Families wait in line for hours to buy masa for Christmas tamales at beloved LA grocer

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Christina Chavarria had already prepared almost 200 tamales, but she was back at Amapola Market in Southern California early Tuesday morning for more masa.

The dough made from ground corn was the best there, so it didn't bother her that the line was wrapped around the parking lot.

“It's always seasoned perfect, ready to go,” Chavarria said.

During the holiday season, tens of thousands of people head to one of three market locations in the Los Angeles area seeking the freshly produced masa that's a staple ingredient for tamales. Many Latin American families will gather to make them assembly-line style, spreading the paste on dried corn husks and filling them with sweet and savory ingredients.

Chavarria is excited to make them with her mother and 26-year-old daughter this year, who's “at that age where she doesn't always want to do stuff with me.” Her mother will bring roasted chiles from El Paso, Texas, infusing their tamales with a touch of the family heritage from Chihuahua, Mexico.

Amapola Market calls it the annual “masa pilgrimage.”

“We want them to have a good Christmas,” said CEO Rolando Pozos. “It kind of becomes more of a responsibility than a job.”

Some of the market's customers travel from as far as Bakersfield, California, or Las Vegas. Many arrive well before dawn to get in line, hours before the store opens. One group drove from Hesperia, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) away and camped overnight to be at the Downey location early Tuesday.

Pozos doesn't take the grocer's now 64-year responsibility lightly. The dough is so crucial to the holidays that in 2016, when the grocer sold spoiled masa that made people sick, loyal customers declared Christmas was ruined. The company vowed to do better.

With his slicked back salt-and-pepper hair, Pozos is well-known to the store's regulars, doling out handshakes and personal greetings in Spanish. Pozos, himself, is a regular on local TV networks demonstrating the art of making tamales. He took charge of the company five years ago and says he's proud of keeping prices stable for the third year in a row, as families feel the pinch from inflation.

Prices matter for families that generally making hundreds of tamales at a time and need a lot of masa, said Melissa Perkins, who was waiting in line with her father. Her family has used Amapola's masa for nearly 30 years, since before she was born. The production line now includes almost two dozen siblings, nephews, aunts and uncles.

“This is my mom's favorite masa,” Perkins said.

The store sells prepared masas for savory tamales like pork and chile to sweeter versions that are pineapple and strawberry flavored. There are other uses, too, for tortillas and champurrado, a thick Mexican hot chocolate.

In the busy season, employees begin churning out bags of masa at 3 a.m. daily, producing them as quickly as they fly out the door.

In the back, cooked corn is delivered to be ground up in massive vats in combination with salt, lard, and other ingredients in industrial mixers. The bowls are lifted eight feet (2.4 meters) into the air and poured into a giant funnel that fills bags that are then double-bagged by a worker. Behind them, fresh tortillas spill out onto a conveyor belt by the hundreds.

After arriving at 4:15 a.m. in pajamas, Giselle Salazar waited with her sister and cousin, bundled up in blankets while catching up from college. Some families sent sleepy kids to hold their place in line while looking for parking blocks away, bringing chairs and snacks when they returned.

The three women were waiting again two hours later in a separate line for more pineapple masa.

“At first it was just our moms together," Salazar said. “They passed the torch down to us basically. We're the new generation of aunties.”

They had already filled up a small wagon and shopping cart with almost 100 pounds (45 kilos) of masa. Cousin Alexa Campos examined each bag carefully, exchanging one that looked watery at the bottom. Consistency is key for tamales to cook through properly, she said.

“After Christmas we're done with tamales for the rest of the year,” Campos said. “(Be)cause we make a lot and eat them for a week straight.”

As the sun rose, the line outside Amapola moved along, but more people arrived just as quickly.

Mark Monroy was passing on the tradition to his 9-year-old daughter Avery, bringing her on the masa trek for the first time. They drove 1 1/2 hours from Riverside.

Raised in the Los Angeles area, Monroy has memories of going to Amapola as a child so his family returns every year despite moving away.

“You can have a little bit of presents or maybe not even any presents for certain years, but you'll always have a tamale to unwrap,” Monroy said.