It steamed a lot. I had a cup of coffee and it also steamed, but the tamal steamed more. The dark, the glossy-wet, the formerly green banana leaf—three-ply—was open and inside the yellow mass: the dough, the yellow peas, the disintegrating carrot slices, the chicken with its skin, the hard boiled egg.
It took a while too. I had a big one and I had a lot of chicken. You do not need a knife.
What is the flavor? It must be kind of nondescript, the flavor. The meal must be corn but has—I think—some rice. It has some heavy, yellow spice that, when you’re sick, can smell to you of sweat if it’s the seasoning they use to make arroz con pollo. The moisture of this boiled package . . . but I have mentioned the steam. It tastes like mash with chicken, and it steams into the place you picked, your table for four with only one.
Unknowing 