Of course they can! The tamales that are flat and thin like a very sharp knife are the tamales that are eaten with mole. That's the way my querida cihtli Loreto prepared them: just with a little bit of salt, delicious, they are eaten almost as if they were tortillas: para acompañar o sopear con mole negro de huexolotl.
I just read an article from The San Francisco Chronicle in which the famous cook Diana Kennedy is talking about tamales and says "The tamales should be round. Handle them with your fingers. Don't squash" (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/09/FDGB2KAK0I1.DTL).
Well, guess what? Some tamales are round, some others are flat. Period.
You know? I just hate it when whites know-it-all about Aztec or Mexica or Maya culture come and talk about OUR culture and see themselves as authorities in the field (I guess this was a really good deal for you, right? First you conquered us, gave us small-pox infected blankets, committed genocide, then when we were in the brink of extinction you decided that we were interesting and decided to study our culture, and now you go around the world lecturing about our culture, what a cool deal for you!).
You are the best tamal maker? Excuse me? I don't think so! You moved to Mexico in 1957 and since then you've been studying our food? Congratulations! But guess what? We have been there for centuries and we have inherited (not in books, not in recipes) the way to cook from our nantzintli and from our cihtli and they in turn inherited the knowledge from their nantzintli and their cithli. So don't come and tell me what shape tamales should have or should not have!
Have you heard about the tamales called xoquitos or xocos? Well, they have a completly different shape, while rounded they have their "peak" inserted into the tamal.
You know? This is one of the aspects that I hate the most from people of European descent (fortunately not all of them are like that, but certainly lots of them), when they say "I know better than you because I come from a better place than you". I just hate it! This is such an imperialist, arrogant, stupid white man kind of thought. When the hell are you going to stop thinking like that? When the hell are you going to realize that despite being the conquistadores you are not better than us? When the hell are you going to realize that being white doesn't make you know better than we do? When the hell are you going to open your eyes? When? When?
Ok, maybe never. So keep on thinking whatever you want but don't come and tell me you are "the best" when in reality you are not because the best is Doña Chonita, or Doña Paula, or Doña Itxel, or Doña Vicenta, or Doña Xóchitl, or Doña Malinalli ... but not you.
