TAMALE TRAIL PART OF MOST SOUTHERN WEEKEND ON EARTH THIS WEEKEND IN CLARKSDALE, MS

This weekend, July 9 and 10, is being billed as "The Most Southern Weekend on Earth." The Oxford American magazine is hosting a series of events in Clarksdale, featuring food, lectures and, of course, live music. As part of the event, Amy Evans Streeter, chief architect of the Tamale Trail, will be moderating a Mississippi Delta Hot Tamale Trail Talk & Tasting at Delta Amusement on Saturday, June 9 at 11 a.m. The event is free, so come on down, if you're in the area!

Visit the Oxford American website for more info.

NEW ONLINE MAGAZINE FEATURES THE TAMALE TRAIL

The Zenchilada, a new online magazine out of New Mexico, features a wonderful piece on Delta tamales and the Tamale Trail in its inaugural issue. The article is written by SFA friend and Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award winner Ronni Lundy. Scroll through the pages at the bottom of the website to get to the tamale article, which appears on pages 48-55.

TAMALE CART ADDED TO MUSEUM COLLECTION IN CORINTH, MISSISSIPPI

(Photo by Amy C. Evans)

From the Daily Corinthian:

The Crossroads Depot Museum will bring back some tasty Corinth memories at the unveiling of the historic Corinth Tamale bicycle cart.

Crossroads Museum Interim Director Ed Lucas said a special evening is planned for the unveiling of the newly restored Corinth Tamale bicycle cart in the Crossroads Museum’s Exhibit Room at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 23.....

...The late L.C. Dilworth went into business in 1961, but did not open his shop until February of 1962. He opened a little restaurant — with a table or two — where customers could come in and sit down while they enjoyed their tamales and some conversation.....

...Information from the museum states: “... with ingenuity, determination and a lot of work, he [Dilworth] put together his tamale bicycle. He made a tricycle out of a Schwinn bicycle, mounted a box on the back and the tamale was on the road again and Dilworth’s Red Hot Tamales was still making the rounds, finding the customers, but now traveling in style.”

Read the full article.

TAMALES IN ALABAMA

The Birmingham News recently profiled D's Tamales To Go in Hueytown, AL, giving a shout-out to the Tamale Trail:

In some parts of the South, there is a tamale tradition within African-American communities. This is most common in the Mississippi Delta, where you actually can eat your way along a “tamale trail” (go towww.tamaletrail.com and check it out.) As fun as that would be, truth is, you don’t have to travel very far for really good, homemade hot tamales. 
  
 Just go to Hueytown. 
 
Darryl “D” Crockett’s family has honored a tamale tradition for some four decades. Crockett, who originally is from Louisiana, began cooking tamales back in the 1970s, and for about two years now, he’s been serving fresh, hot tamales (made according to his Aunt Neomia’s recipe) at his small, but colorful, tamale shack in Hueytown Plaza. At D’s Tamales To Go, little dancing peppers, outfitted in sombreros and cowboy boots, decorate the windows of this former barbecue joint. (Remember Let’s Eat Smoked Meat?) There’s also a sign in the window for Italian ice. Nothing wrong with a little diversity. Read more...

*NEW* INTERACTIVE MAP FEATURE!

We've just unveiled a new interactive map feature for the Tamale Trail, which plots all of the oral history locations in our online archive. Use the map to create custom road trips, stopping at documented locations along the way, or simply locate a tamale stand anywhere from Tunica to Vicksburg. Click on the stars to learn about each location, where you also have the option to track back to the oral history interview.

Grab a napkin and go!

'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.

DELTA TAMALES ON GOURMET'S BLOG

Photo by Ginger Ann Brook 

Article by Emily Matchar for Gourmet

The Mississippi Delta tamale is the Stonehenge of foods: No one is quite sure how a traditionally Hispanic dish wound up as a lunch counter favorite in these kudzu-choked river towns, but everyone's got a theory. Accompanied by my friend Laurie, I drove my old Civic up the ragged edge of the Delta--the lush, humid plain between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers--stopping to try tamales of all shapes and sizes. Although we didn't unravel the mystery, we sure got full. Read more....(link will take you directly to the original post on Gourmet's blog).

