Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble

Fire burn and cauldron bubble!

It’s the third weekend in a row I’m standing over my 20 litre stock pot filled to the brim with something to be canned or frozen. Maybe I need a proper cauldron…

The women I worked with in Panama had incredible cauldrons. Cauldrons that made my 20 litre stock pot look like a mere saucepan. The big cauldrons didn’t necessarily get used every day, but they came out for the making of tamales when the corn was ready.

Tamales were a favourite fundraiser for the Amas de Casa group I worked with. We’d gather at one of the women’s houses, each bringing ingredients. We’d spend the whole day grinding corn, plucking chickens, cutting vegetables, and forming the tamales. Tamales are a mixture of meat, onions, and “guisos” (flavourful things like celery and cilantro), surrounded by a thick corn mash. The mass is wrapped in a leaf and boiled to set the corn into a dense, polenta-like cake. That’s where the giant cauldron came in. We’d cook dozens of tamales at once in one of those vast pots, set over a raging fire.

Once the tamales were finally in the pot, one of the women would produce a small bottle of seco (distilled from cane sugar, and clocking in at 70 proof), and pass it around. It was the only time I ever saw the women drink—sitting around watching the big cauldron boil.

Hmm…now there’s an idea! Sure would make stirring this tomato sauce more pleasant…