PROYECTO TAMAL STORY

The situation out of which Proyecto Tamal was born looked something like this:

At the start of the COVID-19 crisis, restaurants across the country were navigating restrictions and working with skeleton teams to stay afloat while most of their workforce was put on unemployment. Many of the Latino immigrants in the industry were similarly laid off. However, because many in this community are undocumented, they were unable to access unemployment or stimulus-related support. Despite the fact that these folks have built lives, families, and careers in this country (while paying taxes like everyone else), they were left to weather the crisis without any governmental support.

Seeing this situation play out in real time in her city of residence of Philadelphia, Ana Caballero came up with Proyecto Tamal. PT started in April 2020 as a weekly tamal sale with a mission to put money into the hands of Philly’s Latino cooks who had lost their jobs partially or entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each weekend Ana would invite a rotating cast of cooks to collaborate on a tamal-focused menu and the proceeds collected went to the participating cooks: With two days of work, these folks were secured a minimum of $1,000 each.

Lost Bread Co. was the primary host and facilitator of the project. Thanks to them—and also to a key group of Philly food businesses—PT was able to make use of an existing network of resources and infrastructure to operate.

HOW IT WORKED

Toward the end of the project, Proyecto Tamal transitioned into a more self-sustaining model  by bringing on board a team of past participants as full time employees while still hosting a rotating cast of cooks on the weekends. 

For the entirety of the project (that ran for 11 months), we worked with over 70 different cooks and consistently raised for each of them a minimum of $1,000.00 which totalled to $80,000. It was a true privilege to serve this community of cooks and their families. In exchange they shared with us their ideas, know-how and flavors. Check out our menu archive here.

With the critical months of the pandemic behind, we are closing this chapter of work. Stay tune for future plans and a series of pop-ups during the summer and fall of 2021.

We'll be posting information here.

THANK YOUs

WE ARE FOREVER GRATEFUL TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO, FROM BEGINNING TO END, SUPPORTED PROYECTO TAMAL. THE LIST BELOW MENTIONS THOSE WHO DIRECTLY FUELED THE WEEKLY RUNNING OF IT.

Allison Carafa of Lost Bread Co.

Adam Lazeric of FCM Hospitality

Laura Vargas, Petra Dominguez and Camelia Jimenez Kitchen team

Mary Pat Finn of FCM Hospitality

Jon Nodler of Cadence Restaurant

Emily Brown Content editor

Dr. Leah Reisman Advisor

Dr. Deborah Gorth for Kickstarting the project

The teams at Jezabels Cafe, Rival Brothers Coffee and Kalaya Restaurant and Riverwards Produce.

AND SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OUR CARING CUSTOMERS WITH HARDY and curious APPETITES THAT PURCHASED TAMALES WEEK AFTER WEEK. 

why tamales

Tamales are an ideal quarantine food: sturdy and delicious with a good shelf life, and easy to reheat and enjoy from the comfort of a quarantining home. Tamales are regionally diverse but also a unifying food thread throughout Mexico and Central America—places from which the majority of Philly’s Latino cookforce originate.

nixtamal

Proyecto Tamal always had an influx of new people and ideas. A constant amid so many moving parts was fresh nixtamalized masa. For the first seven months of the project, that masa was sourced from chef Jon Nodler of Cadence Restaurant who played an essential role in keeping our project going. Down the road we acquired access to a wet mill and for the last 5 months of the project we milled all our own masa on site. The corn we used was purchased primarily from Green Meadow Farm in Lancaster, PA.

meet ana

Ana Caballero is a Honduran-American culinary professional and cook who has lived, studied and worked in Western Honduras, Southern Mexico, Northern Italy and Denmark. She currently works and lives in Philly.