ARKANSAS TV CREW ON THE TAMALE TRAIL

On July 17, SFA oral historian Amy Evans met a group from Arkansas Educational Television along the Tamale Trail. The crew was following Rex Nelson, Alternate Federal Co-Chairman of the Delta Regional Authority; Kane Webb, writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; and Bill Vickery, political consultant and radio host (pictured L to R in the photo above). They picked up the Trail in West Helena, Arkansas, and finished their trek in Greenville, Mississippi. Amy met them mid-way in Clarksdale at Hicks' World Famous Hot Tamales and More, where they ate some tamales and talked shop.

Look for the segment to air on AETV sometime in early 2009. Meantime, check out Kane's article, "On the Tamale Trail: Where Culture and History Meet the Southern Belly," that appears in the August 3 edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and recounts their tamale-eating adventures. (Note: subscription required.)

ARIZONA HITS THE TAMALE TRAIL!

Alex and Tanja Sazdanoff traveled all the way from Phoenix, Arizona, to follow the Mississippi Delta Hot Tamale Trail. When they returned home, they shared a few photos from their Delta adventure. Evidence of their stop at Joe's Hot Tamale Place is featured above.

If you plan to--or have already--hit the Tamale Trail, drop us a line! We'd love to share your thoughts and photos from the road right here. Just email Amy at acevans@olemiss.edu.

Grab a napkin and go!

FEASTING ON THE TAMALE TRAIL

Last spring, Alton Brown and his crew blew through the Mississippi Delta, collecting footage--and tamales--for the second season of Brown's Food Network show Feasting on Asphalt: The River Run. SFA oral historian Amy Evans met up with the guys in Rosedale, where they visited with Barbara Pope of Joe's White Front, ate tamales, and speculated about the origins of the Koolickle. Now, those moments are collected in a book of the same name.

Last week, Alton Brown blew through the Delta again, this time for some book signings. He spent the morning at TurnRow Book Company in Greenwood (a great Delta town with some fabulous tamales, by the way), and then hit the SFA's hometown of Oxford in the afternoon. Read a great review of Feasting on Asphalt by our friends at TurnRow.

Camp Chicago: An Up South Expedition

Brought to you by the Southern Foodways Alliance
May 23-25, 2008

Follow blues scholar Scott Barretta along Highway 61. Dish Chicago culinary history with Bruce Kraig, the Horace of hot dogs. Feast at West Town Tavern as Susan Goss pays homage to Edna Stewart and other old guard Chicago soul cooks. Take a bite out of a Mother-In-Law. Get the blues with Jimmy Burns at The Hideout. Shop the Maxwell Street Market. Wolf a catfish sandwich. Get in the swim at an aquarium barbecue pit. And more. Lots more.

For an additional fee, guests have the option of going on a Chicago X'Cursion. These mini-tours, guided by local folks who know their city best, will showcase the South in Chicago (Up South) and still get you to lunch on time. One of the X'Cursions is an on-the-ground education in Mother-in-Laws. Hike through Chicago with LTH forum leader (and mouse geneticist) Peter Engler, who contributed photographs to the Tamale Trail's Chicago Connection page, in search of the Windy City's famed tamale in a bun. Visit a tamale factory, and learn how these Delta treats arrived to the Windy City.

Visit the SFA's main site for more information and to register.

BIG JIM'S RELOCATING

Right across from The Ranchero on North State Street (old HWY 61) in Clarksdale, this eye-catching stand has been a popular stop on the Tamale Trail. For seven years, Big Jim Cole served many a red hot from the walk-up window, along with barbecue, hog maws, and koolickles by the gallon. But Big Jim recently sold his stand and is now working on opening a new location on HWY 49. In the interim, you can still get Big Jim's hot tamales here. He's supplying the new owner with tamales as fast as he can make them. Know, though, that all of Big Jim's decorations are gone, so if you're in Clarksdale and need a tamale fix, be on the lookout for a naked beige building with nary a sign.

We conducted an interview with Big Jim for the Tamale Trail, but it has yet to be posted. We might just sit on it until he gets his new location up and running, which he hopes will be sometime this spring. Check back here for updates.

NEW NAME, SAME TAMALES

The Shanty in Cleveland is now the Grapeland Grill. Owner Jonathan Vance expanded the restaurant and decided that the new space needed a new name. No worries, the tamales haven't changed a bit.

Read our interview with Grapeland Grill tamale maker, Tamara Calhoun, right here.

DELTA TAMALES ON SQUIDOO

Luke Duncan, author of the "Rolling Along the Tamale Trail" article in the Oct./Nov. issue of Y'All magazine, has created a tamale page on Squidoo. Check it out!

Photo by Luke Duncan.