Experience history, culture and great food on the Mississippi Delta Hot Tamale Trail
Food trails are not uncommon in Mississippi and have themes like hamburgers, seafood and there's even a gas station food trail.
But there's a trail that digs deeper — The Mississippi Delta Hot Tamale Trail. It's not just about food, it's a celebration of the Delta hot tamale, generations of tradition and Mississippi's multi-cultural past.
"It is its own thing in the tamale world," said Melissa Booth Hall of the Southern Foodways Alliance. "It clearly draws from Mexican cuisine, but it's not a Mexican tamale.
"It's its own thing. What the Delta tamale is is a quintessential Delta food. We think this is an interesting story about what Mississippians ate and still eat today that identifies the Mississippi Delta."
How did tamales arrive in the Mississippi Delta?
The Southern Foodways Alliance studies regional foods and collects oral history about them. According to the organization, oral history has several explanations.
Some say they date back to the native Mound Builders culture. Others say tamales arrived in the mid-1800s with soldiers returning from the Mexican-American War.
Hall said what appears to be a more plausible explanation is they arrived in the early 1900s with agricultural laborers from Mexico. Tamales would have been shared with their Black co-workers. That theory seems to be a good fit because tamales were more often made and sold by people in the Black community.
"There are blues songs about tamales," Hall said. "Robert Johnson's 'They're Red Hot,' recorded in 1936, there's Mississippi Delta tamales in that song."
What makes Delta hot tamales Delta hot tamales?
John T. Edge, author of 'The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South' and other books about traditional foods, said he became interested in Delta hot tamales in the 1990s while attending graduate school. Tamales seemed out of place in the Delta, so he began researching and writing about them.
"The difference is in the ingredients and preparation and also in historical events that led to their popularity," Edge said. "You often see cornmeal in (them) as well as corn flour or masa."
Edge said masa would be used in traditional Mexican tamales, but cornmeal made its way into them in Mississippi because it was a common ingredient in the region.
Another difference is Delta hot tamales are stewed in a broth instead of steamed. He said Delta hot tamales are sometimes wrapped in parchment paper or even coffee filters, but traditional corn husks are used as well.
According to the Southern Foodways Alliance, they are also smaller and spicier than their Latin counterparts and fillings can include beef or turkey in addition to traditional pork.
And there's plenty of variation in taste among Delta tamales.
"We're talking about family styles and techniques that have been passed down for generations," Edge said.
Delta tamales aren't only in the Delta
Many establishments in the Delta are well-known for tamales such as Doe's Eat Place in Greenville and White Front Cafe in Rosedale, but these adapted delicacies are found elsewhere in the state.
Pig ear sandwiches and smoked sausage sandwiches are the most popular items on the menu at the Big Apple Inn in Jackson, but it hasn't always been that way. The popular restaurant came from humble beginnings and the only item on the menu was tamales.
Geno Lee, who runs the business, said his great-grandfather, Juan Mora, migrated to the US from Mexico looking for work and eventually settled in Jackson selling tamales on Farish Street before opening the restaurant in 1939.
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"He lived in the area," Lee said. "He made them at home and cooked them on the street. He sold the tamales in front of the Alamo Theater."
Lee said the recipe was his great-great-grandmother's, but was adapted like those in the Delta. Mora used readily available corn meal and mixed it with corn flour he made himself. He also used ground beef rather than traditional pork.
Roughly 15 years ago, Lee changed the filling to ground turkey.
"We started trying different meats and found the dark meat holds flavor really, really well," Lee said.
Fat Mama's Tamales filled a void
Fat Mama's Tamales in Natchez has become a dining destination and its beginnings speak to how entrenched tamales are in the lives of some.
"In the mid-'80s one of the local tamale makers passed away," said David Gammill, son of Britton and Jimmy Gammill, who started the business. "She was a local African-American woman that made tamales and she passed away.
"My parents were customers of hers. Mom and Dad would pick them up and that would be dinner for the night. After she passed, tamales were much more difficult to find."
So, Gammill's parents took it upon themselves to learn how to make tamales on weekends and getting them just right turned into a long journey.
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"That went on for almost two years," Gammill said.
When the recipe was perfected people began ordering them and in 1989, Fat Mama's Tamales was opened.
Edge said tamales being made by people of different races and ethnic backgrounds pays homage to the first Black Mississippians that made them.
"It's a really beautiful expression of this multi-cultural Mississippi," Edge said.
How to tour the Delta Hot Tamale Trail
While the majority of the stops on the Delta Hot Tamale Trail are in the Delta, they span the entire state with destination from Corinth all the way down to Biloxi.
Locations can be found on the Southern Foodways Alliance app. It also includes other food trails such as the Southern Boudin Trail.
The app includes oral histories and mapping aids as well.
Download the app for Android devices here.
Download the app for iOS devices here.
Do you have a story idea? Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or bbroom@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Travel the MS Delta Hot Tamale Trail for history and good eats
