Texas Tamale Trail

[theabroma]

Well, in Dallas you need to try La Popular on Columbia. It's at the corner of Fitzhugh and Columbia/Main St, just east of Danal's.

Mild pork, hot port, chicken, beef, bean, sweet, and for New Year's, black eyed pea - hot 'n' spicy, and heavenly. This time of year it is best to go early or to put in an order - especially for the black eyed pea ones. These guys make their own masa, so these are really tasty, tender items.

Note to Fifi: how to drive and eat tamal at the same time:

a) get A LOT of napkins at the tamaleria as you're leaving. Don't be shy about the knowing looks you'll be getting - they KNOW what you're doing with all those napkins. They do the same thing.

b) have newspaper - or buy one (the Dallas Morning Snooze is, in my book, printed just for this purpose). Put it on the seat next to you. Place bag of tamales on newspaper, put napkins between seat back and tamal bag.

c) start car, engage gears, stream into traffic.

Personally I find freeway traffic easier to deal with than neighborhood or neighborhood collector streets - too many other people in their cars eating tamales on the sly. Their hands get greasy and slip on the shift knob or steering wheel, creating awkward turns and speed changes, plus in panic tamal falls and slides down leg to floor of car. Foot jerks to knock it away, but it gets on sole of shoe. Inattention to road due to attention to spicy grease slick on leg, leads to tailgaiting. In attempt to avoid rear ending the next car, foot applied briskly to brake pedal slides off due to stepped-in tamal residue.

Get the picture? It ain't pretty.

d) although you can pre-open tamal bag, this is really cheating. Once you have the car moving through traffic at a steady pace, and you have a sense of flow patterns, remove right hand from steering wheel and reach into tamal bag. Insert hand into neck of bag, and open fingers widely - thus opening the neck of the bag. Next, feel the foil package of tamales and make sure that they are running longways back of the seat to the dash rather than driver door to passenger door. Now, insert your index finger into the foil, and gently inchworm it down the length of the tamales. Make sure that the opening is long enough to permit lifting one out without having to tug at it.

e) ease a tamal out and put it on top of the bag. Push the tie off (if there is one). Flip the tail of the tamal open, grasping the body of the tamal with your thumb and 2nd through 4th finger. Use your index finger to run down the flap of the corn husk. Now grasp the opened flap with your index finger and your thumb, and with a smart wrist snap the tamal should roll out onto the bag, leaving you with the husk in your hand. Slip this back into the bag.

f) Calm yourself at this point. Think about what's waiting for you. Make sure that you are still feeling the flow of traffic.

g) pick up the tamal, in all its glistening nekkid glory and munch away. you will, undoubtedly be wearing something on top that is made of either cashmere or silk. You will have scarfed tamal No. 1 without incident, and you're now feeling pretty frisky. You go for no. 2.

h) almost to your destination, you realize that you've decimated half of your stash. You call yourself to task, readjust yourself in your seat, sitting up and forward a little more, but with greater resolve. At this point the smell is all about you, and the well-described after-tamal niceness in the mouth is more than you can bear. You go for another one, not really caring if you are wearing chinchilla, polyester, or sack cloth and ashes, when something hooks the corner of your left eye. You snap your head around, half tamal protruding from your mouth, bits of masa settled into your cleavage, and pork in red chile sauce polkadotting your blouse to find that the car that has pulled up next to you at the stop light has Johnny Depp in the passenger seat, and that he is staring right at whatever that funny thing you have in your mouth is. And the real problem is you're about to swallow what remains of the last one, and you haven't anything but greasy cornhusks to offer as an explanation.

Who says you can't eat tamales in the car?

I'd love to hear about the tamales people get and where they get them in other parts of Texas. Does anyone remember them from the Green & White Grocery in Austin?

Should we plan a Texas Tamalada (tamale-making party, involves tankers of beer)?

Theabroma

Edited November 28, 2003 by theabroma (log)

[fifi]

A CLASSIC POST HAS BEEN BORN!

theabroma is referring to a problem I had here.

[catiii]

Sounds yummy! Are they better than the Dallas Tortilla Factory tamales at Greenville at Fitzhugh?

[Jaymes]

I remember the days of Green & White Grocery in Austin. You had to order well in advance if you wanted any tamales for the holidays. The first year we were in Austin, 1990, we were clueless about this procedure. Everyone just told us that Green & White was the place to get them. I stupidly thought that we could just drive up in the car and stand in line for a minute or two and walk out with our treasure.

Hahahahaha.

