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INTERVIEWS Hicks' World Famous Tamales & More Joe's Hot Tamale Place (The White Front Cafe) Meals on Wheels Hot Tamales & Tacos Tamale Contest (Frank Carlton) --- |
| WORLD
CHAMPIONSHIP HOT TAMALE CONTEST World Championship Hot Tamale Contest I'm hard-pressed to tell you what makes a good hot tamale. It's sort of like pornography; I know it when I see it. I mean, I can describe it okay, all right. Now my point is a good hot tamale is hard to describe and--and there are varieties of hot tamales. – Frank Carlton A native of Greenville, Frank Carlton saw an opportunity to support and celebrate the hot tamale tradition of this part of the Mississippi Delta. In 1990 he organized the first World Championship Hot Tamale Contest. It has been held each July in Greenville ever since. Each entrant’s hot tamales are judged on flavor, appearance, texture and overall impression. The winners receive trophies, cash prizes, and the right to brag. In the beginning, it was Carlton’s belief that he should round out the competition by bringing in some tamales of his own. So fifteen years ago, after a little trial and error, he came up with version that he now sells to hot tamale connoisseurs throughout the Delta. But, he says, “I don't feel it's fair for me to enter the contest because I'd blow them all away.” It is with great sadness that the SFA shares news that Frank Carlton passed away in March of 2009. 2005 WINNERS FIRST: Mildred Jerman of Millie’s Hot Tamales
– Greenville
--- What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here. Subject: Frank Carlton, Organizer,
World Championship Hot Tamale Contest and tamale maker-Greenville,
MS --- Amy Evans: This is Sunday, July 24th [2005]. This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance. I'm in Greenville, Mississippi, at the Washington County Convention Center, and I'm with Mr. Frank Carlton, who began the [World Championship] Hot Tamale Contest here fifteen years ago. Is that correct? Frank Carlton: That's correct. And we're here at the contest today. Mr. Carlton, could I have you introduce yourself for the record please, sir?
So that was your idea when the--when the Food Festival started, to incorporated a hot tamale element. Actually yes and no. The--the hot tamale contest was independent of the Food Festival. I was on WWISCAA Board; I'm no longer a member of the Board but I was on the Board and so I saw an opportunity to let one hand wash the other, to marry the two and--and spend a mutually successful partnership. How has the Festival changed over the past fifteen years…from the tamale end of things? Have you had people who have been here since the beginning of the contest? Yes, we have a number who have been here all along. Shine Thornton over there on his walker, and George Dailey [from Greenville] over here, [in tamale booth] Number One, he has been with us since the very beginning. Some of these people are here for the first time; several of these are very first-timers. Every year we have a--a different sort of group but--and we had--I think we've got ten people--ten different vendors here. We usually have twelve to fifteen. One lady got sick and called yesterday or the day before and just said she couldn't make it. And one, I don't know what happened to them; they got lost I guess--whatever. But anyway it's working pretty good and we're having a good time and--. How did contestant participants--how did they
hear about it? Well we advertise and--in the paper and we also--word of mouth. --- [W]hat kind of prizes do you give and how do they change each year? All right. Okay, the—essentially, they stay the same. We added a belt buckle a couple years ago, as well as a trophy for first place. But you have first, second, third, and fourth place--$400; $300; $200; and $100 cash prizes--nice trophy. Everybody gets an outstanding competitive medal. Win or lose you get a medal, so there are no losers. And, you know, it's kind of hard to judge sometimes, to tell you the truth. Two hot tamales were really good. I make a good hot tamale. I'm not in the contest; I don't claim to be the best, but I sure ain't the worst. So who do you recruit to judge the Tamale Contest? Well we--we get out in the community and try to have a cross-section: white, black, old, young, bankers, and so forth. It's really a cross-section of the community as--as is everybody here. I mean, you can look around and see that this is black and white and old and young. What criteria do you look for when you're judging those tamales? Strong stomach. [Laughs] No, seriously. Extra Pepto-Bismol. Somebody who--who can be--be honest and fair, that's what we always took. Well then, what are they looking for in a tamale? I'll show you--I'll show you the