Cool Today… Hot Tamale!

It had been a few years since we drove from our roosting spot in Yuma down to Somerton, Arizona, for the annual Tamale Festival. When we first attended this event in the 2009-2010 “mild summer” season (see my previous post for an explanation), we found a spot to park and walked easily the street lined with vendors.

This year — packed! Somehow either we’d forgotten how crowded it gets, how long the lines are, and hit-and-miss parking can be, or the event’s attendance has exploded over the years. But there’s no mistaking how good the tamales still are 🙂

We picked a line at random and hoped for the best. It was a short line, compared to many, and we trusted that fewer people had ventured this far down the street — that most people (humans being naturally lazy, you know) opted to get in one of the closest lines to their cars. We’d ended up at booth 13 — our lucky number.

While we were waiting, pondering our tamale choices, a couple of men got in line behind us. They were finishing off tamales from the stand next door. “These were the best of any of them,” they said. “We’ve tried them all, and we’re back for more.”

And they were right! I had sweet corn tamales; Bob had the pork and beef combo tamales. So tasty we got a bagful to go. Somehow reheating them in the RV away from the maddening crowds made them taste even better!