Tamale festival in Indio

[andiesenji]

Just in case some of you folks are going to be in the area in early December, the Tamale festival in Indio is scheduled for December 3 - 4.

It is a fun event.

The weather in this area, a few miles from Palm Springs, is usually very nice at this time of the year.

Here are some highlights.

Edited August 31, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[chezcherie]

thanks for posting this, andiesenji. it might be just the nudge i need. i have been meaning to get down there for the past few years, but always find out to late to schedule...where's my calendar?

[Kouign Aman]

Hmmmm - is this an annual event?

[mizducky]

Hmmmm - is this an annual event?

←

Looks like it is! Check out this link. (Pondering that Guinness Book of Records tamale ... )

[Kouign Aman]

I like planners who make it easy:

"always the first weekend in December".

Excellent.

Thank you very much for the link!

Now to check the concert and rehearsal schedule because I aint driving no 3-year old that far without adult company, no way no ma'am.

The 3-year old did eat a first tamale last night and seemed quite pleased with the experience. And Indio is always a hoot. Love the date shops.

[gfron1]

I just finished Day #1 of the festival (there will probably not be a Day #2 for us - we're pretty tamaled out).

We drove in from NM in rain the entire way (very unusual) and so we were very stressed as we entered the valley. This was my first time in the Palm Springs area and I'm not so impressed, but we came because my mom loves tamales, and my spouse has never had one he liked. Overall, the event was fun and worth the few hours we spent there.

It started with a fun and colorful parade

Then the gorging proceeded. I decided after eating 17 tamales that I liked it when they opened and sauced it for me:

And I decided that tamales are not the most photogenic creatures no matter how you stack them:

Okay, on to the serious stuff. First, we never could get a tamal from Grandma Lupe's. Her line was always no less than a 45 minute wait:

But we did get the winning tamale:

Which we decided it won because of the amount of grease:

It was just okay.

Sweet corn was one of our favorites:

The vast majority were traditional varieties, but a few had unique ones:

This is the blue corn with chicken, ginger, mango and habanero. It was good.

After about 12 I started on the sweet ones. First was an award winning strawberry tamal. We all agreed that this was disgusting and tasted like Nestly Strawberry Quick with lumps.

But then we had this strawberry one which was great. I think they used brown sugar in their masa:

This Chocolate Raspberry was as good as it looks...which wasn't saying much:

And finally a pineapple, raisin which was a bit doughy but very nice:

Don't take my critiques too harshly - we had a lot of fun and would recommend this event.