each year, when we make tamales together, my Mama is happy. I see her face light up warm and deep rose, hovering over her oldest pots filled with her spices and scents and stories. December 2020 - Volume 1, Edition 2 The Truth in Tamales This story was originally posted on “The One Live” Blog by Maria Carter on December 8, 2015. Story has been edited to accommodate the allocated space.
Transcript of December 2020 The Truth in Tamales
1
Moreno-Trevino Family Newsletter
For questions or suggestions, send e-mail to [email protected]
My mother once recalled to me making tamales when she was a little girl. Back then they made their tamales outside. They steamed them over an open fire pit in a huge black cauldron piled high with a delicious teepee of cornhusks. Her family saved or bartered for the ingredients needed from wherever they could manage.
Over generations, people have tried to simplify tamale making with shortcuts
and updates: pork shoulder instead of pig’s head, ready-made masa, and fancy tamale trucks with your choice of gourmet fillings. When I suggest we try them, my mother gently entertains and dismisses most of it. The making of Mom’s tamales is a labor of love. There is a truth wrapped in them that doesn’t leave room for shortcuts.
We now make tamales in my home, surrounded by family and new friends of all shades and colors that know there is some magic in tamales. For the hours it takes to make our tamales, the secrets of our women are revealed. Every time I wrap tamales, as my knees go weak and my back grows tired, I continue on. That is what tamale making is – an assembly line of continuity and strength and love. It is a meditation and a prayer and a ritual all at the same time.
Over the hours I sit together with my mother to make tamales, stirring chiles and removing seeds, boiling meat that has simmered in pots that bear the patina of loss and love, I stare with reverence at mama. I look over the counter at her like I did when I was a girl watching her make her silent, soulful magic.
In those moments, I feel the cord that runs through us. It is a fiber. It is a connection. It is a knowing that the same blood and strength and magic that runs through her hands runs in mine.
This is my Christmas gift each year from my mother. I am cradled and wrapped and strengthened in the stories of my family, of her tamales. This is her legacy to me, one made of cornhusk and grit and love.
Each year, as the Texas air chills, we assemble four generations of family for our annual tamalada. My sisters, my aunts, my cousins, my mother, my grandmother, my daughter and I gather. Family fills my kitchen. We are an aproned army guided by women. We carry on a tradition that dates back centuries, to the Aztecs and Mayans, to the generations before us.
Our tamales bear our signature in corn masa; a soft, moist dough spread like thick, golden paint on a cornhusk. The masa is filled with just the right amount of pork, beans, chicken, cheese or peppers. The tamale is then wrapped in water-softened cornhusks and steamed. When we’d fill our tamales, my grandmother would say “never too much, never too little.” The balance between the inside filling and the outside layer is the secret in each tamale.
Joined by friends and family, our kitchen packs a revolving crew of cooks, choppers, spreaders, fillers and wrappers. Tejano music mingles with Christmas carols.
Gossip and stories of our family fill the hours. My 90-year old grandmother Maria works among us. Her body has slowed but her critiques have not. Our tamale matriarch, she sits in her signature white winter cap like a Mexican Ms. Claus, vetoing or blessing our work. My mother is the tamale artist-in-residence now. She is our guide in passing on the craft of all her mother taught her.
For the hours we are bound together making tamales, I stare at mama’s hands. They are the hands of an expert, trained to take the heat. Over and over, I watch her spread the masa on the cornhusk with the backside of a spoon.
Each year, when we make tamales together, my Mama is happy. I see her face light up warm and deep rose, hovering over her oldest pots filled with her spices and scents and stories.
December 2020 - Volume 1, Edition 2
The Truth in Tamales This story was originally posted on “The One Live” Blog by Maria Carter on December 8, 2015.
Story has been edited to accommodate the allocated space.
2
Pedro “Pete” Trevino
For questions or suggestions, send e-mail to [email protected]
Pedrito came to Texas by train at the age of eight (8)
years old in 1909. Pedro told his kids; he remembers
several Mexican soldiers in the train while on route to
Texas. The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 and
Mexican Federal troops were shipped throughout
Mexico to take on the revolutionaries, like Pancho Villa
in 1909.
At the age of twenty (20), Pedrito married Maria
Altagracia Juarez on September 1, 1921 in Pearsall,
Texas. Together, Pedrito and Maria raised three kids,
Eliza, Pedro Jr., and Lydia.
Pedrito’s Naturalization Records list his occupation as a
Farm Laborer and his height as five (5) feet two (2)
inches, with Brown eyes and Grey hair. However, many
in the family remember Pedrito with White hair and blue
eyes.
Pedrito and his family would migrate to California to
work picking apricots, and cherries, and whatever trees
needed to be picked during California harvest time.
Abel Trevino (Pedrito’s grandson) remembers his dad
(Pedro Jr.) telling him that when it was time to come
back to Pearsall, his grandfather (Pedrito) asked Pedro
Jr., “well we did good do you want me to buy you a car
or a commercial truck to take back to Texas, and Pedro
Jr. said let’s get a Truck so I can do some hauling in
Pearsall. Abel added, this happen during the depres-
sion era, so the choices were far and few.
Pedrito is remembered as good horticulturist. He had
rose bushes, fields of blue bonnets, orange, tangerine,
and grapefruit trees all over the property. He also had
pecan trees, crape myrtle, and always working to take
care of his property.
