On the tamale trail

Where culture and history meet the Southern belly

By Kane Webb

At John's Hot Tamales drive-thru in Cleveland, Miss., and throughout the Delta, tamales are hand-rolled by the dozens.

ADVERSTISMENT

I'm in the kitchen of an 82-year-old tamalemaking fiddle-player from Greenville, Mississippi. He's giving me, two friends, a photographer, and a television crew an impromptu concert while we wait for his tamales to cook in his restaurant, Maria's, which is actually not a restaurant but more like a storage building behind his house.

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