Tamales are big in Tabasco — big enough to earn a world record.
Yesterday, the city of Villahermosa recaptured the Guinness World Record for the world’s longest tamal.
Making the tamal began on Friday when a section of Francisco I. Madero street in the historic center was closed off to traffic to allow the cooks to set up a custom oven.
The list of ingredients gives an idea of the magnitude of the chipilín tamal: 350 kilograms of corn dough, 100 kg of pork, 35 kg of chipilín — a native legume, 25 kg of chiles, 15 kg of coriander, 800 kg of lard and 200 kg of green peppers.
Chipilín tamales are served with a special salsa, which required 60 kg of tomatoes, 20 of onions and 30 of garlic.
The tamal itself was wrapped first with 1,000 banana leaves and then with five 400-meter rolls of aluminum foil.
No expense was spared: it was estimated that preparing this monster tamal cost between 58,000 and 60,000 pesos (between US $2,800 and 2,900).
The cooks were local gastronomy students led by chef Fabían Romero, and their efforts produced the longest single-piece tamal ever recorded, measuring 50.05 meters long.
The official measurement was taken by the Guinness World Records representative in Mexico, Carlos Tapia Rojas.
Organizers expected to share the longest tamal with 2,500 people.
Villahermosa first took the record in 2016 with a 31-meter tamal. Peru snatched it away with one that was 39.5-meters.
Source: El Universal (sp)
