4 Levels of Tamales: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

We challenged chefs of three different skill levels – amateur Onika, home cook Daniel, and professional chef Saul Montiel from Rooftop Cantina – to make us a some piping hot tamales. Once each level of chef had presented and tasted their creations, we asked expert food scientist Rose to explain the choices each made along the way to add some scientific context to the results. Which tamales can compare to your favorite?

Director: Debra Remstein
DP: Luke Riffle
Editors: Manolo Moreno
Talent –
L1: Onika McLean
L2: Daniel Victor
L3: Saul Montiel
Food Scientist – Rosemary Trout
Producer: Tyre Nobles
Culinary Producer: Graciel Caces
Line Producer: Jennifer McGinity
Associate Producer: Sam Ghee
Production Manager: Janine Dispensa
Production Coordinator: Kandace Selio
Cam Op: Lucas Young
Audio: Austin Rumsey
Post Production Supervisor: Stephanie Cardone
Post Production Coordinator: Alter Scout
Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo
Video Copy ad Recipe Editor: Vivian Jao

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22 Replies to “4 Levels of Tamales: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious”

  1. Mexicana here. Level 1: Disgraceful, physically hurt my soul. Level 2: Passable, I want to taste them. Level 3: It’s Saul, you already know 😝

  2. Loved how Saul started chuckling when he said "way", only true Mexicans get the homonym

  3. (Inner monologue)
    She’s a level 1, she doesn’t know. She wasn’t raised like us, just breathe deep. Be happy she’s exploring Mexican cultura. Maybe invite her to dinner and show her from scratch? Is that forward? I mean, if it is? She is cute. Hell maybe it’ll work out and then she’d really learn how to cook Mexican. I like this plan. Convert her via complete integration… Complete… 🙂

  4. Oh God Oneka is a level -3 chef sorry not sorry she should be removed.

  5. One thing, corn husks are also used on Brazil, specially for making pamonha a corn based dessert.

  6. How are they just gonna skim over them making their fillings? That’s an important step we level zeroes want to see! XD

  7. I've struggled with tamales: too much maize outside and not enough filling

  8. I really appreciate Rose's lvl 4 explanations on these videos. I can watch the differences in cooking, but might not immediately understand the implications of what's being done. And it helps me better understand dishes I haven't necessarily cooked before. Love you guys!

  9. i was about to riot if my main man Saul wasn't here to show us how to make tamales

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