Mom and Apple Pie

Soaking the husks and brushing butter on the pie for Christmas Day

At my house, during the holidays, I beg to make tamales. It used to be a huge ordeal. A gathering of family members from a few states and hundreds of miles. Sometimes even neighbors crowded around the table to get their hands dirty grinding meat or making the masa. They knew if they helped, that they could take some home. When I was young it was my and my cousins' duty to keep the meat coming. We had to crank on this old grinder that was a big as my arm and attached to the side of the table with a c-clamp. An adult would place some pork, reddened by chili pepper and spice mud into the jaw of the grinder and away we would crank. Naturally, this was quite a daunting and painful task and since we were children, the authorities were often called. They usually left quietly with half a dozen fruits of our labor and a wink.

Ok. that last part is a lie. But we did crank out 15 dozen or so in a day when there were lots of people. Nowadays its only a couple or few of us and we're lucky to do 3 dozen. How that for productivity?