Culinary turns out tons of tamales

Ivan Morales and Willie Simmons

Culinary chefs Yves Chambaz and Jessica Herrera set out to make 4000 tamales with their culinary students this month. In a random survey of 100 Morton East High School students, only 40 students said they have made a tamale before. 

Oscar Moreno-Rivera, a junior at Morton East, was one of the students preparing tamales.  

“A fun and unique experience that was a very engaging process with all the people who were also in the kitchen preparing with me,” junior Oscar Moreno-Rivera said. 

Chef Yves also describes it as a unique experience.  

“My experience supervising the student’s preparation for the Posada was overwhelming I must say because of the number of students, staff, and parents that were occupying the kitchen was a lot,” Chef Yves Chambaz said. 

Even with the overwhelming and stressful preparation of the Posada Chef Yves still held high spirits and was proud of his students work. 

“But in the end, I was incredibly satisfied with all the work the students put together disregarding that the final products were not up to optimal quality but still servable. But me myself and Mrs. Herrera were very proud of the work the students put together, “ Chef Yves Chambaz said. 

In the end they ended up surpassing their goal of 4000 tamales making around 4,300 tamales.