When the weather starts to cool, Christmas nears, and you see more feet stuck in UGGs, you can assume that tamaleros in L.A. are trying their damnedest to churn out tamales as quickly as people can order them.
Since tamales are so popular during the holiday season, corn husk prices always spike around this time of year. That’s to be expected as La Virgen de Guadalupe’s birthday, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Día de Los Reyes, and Día de la Candelaría fill our calendars.
However, tamaleros in L.A. are noticing bizarrely high jumps in costs this year.
The Irra Lorenzo family has been in the tamal industry for 30 years now, famous for running Tamales Elena y Antojitos in Watts. One of five daughters, Teresa Irra Lorenzo operates the family’s tamal truck full-time.
“Corn husk has been an uphill battle for us the past year, to keep our prices affordable for our customers. We went from paying $75 for a pack of corn husks to paying $175-$200 for a pack. Prices went up December of last year and never went back down again,” Irra Lorenzo says.
Each $200 pack consists of 24 smaller, one-pound packs of hojas (leaves or husks). These are worth about $8.33 each. Irra Lorenzo attributes part of this price jump to tariffs on imports.
“I think all the corn husk that, at least we have come across, is exported from Mexico,” Irra Lorenzo says. “I haven't seen anything that it sourced from here. So we don't have an option but to buy that.”
Buying quality husks is important to tamaleros. Settling for the cheapest husks on the market means that tamaleros may have to spend double the time in the kitchen cleaning the hojas, reorienting them, and even re-building the tamales when they fall apart, since cheap husks have less integrity than their pricier counterparts.
About 20,000 corn husks are softened in water, layered with masa, and packed with classic fillings at La Indiana Tamales every week during the holiday season. Luis Ramos, the store manager, tells L.A. TACO that they use around 5,000 husks per week during the rest of the year.
“The ones that most people would use, the consumer where they're buying it per pound,” Ramos says. “You have to wash it, clean it, take off the hairs from the corn, and so we prefer not to use that one. But we actually considered going back to that one, just because [of] how expensive it was getting.”
Their supplier imports the corn husks from Jalisco, Mexico, Ramos tells us. Each pack costs $16 and provides 120 husks.
“From what I have understood, [price] depends on the season out in Mexico, because if it rains too much or doesn't rain enough, then there is no corn husk,” Ramos says. “So then you have a scarcity problem, and then [price] just increases.”
Located in the award-winning Mercado la Paloma, Komal Molino is known for dishes like tlacoyos, molotes de plátano, and, of course, their chuchito–a tamal Chef Fátima Juárez introduced to honor the Guatemalan team members at Komal. They also sell red tamales and sweet tamales.
General manager Jennifer Hernandez says Komal goes through 144 corn husks per day. That puts them at about 720 husks per week, since they operate from Wednesday to Sunday.
They buy husks at a rate of $11 per pack from a vendor who imports them from Mexico. Each pack holds 23 husks and weighs one pound. According to Hernandez, customers’ demand for tamales from Komal increases by about one-third during the holiday season. Despite price hikes, it was never an option for Juárez to compromise the quality of Komal’s tamales.
“[Juárez] is trying to keep true to the actual mission of what she's striving for here, which is one celebrating the agricultures or the farmers and purveyors from Mexico,” says Hernandez. “She is bringing in the product directly from Mexico and making minimal profit, but because she still wants to make it accessible and true to the quality, versus taking shortcuts of what may be a little cheaper for us, but will change the flavor drastically in the tamales, and especially for this season.”
When people in L.A. complain about the increasing cost of tamales, it’s an inherent diss towards tamaleros–an implication that their tamales are not worth the price they charge.
Such critics often fail to account for the businesses’ attempts to pay their workers a fair wage, make rent for the month, and ensure their store does not go under in this worsening economy.
As prices for tamales continue to increase, due to a range of factors, fewer customers have enough spending money to cater their family reunions with tamales from their local shops.
“I was talking to my sister earlier today at this time–two years ago, we have twice as many orders for the holiday than we do now,” Irra Lorenzo says. “Last year was a little lower. And then, this year, you can definitely see the difference on the quantity of orders that we have.”
When the cost of husks soar, restaurants typically only marginally profit since they do not hike their menu prices in response. Rising prices can especially be a point of stress for restaurants who provide catering, like Komal.
The price of husks is impacting wholesale, catering, and home chefs alike.
“I've seen [customers] at Costco, or I've heard them at the other grocery store, [say] that the corn husks are expensive,” Ramos says.
Juárez explained that Northgate and other grocery stores in L.A. usually sell corn husks at a bit of a higher price–even though the quality of these grocery husks are on par with the ones sold by small vendors.
Farmers don’t profit much more than usual when charging more, since they typically only sell at higher costs to offset unfortunate circumstances like dry seasons.
Irra Lorenzo alleges that organized crime in Mexico are the ones benefitting, and Juárez believes it’s simply the middlemen.
“So chef [Juarez], I think, was saying that it's usually the middleman that is the one that benefits from [higher prices],” Hernandez says, translating Juárez’s Spanish to English. “Because farmers, you know, they have a standard set price for keeping their pricing all around so they don't raise the prices, so that people don't stop buying from them. And then you have, you know, the restaurants or the people that are going to buy. So in turn, it's usually the middleman.”
Besides the extreme case of corn husks, tamaleros have noticed a “slight increase” in the price of peppers.
“And this year on top of dealing with the high price of corn husk, the box of jalapeños went up from around $18 a box to $45,” Irra Lorenzo says.
Ramos co-signs this sentiment, noting that the rise in jalapeño prices could be attributed to the decrease in individuals willing to do fieldwork due to the ongoing ICE raids.
“The raids have affected us just because we are a small mom-and-pop shop, you know, and we're in the heart of East L.A., and so that's our community that's being affected the most,” Ramos says.
The everyday reminders of ICE’s eagerness to racially profile Latinos and incite violent encounters are enough to deter workers from returning to work–whether in fields or factories.
Tamales Elena buys their husks from a local vendor in L.A. who imports husks from Mexico. Amidst the rise of ICE raids, the vendor began to offer delivery after “struggling a lot.” This was likely due to fewer people wanting to buy in-person and less workers wanting to come on-site out of fear of ICE, Irra Lorenzo says.
Now restaurateurs do not have to risk shopping in person, but the mileage and time it takes to deliver items could be a contributor to the husks’ price increase.
“We are used to [rising] prices for our ingredients . . . specifically during the holiday season, but we have been in the tamal business for over 30 years and can attest that the last two years specifically have been a particular struggle keeping up with high cost of ingredients while trying to stay affordable for our customer base,” Irra Lorenzo says.
The government’s vicious lack of care towards L.A. right now has forever altered how our city loves, grieves, and celebrates.
So before accusing a local tamalero of price gouging, let’s appreciate the businesses that are trying to keep holiday traditions accessible to everyone in the city.
