Hot Tamale Trail

In Latin America, hot tamales are as ubiquitous as the sandwich. This holds true in, of all places, the Mississippi Delta. Better known for its association with cotton and catfish, the Mississippi Delta has a fascinating relationship with tamales. In restaurants, on street corners, and in kitchens throughout the Delta, this very old and time-consuming culinary tradition remains vibrant. But how and when were hot tamales introduced to what has been called “the most Southern place on earth”? And why have they stayed? There are as many answers to those questions as there are tamale recipes. Oral history interviews with tamale makers and vendors in the Delta today offer us some answers. They reveal the various ways in which tamale recipes have been acquired and how they have evolved, helping to explain the persistence of hot tamales in the Mississippi Delta.

You've got that straight about El Rio Verde. Where else can you get decent ceviche in North-Eastern Oklahoma? After suffering through Tex Mex hell for several years, I finally found this Oasis in Tulsa. Here are some snaps of my first meal there:

Note: There is nothing wrong with Tex Mex food but sometimes it is nice to have real (or at least something that tries to be more authentic)Mexican food.

The signature El Rio Verde Wet Burrito

Tortilla Soup

Taco Salad

Pièce de résistance - Shrimp Cocktail

My favorite is the posole and menudo but they only have them on certain days and you have to get there early before they run out. You can really tell a good Mexican place by their soups. Unfortunately, I have no snaps of them.

Super sketchy area though. It looks like a nuclear bomb went off and the flesh eating zombies are about to swarm. This street view does not do it justice. You need to visit in the Winter when the trees look dead for the full Walking Dead effect:

El Rio Verde - Street View

Yes, scoring a good tamale sometime can resemble a dope deal. There is a big difference though: Street tamales can sometimes be the best.

Just a few weeks ago, I was walking out of the local meat market and a guy walked up and asked if I wanted to score some tamales. He had me pegged for a tamale addict all right. Anyway, they were raising money for a Mexican charity and they had all the mothers making them so they were excellent. I respect charities that raise money by doing something productive other than simply begging.

Whenever I buy food off the street, it reminds me of my favorite BBQ in Old Town Katy Texas, Midway BBQ. It was a real hoot: Part market, part BBQ, part deer processor. Here is a street view of the sign (Yes, the entrance has a full sized stag mounted over it):

Note: Sadly, it appears that the actual BBQ has since moved to bigger and fancier digs down the street. Bet they don't have that 29.99 take out family meal deal anymore either.

In any case, some black ladies used to hang out front selling baked goods to raise money for their church. One things for sure, there ain't nothing better than a Southern church bake sale. You see one and you had best slam on the brakes, hang a huey and start buying up the goods. For just a few bucks, I could score all the classics: Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Coconut Cake, Pecan Pies. The thing that I most loved was the cookies. It was really the first time that I ever remembered eating a classic tea cake (cookie):

Deep Dish South - Old Fashioned Tea Cakes

The evolution and endurance of our southern tea cake is actually a rather remarkable story in itself really. The simple and unassuming cookies that we know, likely evolved from an English tea cake, according to most southern food historians. Arriving in our country probably sometime in the 1700s, it was typically served up at afternoon or high tea in the homes of the wealthy planters, and likely a version of the slightly sweet, light yeast bun, containing currants and other dried fruits.

It wasn't long before little tea cakes found their way into the lives of poor southerners, who adopted them as our own and made them more suitable to our basic, affordable pantry ingredients - and our love for a much sweeter taste. One of earliest recorded recipes for an American version of tea cakes is found in the cookbook, American Frugal Housewife, published in the 1830s. Here is what they look like:

Southerners do like things a tad sweet though. The deeper you get in the South, the sweeter they get. Here is the Creole/Cajun style glazed Tea Cake:

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