Pedro (Escobedo) Trevino died on February 20, 1973,
in San Antonio, Texas at the age of seventy-one (71).
He is buried at Pearsall Catholic Cemetery West in
Pearsall, Texas.
At the time of this profile, among Pedrito’s children, only
Lydia Trevino Ortiz remains. Eliza Trevino Gonzalez
passed in 2008 and Pedro Jr. departed in 2007.
Pedrito’s grandkids are active with the family reunion
committee and in their community.
Pedro Trevino was born on August 1, 1901, in
Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. According to
Civil Registration
Birth Records in
Nuevo Leon,
Mexico, Pedro was
born and baptized
with the name,
Pedro Escobedo.
His birth parents
listed on Nuevo
Leon Registration
Birth Records are
Jose Pedro
Escobedo and Elisa SanMiguel.
While living in Monterrey, Mexico Pedro
biological mother (Elisa SanMiguel) gave birth to
his younger brother; Manual Escobedo on
October 1, 1903. Unfortunately, his younger
brother Manuel died a month later, on November
6, 1903.
Elisa SanMiguel (Pedro’s biological mother) died
a young mother on November 21, 1906, in
Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, at the age of 27
of Tuberculosis.
It is important to note, Pedro biological father,
Jose Pedro Escobedo, changed his name to
Jose A Trevino when he came to the United
States. Thus, the reason Pedro Trevino was
called “Pedrito” by his siblings. His biological
father, Jose A Trevino, came to the United State
to help find a better future for him and his son.
In 1909, after his father (Jose A Trevino) met a
new wife, he sent word to Monterrey to have
Pedro come to the United States to start life with
a new family. His new mom (Hijinia Moreno) and
his father (Jose A Trevino) gave Pedrito few
brothers and sisters, nine more siblings to be
exact. Together, Jose and Hijinia along with
Pedrito and his siblings made a new life for
themselves in Pearsall, Texas.
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Eddie & Melody Tracy
October 31st.
Amado & Viola Trevino
September 15th
Congratulations to
the newly weds Mary
Ann Trevino & Sammy
Joe Prado.
Ginger Trevino & Ramon
Diaz November 19th
Fernando & Flortie
Schouten December 18th
Laura and Jordon Garcia
November 24th
Gaspar “Ginge” & Elizabeth
“Chachi” Trevino November 6th.
Terie & Dwayne Hoskins
November 22nd
Happy Belated Wedding Anniversary to the family members celebrating their marriage milestone
Hats off to the Grandparents,
Gilbert & Sylvia Hernandez
and Great-Grandma Mary
“Maurica” Hernandez.
Heather & John Windham
with their new addition to
the family; Jack Wesley
Windham.
It’s a Boy! Congratulations
Keep Ramiro Alcala Trevino in your
thoughts & prayers as he battles
Non-Alcoholic Cirrhosis of the liver.
To share family news and/or special occasions, send e-mail to [email protected]
Please keep Maria Juanita Moreno
Hernandez in your thoughts and
prayers as she battles COVID-19.
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Anita Garza
Ralph Hernandez, Araceli
Lopez, Rick Trevino,
Axavier Lara, Marisa
Trevino, Valerie Irigoyen,
and Rene Trevino. Our
apologies for not having a
photo.
To share family news and/or special occasions, send e-mail to [email protected]
Happy Belated Birthday to family members who celebrated their special day in October:
Cecilia Ramirez Jessica Garza Chapa Maria Juanita Moreno
Yolanda Trevino
Javier Salinas
Gaspar “Ginge” & Elizabeth “Chachi” Trevino
Rene Moreno
Michael Pecina Ginger Trevino-Diaz Daniel Trevino Mary Ann T Prado
Jason Hammond
Ramiro Alcala Trevino
Javier Trevino
Amado Trevino Veronica Otero
Also, celebrating a Birthday in
October
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Melissa Y. Brown
Sulema T Avila Jeannie Martinez Miguel Trevino
Connie Perez Sylvia Hernandez
Olga Moreno-Garcia
Mark Moreno Reggie & Elizabeth Moreno
Happy Belated Birthday to family in December:
Liliana & Humberto Hernandez Andres Garza III
Arnaldo Hernandez
Hector Trevino
Sammy Trevino Kevin Hernandez
Marisol Trevino
Felisha Payne
Veronica Gonzalez Yolanda Trevino Joseph Trevino
Happy Belated Birthday to family in November:
Also, celebrating
a Birthday in
December are
Amelie Trevino,
David Trevino,
Ricard “Dick”
Scott, Katrina
Rodriguez
Remington &
Ignacio Moreno.
Savannah Scott
Faith Miller Irma Cantu Felipe Hernandez Jr
Also, celebrating
a Birthday in
November;
Roselee Irma
Salazar, Elizelda
Ortiz, Isaiah
Flores, Pete
Balderas, Josie
Martinez &
Norma Trevino.
Jessica
Leigh Pena
November
6
Moreno-Trevino Family
11105 Jockey Bluff Dr.
Austin, Texas 78748
www.Moreno-Trevino.com
Fun Facts about Texas
Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco, Texas in the 1880s by pharmacist Charles Alderton.
It was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845 as the Republic of Texas.
Home to the largest bat colony in the U.S. The Mexican free-tailed bat is also the fastest in the world and reach a speed of more than 100 miles per hour.
