Cruz to lend her knowledge as tamale contest judge

By MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ
Managing Editor
editor@sbnewspaper.com

Anna Cruz

At the age of 55, Anna Cruz, vice president of the San Benito CISD Board of Trustees, has made a name for herself as a sharp and resourceful woman whose acute observational competence allows little to escape her.

Well, except for that one time.

When she was 5, or 6 or 7, Anna was a migrant child who often traveled all over the country with her family. One such place was the city of Seminole in West Texas, where her father and uncles worked at a cotton gin every Christmas. There, a farmer gave Anna’s family a piglet they later named La Chata.

“We raised that piglet, and he would travel with us to different states, and so we would all feed him and care for him and love him,” Anna said. “This is when I was growing up, and you have to understand that I did not know where tamales came from then.”

Oh yeah. You know where this is going.

“We used to travel in like a clan,” Anna continued. “We had our great-great grandmother, abuelitas, all the tios and tias, and we would all live together in one big farm house. So as we would travel with our piglet, we all kept becoming more attached and in love with it.”

One day, Anna and her cousins came home from school while living in Seminole and looked for La Chata, as they often did to play with the piglet, but couldn’t find her. “That’s when my mother broke the bad news that they had slaughtered La Chata and made her into tamales,” Anna said. “We cried all night. You could hear us sobbing in the middle of the night, because – like I said – we didn’t know where tamales came from. The following year, when they gave us another piglet, we didn’t get attached to it because knew what was going to happen.”

But those who’re sentimental should not read this gory tale in despair; after all, La Chata served the family well in the end.

“We loved La Chata, may she rest in peace in heaven, but she fed all our tummies,” Anna said, laughing.

Today, she finds herself in a position that’s not unfamiliar to Anna as an authority on tamales. Consider that PBS once aired a special on her family called “Tamalada” – a nationwide broadcast that aimed to bring attention to the craft of tamale making and preparing.

So where does one go from there? Judging the San Benito News “Best Tamales in Town” contest, obviously. Anna will lend her knowledge of tamales as a judge in this the fourth annual event, scheduled for 12 noon on Friday, Dec. 21, at the News office, located at 356 N. Sam Houston Blvd. in San Benito.

With a past as rich as Anna’s in making tamales, she plans on serving the contest well.

“When I grew up we started getting involved in how my uncles would slaughter it (piglets), clean it, cook it, make chicharones or tamales,” she said. “It was a whole family affair. We would all get involved. We would basically help more with the spreading of the masa on the corn husks.”

What makes the best tamales? Anna said, “The way I see it is the best tamale is the one that just slithers off the husk, just by shaking it a little bit.” She further remarked, “You know it has a lot of lard, and that’s what gives it a lot of the flavor besides the other spices. So I’ll be looking at that and whether there’s plenty of meat. My favorites are pork and second would be cheese tamales, which my mom makes.”

Read this story in the Dec. 9 edition of the San Benito News, or subscribe to our E-Edition by clicking here.