'TIS THE SEASON FOR TAMALES

 
DOE SIGNA JR - DOE'S EAT PLACE from Southern Foodways on Vimeo.
After the last acre of cotton has been harvested and cool weather hits the Mississippi Delta, demand for hot tamales reaches a fever pitch. Many Deltans are of the opinion that this Delta delicacy is a food best enjoyed during the winter months, and many more make sure to have a few dozen tamales at the family table when holiday season rolls around. The Signa family, owners of Doe's Eat Place in Greenville, has been meeting this seasonal demand annually for more than six decades. Doe Signa, Jr. and his brother, Charles, continue the tradition their father started all those years ago. Here, Doe shares a couple of secrets about the family's recipe. 
Visit Doe's oral history here on the Tamale Trail, and learn more about Doe's Eat Place by visiting our documentary project that celebrates this iconic Delta restaurant.

BOURBON MALL BURNS DOWN

The Bourbon Mall in Leland, Mississippi, a favorite stop on the Tamale Trail for fried hot tamales, burned to the ground in the early morning hours of October 7. Surrounded by fields of soybeans and sunflowers, its remote location was not only its charm, but its downfall. The cause of the fire is not yet known. We don't know what the future might hold for this Delta icon, either, but we're certainly glad we captured its history. Read our 2005 oral history interview with owner Mark Azlin right here.

Coincidentally, John Currence, chef-owner of City Grocery Restaurant in Oxford, and SFA filmmaker Joe York, made a short film about their recent trek to the Bourbon Mall for Garden & Gun magazine. You can view the film on the magazine's website.

DELTA TAMALES IN CHICAGO

Photo by Rene G

Rene G, Chicago resident and friend of the Tamale Trail, just alerted us to Yoland Cannon's "Mississippi Delta Hot Tamale" cart that recently surfaced on a street corner on Chicago's West Side. For more information on Delta tamales in Chicago, visit our Chicago Connection page and the LTHForum (a Chicago-based culinary chat site) thread on the subject.

TAMALE TRAIL IN SAVEUR

Amy Evans, SFA oral historian and collector of the interviews featured here on the Trail, talks tamales in the October issue of Saveur magazine. The Tamale Trail is also featured as one of their Web exclusives, a online section that elaborates on subjects that appear in the magazine.

After you've read about Delta tamales, spend some time with the other culinary treasures Saveur has highlighted from the Magnolia State. Better yet, head to Mississippi and taste for yourself!

TAMALE TRAIL IN GARDEN & GUN

The Tamale Trail is featured in the September/October 2009 issue of Garden & Gun magazine. Look for mention of the Bourbon Mall's fried tamales in the magazine's "Secrets of the South" feature, which also lists a link to the Trail.

DELTA TAMALE ARTICLE IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Many Tamale Trail vendors are featured in this wonderful article by John O'Connor that was published in the August 22 edition of the Financial Times:

Ervin’s Hot Tamales sits at the split end of a narrow gravel drive outside the town of Sledge, Mississippi (Pop. 461), about 70 miles south of Memphis. It’s a straight shot to Ervin’s from Highway 61, no more than two minutes by car along Six Mile Lake Road. Unless, of course, Six Mile Lake Road happens to be washed out by flood water, in which case you have to backtrack and follow a sinuous stretch of asphalt past oceans of cotton fields, scrubland and irrigation ditches with virtually no identifiable landmark in sight, until you reach a sharp double bend in the road and happen to glimpse the gravel drive on your left just as you go chicaning past it.

There is no sign outside Ervin’s. In fact, Ervin’s isn’t an actual restaurant. It’s just a small, grey house on a spot of land that has been in the family for nearly 100 years. Out back, at the edge of a fallow soybean field, stands a tin-roofed shack where Edna Ervin and her 85-year-old mother, Rosetta, make about 850 hot tamales a week, which they sell in bundles to local grocery stores. Continue reading...

SFA FILM OF ELIZABETH SCOTT OF SCOTT'S HOT TAMALES IN GREENVILLE, MS

Rolling Tamales on M.L.K. from Southern Foodways on Vimeo.

Elizabeth Scott was the SFA's 2007 Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame award winner. Find out more about the award here, and read our oral history interview with Ms. Scott. here.