May 9, 2011 20:37
13 yrs ago
Spanish term

tamales de guaán

Spanish to English Other Cooking / Culinary Mexican regional cuisine (Chiapas)
description of dishes prepared by a woman street vendor in Ocosingo. More specifically, the woman is one of the indigenous Tzeltal, from Sivacá. Please note that the tamales eaten by, say, my in-laws from Colombia are very different from what we here in California know as tamales.

So, I'm trying to be as specific/visually descriptive as possible. For example, most tamales I've eaten are wrapped in what looks like cooked corn husk with vertical ridges. Hence, "de hoja" is not immediately clear to me, visually. Is "bola" a kind of "masa" paste? Same goes for "dulce". I mean, what KIND of sweets are typically used to fill tamales from that part of the world?

"de guaán, de mumo, de chipilín" I have no clue about; but then they say food terms and botanical terms are among the trickiest to translate. People normally just don't have the vocab.

If it's easier to explain the Equivalent in Spanish, please feel free to do so.

Thanks in advance.

Discussion

Lourdes Sanchez May 10, 2011:
ya estoy fuera de google, acabo de escribir a una escuela de tseltal, a ver si me responden, tambien checare con el centro maya en Cleveland State ;)
Charles Davis May 10, 2011:
@Lourdes ¡El enlace es genial! Pero qué lástima... parecía que tenía posibilidades. Claro, Chiapas no es Jamaica. ¿Qué puede ser? Da rabia tener que renunciar, ¿verdad? Aunque yo creo que acabarás dando con la respuesta. ¡Creo que Google no da más de sí, hay que recurrir al mundo real!
Lourdes Sanchez May 10, 2011:
@ Charles,

No me imagino que sea lo mismo que okra (tambien encontre varias citas) ya que Chiapas es una region densamente indigena y nunca he visto okra en la region, de hecho aqui te pongo este enlace para confirmar

http://www.backyardnature.net/chiapas/okra.htm
Charles Davis May 10, 2011:
@Lourdes Fascinante la fuente que acabas de citar sobre la gramática del xinca. Está claro que "guaan" es un morfema que funciona como marcador del pretérito: ocurre en diversos verbos citados allí. No sé si está relacionado con esta planta...

Sería muy razonable que fuera gombo u ocra (¿cómo se llama en México: quingombó?). Parece que esta planta existe en la región (por lo menos en Venezuela y Cuba, por ejemplo). Tal vez se importase desde África (¿con los esclavos?) junto con el nombre gwan (que existe en África y también, creo, en el Caribe). No me parece tan descabellada la idea. Pero de momento no hay pruebas, claro.
Lourdes Sanchez May 10, 2011:
aparentemente szapriguaan =degrain en xinca pagina 210

https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/1887/15691/2/Full...

todas las plantas listadas toronjil, puerro, cilantro, etc son el tipo de plantas que uno tiene en la hortaliza y/o macetas. Por supuesto es posible tener guanabanas en una hortaliza pero insisto no me imagino haciendo tamales con ellas
Lourdes Sanchez May 10, 2011:
I just spoke with a linguist friend of mine (I have to say that her language is cachikel not tseltal) who says she has heard the guaan as a portion of the word used para desgranar. Sigo buscando
Charles Davis May 10, 2011:
guarán?? There are several species of trees or shrubs called "guarán" belonging to the genus Tecoma, but although they have medicinal qualities they don't look like food plants.
Charles Davis May 10, 2011:
@DLyons You're probably right. Looks like a "leave as is". It surely can't be guarana; that's an Amazonian plant and I can't believe it grows in Chiapas.

By the way, guans are mostly quite big: more like chickens or turkeys than thrushes. Though why it should be more acceptable to eat big birds I don't know: no logic to it really.
DLyons May 10, 2011:
@Charles It's very hard to come up with a Spanish word - guanbana is all I can think of. My guess is that it's a Tzeltal word that doesn't Google.

A case of "best left untranslated"?
Charles Davis May 10, 2011:
DLyons Well, they put chicken in them, not to mention iguana and even insects.
Charles Davis May 10, 2011:
That's puzzling. I was pretty sure Lourdes was right about this one. I find it hard to believe it's guanábana, though of course it might be. I wonder...
DLyons May 10, 2011:
@offset That's a relief! I was having nightmares of a poor little birdie in a tamale.
offset (asker) May 10, 2011:
confirmed: he's clearly talking about harvested plants here. «Y dónde está sembrado el toronjil y el puerro, dónde el cilantro y el guaán, dónde el perejil, la mostaza y el tomate granadilla.»
offset (asker) May 10, 2011:
elsewhere in the book, Efraín Bartolomé talks about the [yellow-crested?] guan. I'll just ask him whether he means fruit or fowl. Thanks, all.

Proposed translations

5 hrs
Selected

tamales of the guaán plant

As per discussion. It seems to be on a par with perfectly common Spanish food plants e.g. el cilantro y el perejil. Which puzzles me!
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "guaán plant tamales it is. I may drop a footnote or something. Same with the others. Thanks."
+2
49 mins

guan Tamales

Peer comment(s):

agree Charles Davis : It must be this. There are many kinds of guans all over Central America. The Horned Guan is actually not a true guan. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guan_(bird)
29 mins
gracias!
agree Alistair Ian Spearing Ortiz
9 hrs
gracias por tu acuerdo Alistair, despues de todo parece ser un tipo de grano :)
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2 hrs

guanbana (cherimoya) tamales

A fruit seems more likely than a bird to me.
Peer comment(s):

neutral Lourdes Sanchez : guanabana es Anonna muricata, chirimoya es Anonna cherimola, estas frutas son demasiado "acuosas" y su sabor no creo se llevaria con la manteca a menos que se agregase leche. Ambas se usan para hacer bebidas refrescantes
55 mins
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Reference comments

2 hrs
Reference:

Eating guans

"The Crested Guan is quite large, about turkey size, weighing in at about 1.7 kg. Because of their large body size and evidently tasty meat they have been hunted along with other species in the Cracidea family such as Curassows, Guans and Chachalacas all throughout their range."
http://osaconservation.org/blog/987/featured-bird-crested-gu...

"A smoked bird from the large guan family, for sale at the Pompeya meat market [Ecuador]"
http://pulitzercenter.org/blog/untold-stories/ecuador-dead-m...

"It seems that at the time, the White-browed Guan was a common bird, generally known, and much appreciated because of his tasty meat (Reiser 1923)."
http://www.birds-caatinga.com/species/penelope_jacucaca_00.h...
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