Pairs are tightly wrapped with the fold inside and tied with cotton string. The red string is for "special ones." Such as with hot sauce, peppers, rat poison, sweet or sour. What ever you want!
This is the "baby" pot. The water is heated with the tamales already in the water and then boiled for 45 minutes.
Here is Giselle fishing one out for the camera. The mama pot is to the left . We filled it three times! Total production was 126 tamales after ten hours.
Lydia got the first one because everyone else was still working! It looks like mush but is as firm as..... a tamale! To be eaten with a fork. Iwanted to put a prize in each.

The finished product! The yellow stain is rice. The white strip is sweet pepper and the orange in the upper left is carrot. We save the leaves for making clothing, roofs, kitchen pots, etc. (not really)