Discover the Mississippi Delta's Hot Tamale Trail - Mississippi Farm Country

Discover the Mississippi Delta's Hot Tamale Trail

The Mississippi Delta is known for delicious hot tamales, which can be found and enjoyed on Southern Foodways Alliance's Hot Tamale Trail.
Photo credit: Jeff Adkins

Catfish may top the list of the Delta’s best-known foods, but a much different culinary staple isn’t far behind. Hot tamales – savory meats and spices wrapped in corn husks – have been satisfying hungry patrons at restaurants, roadside stands and kitchens from Vicksburg to Tunica for more than 100 years.

How they got here is still a mystery. Some say migrant cotton harvesters from Mexico introduced the filling meal to the area in the early 1900s, prompting African-American residents to start making them, too. Others believe tamales date back to the Native Americans who once lived in the Delta. Still others are convinced soldiers returning from the Mexican-American War in the late 1840s brought the recipes back.

“Nobody’s really sure,” says Annemarie Anderson, oral historian at the Oxford-based Southern Foodways Alliance. “The connection is really about labor and the people who worked in the Mississippi Delta. These were working-class, agrarian poor people. It was a cheap way for them to eat.”

While necessity may have caused tamales to take hold a century ago, nostalgia helps keep them popular today.

“For a lot of people who make, eat and sell them, it’s something that was really near and dear to them and their family,” Anderson says. “It was a viable way for them to either make a living or have a side hustle.”

Photo credit: Jeff Adkins

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To Each His Own Tamale

It is said no two people make tamales the same way, and preparation and taste differ from city to city. Most Delta cooks use ground beef or pork, although a few stuff their tamales with turkey. Unlike traditional Mexican tamales, the “hot” type commonly found in northwest Mississippi relies on cornmeal, not masa (a type of corn dough used in tortillas). The cornmeal, meat and water in which they’re cooked are more heavily seasoned. Plus, these hot tamales are boiled, not steamed.

“It’s kind of left up to the interpretation of the person and their taste,” Anderson says.

Photo credit: Jeff Adkins

Over the years, a number of tamale eateries have sprung up in the Delta. One of the first, Doe’s Eat Place in Greenville, began when a friend gave Dominick “Doe” Signa, a mess hall cook at the local air base during World War II, a tamale recipe he shared with his wife, Mamie.

“They kind of doctored the thing,” says Charles Signa, who now co-owns the grocery-store-turned-eatery, which opened in 1941, with his brother, “Little Doe.” “They started rolling and tying the tamales by hand, in corn husks. … Back then, heck, we couldn’t make them fast enough.” 

These days, the Signas use a machine to coat the meat with cornmeal and wrap the tamales in parchment paper instead of husks. Automation allows them to make 150 dozen per hour, a number that would take more than two days by hand.

Doe’s Eat Place serves only beef tamales made from steak trimmings; many customers order them as appetizers or take several dozen home.

“We’ve got customers who are 70 years old. They’ve been coming here since they were babies. We have third, fourth, fifth generations of families, says Signa.”

Photo credit: Jeff Adkins

See more: Mississippi Farm Family Talks About Teaching the Next Generation

Trailing Ahead

For those looking to savor the region’s variety of hot tamales, the Mississippi Delta Hot Tamale Trail is a great resource. Created by the Southern Foodways Alliance in 2005 to celebrate the tradition and culture of hot tamales, the project also features online interviews with restaurant owners, historians and others. Locations include authentic restaurants, markets and even street carts.

“They kind of run the gamut,” Anderson says of the eateries on the route. “But this is still working-class food. Tamales are not necessarily going to be served at a white-tablecloth restaurant.”

Restaurant owners Aaron and Natasha Harmon stand inside of the dining room at Hot Tamale Heaven and Grille in Greenville, Mississippi. Photo credit: Jeff Akins

At Hot Tamale Heaven in Greenville, a halo-topped tamale character welcomes guests to the brightly painted cart inside Bing’s County Market. In operation since the 1970s, new owner Larry Lee serves up a helping of personality with what he calls the “caviar of hot tamales.”

Also in Greenville, Aaron and Elizabeth Scott’s children and grandchildren carry on a family tradition that began in 1950 when the couple started Scott’s Hot Tamales. Their secret recipe remains secret even to this day. The beef brisket tamales are individually wrapped by hand in corn shucks and sold at Scott’s current location on MLK Boulevard.

In Sledge, Rosetta Ervin and her daughter Edna founded Ervin’s Hot Tamales, working out of a custom kitchen behind their house. Their signature tamales come from a recipe that Rosetta’s late husband, Louis, bought for more than $1,000 from a cook across the river in Arkansas in 1966. After tweaking it to make it their own, Louis and Rosetta spent evenings and weekends peddling their wares out of a converted milk truck for 75 cents a dozen. Decades later, the price has changed a bit at Ervin’s Hot Tamales and the signature treats are now cradled in parchment. And, even though her mother has passed away, Edna continues what they started together, hand-delivering bundles of tamales to customers throughout the northern Delta.

Photo credit: Jeff Adkins

The Hot Tamale Trail, Anderson points out, offers more than good eats.

“Tamales give us insight into the people of the Delta,” she says. “They’re taking something that’s kind of humble, like ground meat and cornmeal, and making something really amazing with it.”

See more: 3 Quirky Foods You’ll Only Find in Mississippi

14 Comments

  • Marian D Johnston

    On a recent trip to the delta we were looking for the best tamales and our vote went to Doe’s eat place.

  • We love The Tamale Place in Vicksburg and the also have great chili dogs & burgers. No seating – just grab and go.

  • Jacquelyn Torbert

    Doe’s is wonderful.?..camped across the river and ate there often!!

  • […] Delta Hot Tamale Trail. Here’s a great article from Mississippi Farm Country called “Discover the Mississippi Delta’s Hot Tamale Trail which is so […]

    • I’m from the southernmost county in Texas. I grew up helping my mom make these during the holidays. It’s a Mexican tradition. I had no idea tamales were a thing outside of The Mexican culture. So intriguing. I’d love to taste hot tamales. Especially with brisket- a Texas favorite. The usual stuffing in mexican tamales is chicken or pork and sometimes beans. In recent years, chicken/ cream cheese/jalapeño has become popular.

  • I would love some hot tamales. This story got me thinking about my child hood. My Daddy use to take me to buy them. I’m in Brandon Nursing and Reb. In Brandon Ms. My name is Yvonne Cummins. I’m in room 302B. Thank you for this story.

  • My lord the one in Vicksburg is off the chain, we drive from Louisiana to get those,they’re soooo good. Tamales of Vicksburg.

  • I myself make tamales from louisiana and I gave a lot of say that they are absoulty delicious. .. I love making them for family and friends. ..

  • Hello all,I am a 14yr.old looking to sell hot tamales.Can any of you old heads care to share some good black people’s hot tamale recipes with me???Thx…

  • Looking for some good tamales within 75 miles of Coldwater, MS.

  • I hear there’s a place in memphis called Hattie’s tamales that are said to be the best in the south.

  • Looking for Nice places To Hangout in Tamale and Kintampo? kindly check out those links 

  • Can you order Hot tamales from Mississippi to be sent to different states states

  • Wow, this article really captures the flavorful and vibrant experience of exploring the Mississippi Delta’s Hot Tamale Trail!

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