Food has made some interesting journeys, fascinating stops, and left troves of amazing stories along the way. And this is what piqued my interest when I happened to catch the NPR story about the Delta Hot Tamales several years ago. Now seemed like the perfect time and place to dig up this story.
In California, tamales are as much a part of our food culture as hamburgers. Who hasn't had a tamale, even if it is the Early Bird special at the local Astro Burger joint, or worse yet, Dinty Moore tamales straight out of a can. Fortunately, a good, authentic, home-made tamale is no longer difficult to come by.
We owe this, in large part, to migrant Mexican farmworkers. Whether it was oranges in Orange County, artichokes in Watsonville, or tomatoes in Fresno, farmworkers, in search of a living, criss-crossed the country, following La Pisca, (the harvest), and left a culture of food in their wake, the Tamale Trail, all these years later.
This is that story. How Mexican farmworkers traveled into the deep South to pick cotton alongside African Americans over a century ago, and in so doing, turned a Mexican staple, the tamal, into a Mississippi staple, the Delta Red Hot Tamale.
I hope you'll give it a listen.
!Buen Provecho!
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