A journey through Mexican tamales
The apparently simple preparation of this dish —consisting of a portion of maize dough mixed with other ingredients such as iguana, shrimp, beans or fish, and later wrapped in a corn or banana leaf, and steamed—, required the development of instruments such as stone scrapers to remove corn kernels; pichanchas or clay pots with perforations to rinse the nixtamal; to grind the grain, metates; and to cook the dough, pots that resisted the heat, and lids.
