That tamale assembly line sounds like a good Texas TBNers project party.
Could be, Jim; I'll have to think about that for awhile.
1) I think I lost my recipe while we were full time RVers, but I might be able to find it.
2) Each of the people who are going to be spreading the masa on the corn shucks needs a good metal spatula, although when we did it with our neighbors everyone just washed their hands an applied the masa by hand.
3) Someone has to cook the meat the day before; either beef (we used chuck roasts) or pork roasts. (The traditional Mexican Christmas tamales used hog's head.)
4) The meat needs to be shredded or ground up and I no longer have a meat grinder.
5) Each person for whom tamales are made needs a BIG pot with a rack in the bottom to steam their tamales. When we made them, we filled all the pots, then each person took his home and steamed them for the final cooking.
We cooked the roasts the day before in big pots with salt, pepper, and chunks of onion. After grinding it up, we mixed in melted lard, salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder in big stainless steel bowls.
Then we mixed melted lard with the masa in some other big stainless steel bowls.
You need to soak/wash corn shucks, spread masa on the shucks, spread meat down the middle, fold, and place into the pots in a circle with the open end of the shuck to the center.
Of course you have to kind of determine to start with whether folks want hot, medium, or mild tamales.
