Hot Tamales

Throughout our drive through Mississippi we had been seeing signs about "hot tamales". Knowing full well that these were not the candies that I used to eat in the movie theaters we set about investigating what the hot tamales were. They are exactly what we thought. Tamales. I didn't know that tamales were big with the non Mexican community. One story that we heard suggested that a black sharecropper and a Mexican migrant worker go to lunch on a cold November day. The sharecropper opens his pail and takes out some pork, corn bread, and greens all of which are cold. The migrant worker opens his pail and pulls out 3 tamales that are still hot from being wrapped in the corn husk. Soon they trade items like kids in elementary school. Then they trade recipes and thus the Delta tradition of the hot tamale is born.

In Clarksdale there are 5-6 hot tamale restaurants. However, there is one that is known as the place for hot tamales. Hicks. We had 6 hot tamales at Hicks. They are not too big (I was worried that they would be huge) and 6 was just the right number. The tamales are filled with a type of ground beef and were actually despite my concern not very spicy. I actually did not find them very different from Mexican tamales except in size. I was quite impressed though.

Pictures of Hicks to be added to this post later.