Hallaca
| Hallaca | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Alternative names | Ayaca, Guanimos, Tamal |
| Type | Dumpling |
| Place of origin | Aruba, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico |
| Region or state | Latin America |
| Main ingredients | cornmeal dough, meat (beef, pork, chicken), raisins, capers, olives |
| Variations | Pasteles, Guanime |
 Cookbook:Hallaca  Hallaca | |
In Latin American cuisine, an hallaca (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈʎaka], [aˈʝaka]; alt. spelling, hayaca) is a dish of beef, pork, or chicken mixed with raisins, capers, and olives and wrapped in cornmeal dough, all folded within plantain leaves, tied with strings, and boiled or steamed afterwards. It is typically served during the Christmas holiday. In the Dominican Republic it is known as tamal or guanimos and is made of cornflour and stuffed with ground meat; In Trinidad and Tobago, hallaca is known as pastelle but often confused with empanadas. In Puerto Rico hallaca is referred to cassava mashed with milk, annatto oil, and broth. The mashed cassava is then stuffed with meat, seafood, olives, capers, raisins, chick peas, and then wrapped in banana leaf.
Origins
The most likely progenitor of the maize body and plantain envelope of hallaca is the Mesoamerican tamal. Tamal-like dishes, under various names, spread throughout Spain's American colonies as far south as Argentina in the decades following the conquest. To this day, some people in western Venezuela (primarily in Zulia, Falcón and Lara states) use the terms tamar and tamare to refer to what is basically a bollo—the closest version of the tamal in Venezuela—with a simple meat filling.
Name
Venezuelan lexicographer Ángel Rosenblat found the word hayaca in a Maracaibo document from 1538, but believes it referred to a bundle of raw corn rather than to the modern assemblage. According to Adolfo Ernst, the word hallaca evolved from the indigenous Guarani language, stemming from the verb ayua or ayuar, meaning "to mix or blend". From there, the construction ayuaca (mixed things) devolved to ayaca and ultimately to hayaca or hallaca (using Spanish silent "h" when written). The earliest use of the word in the modern sense is in a 1781 document of Italian missionary linguist Filippo Salvatore Gilii.
Traditions
Hallaca is a staple part of Venezuelan Christmas celebrations and its preparation is practically limited to that time of the year. The dish is also an icon of Venezuelan multicultural heritage, as its preparation includes European ingredients (such as raisins, nuts and olives), indigenous ingredients (corn meal colored with annatto seeds and onions), and African ingredients (smoked plantain leaves used for wrapping).
Trinidad, which is just 7 miles from Venezuela's east coast hallacas are called pastelle. The preparation is essentially the same with some variation in size and the filling. One of the major herbs in Trinidadian cooking is culantro (called chadon beni locally) and this is a predominant flavour in most seasoned meat. There are also vegetarian fillings made from soya, lentils and various other things to cater to Hindus and other vegetarians. The typical Trinidadian pastelle is generally a lot smaller than its Venezuelan kin.
In Aruba, an Island 10 miles of the coast of the Paraguana peninsula, Venezuela. It is called 'ayaca', the ingredients are pork and chicken stew, or pork or chicken stew, capers, raisins, cashewnuts, bellpepper, pickled baby onions, a prune, olive. The dough made from white cornmeal, the ayaca leaves first spread with lard or oil. The preparation is the same as in Venezuela (except not with annato colored oil). Cooked meat with other ingredients are then wrapped in ayaca leaves, tied with string and then boiled for about 2 hours. Taste varies from family to family, some add madam Jeanet peppers (very hot). Probably it came to the island by immigrants or the recipe was borrowed. Like many things from other cultures, it has become a part of the Aruban Christmas food traditions adopted as in Trinidad.
Preparation
The traditional hallaca is made by extending a plantain leaf, greasing it with a spoonful of annatto-colored cooking oil and spreading on it a round portion of corn dough (roughly 30 cm), which is then sprinkled with various fillings. While no two families make hallacas in quite the same way, the most common fillings include a mix of stewed (or rare) meats (pork, poultry, beef, lard, crisp or pork rind), raisins and pitted green olives. Pepper-filled olives are becoming more popular nowadays. People in Los Llanos add boiled eggs and pieces of red pepper. Others might add chickpeas, nuts and almonds.
The filled dough is then skillfully wrapped in an oblong fashion and tied with string in a typical square mesh before its cooking in boiling water. Afterwards, it is picked from the pail with a fork, unwrapped and served on its own plantain leaves with chicken salad, pan de jamón (ham filled bread) or plain bread. In the Andean region, the filling is cooked with the rest of the hallaca, while in the rest of the country it is usually cooked beforehand.
The ideal hallaca has a silky golden-reddish glow. In taste, it aims to balance the saltiness of the meats and olives with the sweetness of the raisins and of the dough itself.
After making a number of hallacas, the remaining portion of ingredients is occasionally mixed together in order to obtain a uniform dough. The dough undergoes the same hallaca wrap and cooking preparation, although typically smaller in size and much fewer in number. The result is the bollo, which may be offered as a lighter option to the hallaca at breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
After cooking, hallacas can be frozen for several weeks with no change in flavor. It not unusual for some families to eat hallacas as late as May or June of the next year.
Ingredients differ from region to region and from family to family. It is not uncommon to find hallacas with chickpeas, tomato, bell pepper, pickled vegetables, and garlic. Potatoes are included in the Andean variation. Also, some of the traditional ingredients may be substituted by local variants such as fish and lobster (East Coast) and plantain dough (Maracaibo).
Culture
Hallaca-making requires many hours of intense work, so hallacas are typically made all in one go, in large enough quantities to last the entire holiday season (from a few dozen to several hundred). Hallaca making is a logistical feat and an economic stretch for many. The most important Venezuelan newspapers usually carry stories in their Economics sections at the beginning of December noting the rise in the cost of making hallacas.
Hallaca-making reunites family members at holiday time. It is a job joyfully done by whole families together, marking the start of the holiday festivities. However, the most important part of "hallaca-preparation" is that it represents one of the strongest holiday family traditions in Venezuela, comparable perhaps to Thanksgiving in United States.
The hallaca making party tends to be matriarchal, with grandmothers and/or mothers leading the preparation. Foreigners in Venezuela in December are often struck by how often they are offered hallacas.
Friendly rivalry over whose hallacas are the best is part of the Venezuelan holiday culture, leading to the popular saying la mejor hallaca es la que hace mi mamá – the best hallaca is the one my mother makes – an expression of familism. This expression was immortalized in a holiday song by Venezuelan pop singer Raquel Castaño.
See also
Notes
- ^ Rosenblat, Ángel. (Venezuela Analysis, ???). hallaca.asp "hallaca". Retrieved 9 January 2005.
- Template:Notelcastillo "Raquel Castaños" Castillo, Efrain. Revista Estampas (???) "Decanos de la Navidad" Retrieved 8 April 2012
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