[5] The Aztec and Maya civilizations, as well as the Olmec and Toltec before them, used tamales as easily portable food for hunting trips, traveling large distances, and nourishing their armies.

[7] The different forms of Tamales eaten and sold in Aztec markets are well documented in the extensive Florentine Codex written by Reverend Bernardino de Sahagún.

[11] While meat and fish were the customary fillings of tamales of this era, squash seeds and flowers, and greens such as chaya, or chipilin were also common.

Fray Diego de Landa Calderón also spoke of 'special breads' [tamales] which were used specifically as offerings, with fillings such as deer heart, or quail.

The Fenton vase shows a plate of unwrapped tamales being offered as a penance to a powerful Mayan nobleman.

(c. 250 BC – 750 CE)[14] In Cuba, before the 1959 Revolution, street vendors sold Mexican-style tamales wrapped in corn husks, usually made without any kind of spicy seasoning.

[citation needed] A well-known Cuban song from the 1950s, "Los Tamalitos de Olga", (a cha-cha-cha sung by Orquesta Aragón) celebrated the delicious tamales sold by a street vendor in Cienfuegos.

In Trinidad and Tobago, the dish is called a pastelle and is popular in many households during the entire Christmas season and New Year celebrations.

[16] In Jamaica, there is a traditional dessert called duckunoo or duckanoo, also referred to as tie-a-leaf or blue drawers (draws).

Other names include: dokonon (in French Guiana), doukounou (in Haiti), paime (in Trinidad & Tobago), penmi (in St Lucia) and dukunu / ducunu or tamalito (in Belize).

[18] Dukunus are mostly vegetarian and consist of roasted corn kernels blended with coconut milk as a base.

[21] In the classical times of the Maya of Central America (Guatemala in particular), the great Mayan lords delighted in a baked dough bun during the winter solstice, made of maize mixed with turkey, tepezcuintle (lowland paca) or venison, spices, and chili pepper, among other ingredients.

The tamales are often accompanied with chocolate, yolk bread, and punch, and participate in the Mass of Gallo, at midnight.

The name comes from the Nawat language spoken by the Nicarao, who were situated on the Southern Pacific coast of Nicaragua, and translates to "meat tamale".

Enjoying nacatamales during special occasions and to invite extended family and neighbors to also partake is a common occurrence.

The masa and filling are then wrapped in plantain leaves, tied with a string, and made into pillow-shaped bundles – nacatamales.

A lack of griddles in the archaeological record suggests that the primary foodstuff of the Mesoamerican diet may have been the tamal, a cooked, vegetal-wrapped mass of maize dough.

It is combined with lard or vegetable shortening, along with broth or water, to bring the dough to the consistency of a very thick batter.

Preparation is complex and time-consuming, and an excellent example of Mexican communal cooking, where this task usually falls to the women.

Instead of corn husks, banana or plantain leaves are used in tropical parts of the country, such as Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, and the Yucatán Peninsula.

Depending on the size, zacahuil can feed between 50 and 200 people; they are made during festivals and holidays, for quinceañeras, and on Sundays to be sold at the markets.

[28][29] Humitas (from Quechua humint'a) is a Native South American dish from pre-Hispanic times, a traditional food from the Andes and it can be found in Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Northwest Argentina.

It consists of corn dough stuffed with a stew of beef, pork, or chicken and other ingredients such as raisins, capers, and olives, fresh onion rings, red and green bell pepper slices.

A characteristic of the hallaca is the delicate corn dough made with consommé or broth and lard colored with annatto.

[citation needed] Tamales were one of the dishes that the Peruvian chef Juan José Cabezudo was famous for serving from his food stand near the Plaza Mayor in Lima.

Various tamal recipes have practically disappeared under the pressures of modern life and the ease of fast food.

There are also varieties made without masa, like tamalis, which are made with small fish fry wrapped in banana leaves and steamed, similar to the tamales de charal from Mexico, where the small fish are cooked whole with herbs and seasonings wrapped inside a corn husk without masa.

The number of varieties has dwindled through the years so certain types of tamales that were once popular in the Philippines have become lost or are simply memories.

[36][37][38][39][40] While Mexican-style and other Latin American-style tamales are featured at ethnic restaurants throughout the United States, some distinctly indigenous styles also are made.

[citation needed] Cherokee tamales, also known as bean bread or "broadswords", were made with hominy (in the case of the Cherokee, the masa was made from corn boiled in water treated with wood ashes instead of lime) and beans, and wrapped in green corn leaves or large tree leaves and boiled, similar to the meatless pre-Columbian bean and masa tamales still prepared in Chiapas, central Mexico, and Guatemala.