Whenever I’m in Mexico City, including this past Thanksgiving, I visit the Witches’ Market, the place to go for amulets, potions, statues of Santa Muerte, the usual stuff a witch might need during her busy, witchy day. Once, leaving the market, I spotted a food tent with a huge line in front. “Must be the good stuff,” I thought, so I got in line, not knowing what I was waiting for. When I got to the head of the line, I paid my money and received … a guajolota.
The guajolota (wha-ho-low-tah) is a tamale, covered in green sauce, laid into a bolillo, an oblong bun. The word “guajolota” is based on a Nahuatl word, “guajolote,” a term for turkey, because the whole thing looks like a plump little turkey.
Up until recently, I’d never seen a guajolota in Chicago, but I had seen something very close. At Fat Johnny’s in the Marquette Park area, I was introduced to the Mother-in-Law. We cover this Chicago original food in Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites, and it’s basically a poppy seed bun, the same used with a Chicago hot dog, but instead of a wiener, there’s a Chicago corn roll tamale. This hometown tamale is a tube of cornmeal with a magenta core that *may* contain meat; in the Mother-in-Law, the tamale is covered in chili and dressed like a hot dog with sport peppers, chopped onions, blue-green relish, tomatoes, and a pickle slice. On the first season of No Reservations, when Anthony Bourdain visited Chicago, he pronounced it “disturbing in design, yet strangely compelling.”
In early November, I found a place in Cicero, Tamales Blanquitas, which serves guajolotas. When I stopped by this tiny restaurant, the server gave me the side-eye when I asked for a guajolota, and I don’t think it was because I was speaking miserable Spanish. It was likely because this specialty is not even listed on the restaurant’s menu board; it’s on the “secret menu,” so you have to know it’s there. Though a little carb-heavy, this is a simple sandwich, and the sauce helps alleviate the heaviness.
Unlike Chicago’s Mother-in-Law, the guajolota at a Mexican restaurant will use a more traditional tamale made of meat and finely ground corn meal, much preferable to the Chicago corn roll tamale. All in all, I prefer the Mexican version because they use a better kind of tamale.
There’s a connection between the guajolota in Mexico City and the Mother-in-Law in Chicago. Traditionally in Mexico, the guajolota is dappled with a green sauce, and in Mexico there’s a green sauce called salsa de suegra, or mother-in-law’s sauce.
Of course, it’s unlikely the guys at Fat Johnnie’s thought they were reproducing a Mexican classic, and if you ask why the sandwich is called a Mother-in-Law, you might get the smart-alecky rejoinder, “It, too, will give you indigestion.”
Apologies to mothers-in-law everywhere. We hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, and if you’re tiring of leftover turkey, you might venture into Cicero for a guajolota.