We walked out with nothing.

All through our drive home, I was concocting my "big lie" that I would use on the telephone as soon as we arrived home.

I can't remember now what it was, but I think it somehow involved a death in the family. And when I sent my sons back in the car to collect our booty, the cook with whom I had spoken passed the tamales surreptitiously out the back door so that the "boss" wouldn't see him.

Rest assured that the following years I telephoned my order in well in advance!

Now I go to Rosie's Tamale House, and they're good, but they sure ain't the same, verdad.

[Jaymes]

PS -- Wonderful post, and I would love a Texas Tamalada.

[theabroma]

Dallas Tortilla Factory Tamales vs. La Popular Tamales - that's a hard one.

Rather than take the Fifth, I'd have to say that my gustatory - but not metabolic - good fortune to be able to sample tamales all over Mexico - especially in rural markets - has broadened my notion of what a tamal is.

Generally speaking, the more rural and remote the area, the more spongy, and less dense the masa, and the more simple and more flavorful bang-for-the-buck the filling. I have come to really like the almost fluffy, spongy filling. The amount of fat used in making the masa is less, as well.

So, based on that, I prefer the tamales from La Popular. I find the masa less dense than Dallas Tortilla, and I find that they generally have a wider range of fillings. However, the fillings that I have come to love - a ripping hot green salsa, strips of jalapenos or chile poblano, etc. you have to special order from any of the local tamal houses.

Dallas tamale will, more regularly, have sweet tamales. La Popular is the only one that I know of that has the black eyed pea ones.

But, I do like the tamales from Dallas Tortilla, and I also like the tamales from Luna's, and Hot Damn Tamales! from Ft. Worth. The Hot Damn ones have a wide selection of 'nouvelle' fillings: brisket, black beans, etc.

I do know that Hot Damn, Luna's, and Dallas Tortilla use machines to make theirs. I don't know about La Popular, but my guess is yes. (This is a great research project for me when I get back). I do know that you can get handmade tamales from Luna's, and they may have a certain quantity available on the weekends, but you most likely have to order them. And they are a little more expensive.

Maybe the Dallas eGulleteers need to have a tamale taste test to compare what's available? In homage to Fifi, we could caravan between locations eating a couple in our cars?

Theabroma

[Venado]

While not a storefront operation..."The Tamale Man" who operates out of a stepvan on FM 2351 in Friendswood, Texas has been selling fresh hot tamales for years. Same man, same van, same great tamales year round when the craving for a tamal hits without warning.

Growing up in south Texas, and being used to homemade tamales, these are as close to homemade as over the counter gets. Just don't wait till the last minute on major holidays...ie. Christmas Eve, as there is alwasys a conga line of customers behind his truck.

[fifi]

Hey Venado... A big Texas HOOOOW-DIIIY! Welcome to eGullet. Hope you hang around. This place is a hoot.

I have heard for years about the van guy on 2351. For years, that was my freeway exit and I never thought about stopping there. Leave it to me to look for the far flung (west Houston) instead of in my own backyard. I will be stopping there now that you have reminded me.

[Venado]

fifi,

Back at cha...look for his van at the corner of 2351 and Beamer Rd. He will be a block off the intersection on 2351 going into Friendswood...and he usually doesn't set up shop till noon or after.

Enjoy...

Venado

[theabroma]

Fifi, girl, what are ya waiting for? Get over there to Friendswood and get some of those babies and let us know how they are!! Shoot, I'll go home through Houston to grab some depending on what you say! Thanks for the tip, Venado.

Theabroma

[Richard Kilgore]

Welcome to eGullet, Venado. Hope you enjoy the place as much as we do.

This is a great thread and a Texas Tamalada is a great idea, theabroma! Can we have it tomorrow night? I am drooling.

We don't have any comments from San Antonio. Does anyone have the lowdown on SA tamales?

[theabroma]

This went down the wrong pipe, sorry!

T,

Edited December 1, 2003 by theabroma (log)

[Venado]

As, always...we welcome "The Welcome Wagon". Just remember...if you get any of those tamales home, to enhance them with some homemade venison chile, guacamole, and of course, at the top of the four major food groups: Chile con queso. Made, obviously with the Rio Grande Valleys famous Rotel tomatoes & chilis!! Break out the blender & the good stuff, and you have a normal night of entertaining at my house...

Venado

[Scott -- DFW]

Count me in for a DFW tamale tasting. I'd love to find some good ones.

Scott

[theabroma]

Richard, Help! I think I just tasted the soles of both my size 10's in my mouth!

