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Better known for its association with cotton and catfish, the Mississippi Delta has a fascinating relationship with the tamale. The history of the hot tamale in this area reaches back to at least the early part of the twentieth century. Reference to the Delta delicacy appears in the song "They're Red hot,"1 which was recorded by legendary bluesman Robert Johnson in 1936. But there is an even earlier reference in the song "Molly Man,"2 which was recorded by the Reverend Moses Mason under the name Red hot Ole Mose in 1928. But how and when were hot tamales introduced to what has been called "the most southern place on earth"?3 More importantly, why have they stayed? There are as many answers to that question as there are tamale recipes. In restaurants, on street corners, and in kitchens throughout the Delta, this very old and time-consuming culinary tradition has remained, while so much of the Delta - and the South as a whole - has changed.
The Mississippi Delta is the flat alluvial plane that flanks the western part of the state. This leaf-shaped area is often referred to as the YazooMississippi Delta, for its borders are defined by these two powerful rivers. David L. Cohn, author of God Shakes Creation (1935) and a Greenville native, devised a geo-cultural definition of the region. In his memoir, Where I was Born and Raised (1948), he wrote that "the Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody hotel in Memphis and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg."4 Within these boundaries, hot tamales flourish. [Plate 1 ]
Many hypothesize that tamales made their way to the Mississippi Delta in the early twentieth century when migrant laborers were brought in from Mexico to work the cotton harvest. The basic tamale ingredients - corn meal and pork - were easily recognized by the African Americans who shared the fields. Others maintain that the Delta's history with tamales goes back to the U.S.-Mexican War one hundred years earlier, when U.S. soldiers from Mississippi traveled to...