Flor de Lis

I’m not tamale crazy in the least but it seemed remiss to pass up Flor de Lis since it was so close to our hotel and gets talked up all over the place. And I almost went tamale-less because dining during the late end of lunch a.k.a. la comida meant many of the varieties were gone. My original order of chile verde pork in corn husks became a chicken filling in banana leaves. I’m fine with either, really.

Some of the reasons I’m not crazy about tamales is because even when they’re light like these were, they’re still kind of dense and I worry about the insides to outsides ratio. Even though our next meal was a good five hours away, the meat and masa stuck right with me.

I’m still not sure when the proper time for tamales is because you’d see people on street corners hawking them from giant metal steamers in the morning as well as the wee hours. I never did eat a street tamale aside from the one stuffed into a roll and that appears to be an anomaly.

Street food has never scared me but today I received an email from a stranger who in addition to giving me Mexico City food tips said that there’s two tons of dried feces in the air so watch out for uncovered food. I snorted out loud at work when I read those words. I’m not sure of the veracity of that boldly disturbing statement, and since I basically find and fact check statistics and all day long at my job I can’t help but wonder about that number. This will have to be looked into further because I would hate to eat a poop tamale, wrapped in banana leaves or corn husks.

Flor de Lis * Huichapan 21, Mexico City, Mexico

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