Concepción González has been cooking tamales like these for more than six decades, which she now prepares for her clients.
“This was my job that I started doing, which helped us to raise my family and my children,” said Concepción.
Now in Astoria they know her as the queen of tamales. She remains faithful to her mother’s recipes, which she learned as a child in her town Tochimilco, the Mexican state of Puebla.
Concepción came to the city in 1992 and settled in Sunset Park, where she had to learn to survive economically in an unknown country.
He started selling tamales with the father of his children and they opened a restaurant but in 2018 he had to close it.
Now, with the help of her daughter Teresita and her other two children, her traditional tamales have once again become her best recipe to survive this crisis.
“My daughter was left without a job and well the boy is working, thank God but we can’t live with a salary, we can’t, so there to survive,” added Concepción.
But instead of walking the streets of Astoria where he currently lives, selling his product, he has turned to Instagram and Facebook.
With a simple message your customers can order their tamales.
Social networks have become allies of the family.
Teresita still remembers the difficulties of her father taking to the streets to sell.
“How he had to try to fight in those snowfalls of trying to find clients and I no longer, but I already knew where I was going to get,” said Teresita.
The success of their tamales has led the Gonzalez family to have up to 80 orders in one weekend.
The tamales are not only made of Mexican sauces, but also coconut, corn and beans.
Concepción and her children say they will continue to preserve the family recipe so that one day they can reopen a restaurant again.
“That they continue with that tradition, that they learn, that they have to do it and share,” said Concepción.
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