I feel sorry for people without this tradition. Here is an Esquire writer who is flummoxed by the whole thing:
Esquire - The Red-Hot, Pork-Stuffed, Corn-Wrapped, Blues-Flavored Enigma
At first I thought they messed up my order because I was like, "What the **** is that?" as I stared into a Styrofoam container at Bud's Snack Bar in Tunica, Mississippi. Inside there was a lump wrapped in some kind of a wax paper, tied together with what looked to me like a tampon string.
I was really specific when I told the girl working behind the counter I wanted a tamale. She said okay, then asked how many. I told her one, she said they don't serve only one, and before I could even ask her why not, she said they sell them by the dozen, half dozen, or I can buy just three for three dollars, since they come in a bundle. I told her I'd take three.
I then asked the girl if in fact that thing inside the white Styrofoam container was a tamale. I'm no connoisseur, but to me it looked absolutely nothing like any tamale I'd ever seen before.
Apparently, this poor man has never bought tamales by the dozen and experienced the torture of the smell permeating both his car and clothes during the ride home as the molten red grease seepes through the brown paper sack. Of course, one or two always went missing during my trips.
Here is one of my favorite places in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Solly's:
Eat your heart out Taco Bell:
Here is their mucho delish-iosso tamale burrito (a bad boy loaded with tamale stuffing):
