What's a holiday without tamales?

This is a tamale (or tamal) made by the wife of my dad's co-worker. She's from Guatemala, and she makes great traditional Latin American foods, all from scratch. She even butchers chickens herself. I heard that one whole chicken makes about 10 tamales, and this time 10 chickens lost their lives. That's a lot of tamales. Kudos to her. R.I.P. chickens.

Here you'll join me in unwrapping tamales, step by step.

Step 1. Unwrap the foil or whatever it's wrapped in.

Step 2. Good, now another layer. Guatemalan tamales are wrapped in plantain leaves, unlike Mexican tamales that are typically wrapped in husks (although it varies by region). Anyhow, open it up.

Now you finally see the naked tamale, made with masa, chicken, plum, olive, and chili. Every part of the chicken was used, so I guess I can say that life is like a box of tamales, you never know which part of the chicken you're gonna get. Haha.
Move on...

Step 3. Om nom nom! Guatemalan tamales have a very soft texture and sweet, rich flavors.

By the way, it's quite difficult to take pictures of the food while eating it at the same time.