I am now in San Pedro Cholula in the State of Puebla. Among other things, it is the oldest continually inhabited city in the Americas - from 560 bc. And as a result they have a total of 400 celebrations, fiestas, and saint's days each year. The point is that the Cholulatecans eat tamales at every festival, plus the morning tamal in a roll with a cup of atole to get their strength up for all the celebrating and tamale eating they have to do that day.

Point is that tamales are in fact eaten all the time. They are especially associated with Christmas, especially for us in the States, mainly because we are not blessed with bike riding, itinerant tamal vendors at each street corner.

So if there is to be a tamalada, combined with or independent of a tamale tasting, it really can be anytime. Maybe the tamal tasting first, then later the tamal making event? I still think we can publish the results in the well-known Journal of Tamal and Masa Snack Studies. I feel certain that the drug companies selling any of the statins - zocor, lipitor, etc. - will be happy to fund the inaugural issue.

Theabroma

[Richard Kilgore]

Sharon,

A tamalada sometime next year sounds great then. But first we have to drag you out of Mexico before your VISA expires or your VISA card explodes. You, uh, are coming back this year, aren't you? Or do we have to send in an eGullet squad to extract you?

[theabroma]

Sharon,

A tamalada sometime next year sounds great then. But first we have to drag you out of Mexico before your VISA expires or your VISA card explodes. You, uh, are coming back this year, aren't you? Or do we have to send in an eGullet squad to extract you?

Richard, you know what I was thinking? Instead of me hauling all those corn husks and tamaleras up there, why don't we just have the tamalada down here? And the tamal tasting? That way I'd have more room in the Pobre Coche for molcajetes!

Theabroma,

who has reluctantly excepted the fact that she will have to have her Pobre Coche and her rear end back in Texas on 12/20.

She would also like to add that any bright object appearing in the Southern or Southwestern sky between now and Christmas will not, in fact, be the Star of Bethlehem, but the supernova created by her hyper-gassed MasterCard!

Pax.

[Richard Kilgore]

Okay, now that you have resigned yourself to eventually crossing the border , let's use this thread for more contributions of where to get the best tamales in Texas for the holidays.

Any more favorites? Not a tamale vendor, but Benitos in Ft.Worth has a substantial tamale on their menu.

[Tremor]

In Round Rock, there's a little place on 79 named "Balderas Tamale Factory". Excellent tamales made fresh every day.

[Scott -- DFW]

Abacus usually has an excellent tamale appetizer. And tamales sometimes appear on the menu at the Mansion (either as appetizers or sides). Very tasty. But, at $12 to $20 per tamale, not very economical.

Scott

[theabroma]

Hello out there the rest of the state!!!!! Surely there are tamales in San Antonio? I've got to have something to eat to deal with tamal withdrawal on my way home. They won't let me bring them across the border.

Theabroma

[Lone Star]

Hi y'all - first post here, I was lured to this site by a degenerate Louisianan from another forum, have been reading and decided to join in!

I had lunch today at Fiesta Taco on 34 th street ( I am in Houston) and they are now taking orders for holiday tamales. They have all kinds from bean and pork to barbacoa, prices range from 5.99 for bean to 7.99 for shredded beef.

[Mayhaw Man]

Hi y'all - first post here, I was lured to this site by a degenerate Louisianan from another forum, have been reading and decided to join in!

You know, just because people here in our fine state enjoy beans in their chili is no reason to show up calling anyone here a degenerate.

Welcome to egullet and I hope that you find this an interesting part of your web life.

Incidentally, one of the forum hosts for your incredibly diverse and interesting state doesn't like okra (imagine that). What do you people eat?

[fifi]

Welcome, Lone Star. So glad to have another Houstonian aboard. The Texas Forum is growing nicely and I am sure it will provide you with a lot of information and entertainement. The rest of the eGullet universe is vast and interesting as well. If you need any guide services, feel free to PM me.

We are a friendly lot. We don't even discriminate against our bretheren to the east of our Great State and, indeed, there is a lot of "cross-fertilization". However, I do believe that trying to smuggle okra tamales into Texas is a felony offense.

[Mayhaw Man]

indeed, there is a lot of "cross-fertilization".

I believe that we, the ones on the East side of the Sabine, still have some laws on the books that make that kind of activity a criminal offense

Edited to say that, "You know Fifi, you could be onto something with those Okra Tamales. We here at the O.L.A.A. have put some of our finest minds (for whatever that is worth ) to work on the problem and will announce our findings at the next meeting".