welcome friends welcome back to Sunday morning and the old cook book show today
we're going to revisit the mixing bowl published by the ladies aid of the
Welland County General Hospital Welland Ontario and this is 1930 Welland is a
city or it's now a city that is down towards Niagara Falls maybe an hour and
a half to two hour drive depending on traffic away from where I live and well
Andy is one of those cities that in terms of international trade and
transport is fairly important because the Welland Canal bisects it it goes
right through it and the Welland Canal is a shipping channel that if you need
to get your boat past Niagara Falls you have to go through Welland so if you
want to go from the Atlantic Ocean to Chicago or the Atlantic Ocean to Detroit
you've got to go through Welland and so it brings me to this recipe called
tamale pie and then at the end I'm also going to contrast the 1930 tamale pie
recipe in this Canadian cookbook with the 1930 tamale pie recipe in this
community cookbook from Santa Monica California now the reason I find tamale
pie kind of interesting in this book is I was born in 1966 and I remember when
my cousin's came up to visit for the summer from Arkansas in 1976 they
brought with them and this is gonna sound really funny they brought with
them old El Paso taco shells and taco stuff and as a 10 year old boy I was
completely blown away because it was totally incomprehensible to me that from
the same continent as where I lived there was this whole world of flavors
that I had never tasted before and I know you're laughing because it's
old El Paso but what I'm trying to say is even into the 1970s and early 1980s
Mexican or Southwest or tex-mex wasn't a thing in Toronto there may have been
pockets of it but it wasn't something that was prevalent it wasn't a flavor
that you could say hey let's you know go down to the restaurant and get it there
may have been one or two in the city but I certainly had never expect
in stem and so I have to imagine in 1930 tamale pie would kind of fall into the
same area in Welland Ontario so I've started it I've got cornmeal in here
I've put in some cold water and now I put in some boiling water and it says to
cook this for an hour over a double boiler so we've reached kind of loose
porridge consistency I'm gonna turn that off I've got a frying pan coming up to
heat and I'm gonna put in a little bit of fat
it says to yoosu it I didn't have any suet so I'm gonna use lard I think lard
is fine for this time period and for this recipe
and once that lard has melted we go in with a diced onion and we just want to
fry that off it says until it Browns the onions looking good so it says now to
put in a pound of ground beef or pork I'm gonna use beef and we fry this off
which looks nice and brown okay the meat has browned up nicely next skin is some
tomato canned tomato and salt pepper and these are to taste it says I believe
that says to taste and then last and the only real spice in this is some cayenne
pepper to taste so well sprinkle some in I don't know Chef John come up with this
now it says to spread a layer of cornmeal in the bottom of a casserole
dish and so I'm gonna say 1/2 because we're going to then put in a layer of
the meat so spread that out and now the meat goes on top into a layer and then a
last layer of cornmeal
now it says to bake it for 45 minutes but it doesn't say what temperature to
bake it at and there's the timer going off for the cake that I have in the oven
I've got a Meyer lemon cake in the oven so I'm gonna take the cake out and I'm
gonna stick this in at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes so stick around for the
taste test
hello friends Glenn's tamale pie has given completed we took it out of the
oven a few minutes ago to let it cool but we have had an intense debate about
whether or not it was a bowl or plate does the bowl or point is it for sowho
so we don't really know yet so we have both ready so here we go let's take a
look cuz it seems like there's still a lot of tomato liquid and other yes and
yet as you scoop it out no oh I'm gonna say bowls a bowl yes a bowl that's so
here's an interesting so a lot more liquid than I expected
yes well the the Welland version the one that I made you put layers in the one
from California has a couple of other extra ingredients it has a can of corn
or kernel corn garlic green pepper and chili powder and a can of ripe olives so
a little more flavor - a little more flavor and you mix it all together
instead of having layers you mix it all together and you put it in a casserole
and you stick it in the oven so it's their clothes I mean this one
only has chili powder instead of cayenne as an extra flavor so I'm kind of
surprised and I wonder what you know tamale pie is today because again it's
it's not something that is something that I make no okay so that's great I
want something that - it's still hot though careful mm-hmm it said Cayenne to
taste your taste was a lot maybe a little bit too much okay so it's an
interesting dish I think if I if I did it this again I would make the cornmeal
mixture a little stiffer to get nice layers mm-hmm
or I'd just go ahead and mix it all together just stir it all together and
put it in the casserole because I think that would be really good too okay I'm
giggling I'm giggling because I have this image of oh not to be them Bob
bibimbap right even bat love even back for the Len likes to eat all of his
parts separately he doesn't like it mixed I don't like it mixed together we
were sitting in a restaurant and we were in Chicago in a Korean restaurant in
Chicago yeah and and was serving us came over and told Glenn that he was not
hating it correctly and gave it a good stir for him and she just took it out of
my hand and I stirred it and then handed it back to me I'm like well I like it
that way but I did so which is why I think it's funny they're like I would
just stir it all up cuz you're not a stirred up all I'm no I'm kind of guy
sometimes peas corn broccoli everything needs to be separate on the plate yes no
I think in this case I would I would excite a stir it all together so I you
know I I do find this interesting that I do find it interesting that this dish is
in this cookbook no well worth it for this time period and that really it's
not all that different from the one that's in the cookbook from Southern
California it's that that that basic cooking is kind of the same same no
matter where you go slight variations right it's the it's and the irony is
that would be that same my family makes the best oh but my
region makes the best my region by region by region difference right if
anywhere in the world and it's also tamale pie is not a recipe that I've
seen in any other community cookbook from Ontario in this time period so I
wonder if it's someone who someone moved if someone had relatives somewhere else
yes or is it because of where Welland is and it had a lot of shipping and a lot
of people passing through it yeah and so more information more information being
shared which is which is quite interesting that being said if you make
a modern version of a tamale pie that you really love tell us all about it in
the in the comment section I'd love to know what you make in 2020 as a tamale
pie but I'm gonna enjoy eating this I think over the next couple days so
thanks for stopping by see you again soon
you