scorecard, but it boils down to this. I'm hard-pressed to tell you what makes a good hot tamale. It's sort of like pornography; I know it when I see it. I mean, I can describe it okay, all right. Now my point is [Laughs] a good hot tamale is hard to describe and--and there are varieties of hot tamales. [Laughs]…Anyway, but we--we judge them on flavor, appearance, texture--because hot tamales have different textures--and then the overall impression, which is really a tiebreaker. If you have two that are pretty good or two that are real good and whatever, and you want one, then you give the overall impression. You score a little higher on that than the others. So there are four categories of--and you get a numerical score. We have the people that you see walking around testing and--and they get to interact with the--with the vendor. They get the BS, they get the--and that's part of it. It's like a barbecue contest where, you know, if you didn't think you had the best, you shouldn't be here. And that's the same here with hot tamales. So the onsite judges do all of that. Then we have judges back here--I'll show you in a minute--who are number one, two, three; they don't have any idea whose hot tamales they're judging. It's amazing that the scores come out pretty close to the same. Number One out here will be--almost invariably it will be Number One in there. The total may be a little different, but it's going to be about the same numerically. Well, how long have you been making hot tamales? All right, initially the hot tamale contestants had
to bring 300 hot tamales to give out. Well that's a pretty good
burden to put on; we don't charge admission and you have a chance
of winning cash prizes. And you have fun doing it, but by and Where did you get your recipe? I made it up. Trial and error, huh? Well, that's exactly it. And let me just tell you--I hate to divulge this secret, but it's the truth. If you can make good chili, you can make good hot tamales. That's really all that it took. All about the spice, really? That's what makes them unique? Yeah, essentially. Yeah, I don't put the beans in it but other than that, yeah. You know, the mixture is essentially a--a good chili mixture. So you say you have a crew now that makes hot tamales for you. How does that work and--? Well I am CEO of the Big River Goat Ranch Kick Ass Cooking Team. And we cater party and so forth, so they—well, I have seven members on the team. They don't all come the same time. But occasionally they come in and--and we mix up a couple hundred dozen, and then we sell those and we make some more. Do you sell them? Do you have like a stand or do you--? No, just people come by the office. Okay, okay. How much do you sell a dozen for? Six dollars a dozen. All right. And how would you describe your tamales? How might they be different from everybody else's? Well, I don't feel it's fair for me to enter the contest because I'd blow them all away.
Well that's a--I think--and--and I've heard this issue debated a lot. I think hot tamales came to the Delta because of the large black population. A hot tamale is, after all, a way to take a small amount of meat and make it go further. Hamburger Helper, spaghetti--all of that is a way to spread meat to make it go further. And so I--I think the hot tamale caught on here because of the large black population, and it's a way to spread the--take meat and make it go further, and so it caught on. Doe's Restaurant [in Greenville, Mississippi] is a famous hot tamale place as well as steaks. And so Greenville started the epicenter of hot tamales, really. And I think it's in large part because of Doe's. Now they don't ever get in the contest and they don't want to not win. And I understand that because they've got a commercial investment. And--and I don't blame them; I'm not mad at them. I think they ought to enter under some sup--other name, and then if they win say ha-ha-ha. If they don't win don't say nothing. But that's their business. But Doe's is really responsible for Greenville being important in the hot tamale world, yeah…. …Hot tamales take on--take on a different--different people make them different. The standard hot tamale is about two ounces. And it has a meat ingredient and is wrapped in cornmeal generally. Mine are wrapped in a mixture of cornmeal and--and masa, which I'm sure you know is a corn flour. I put the meal in there because the truth is, people--masa is a little smoother than cornmeal. But people around here are accustomed to a rough texture, so I--I think the masa gives it a good flavor, but I think the cornmeal gives it good texture. So that's really what I'm doing. Do you do yours in shucks? Yes, yeah. Is that important to you? I think so. It's important to be traditional. I'm not really sure that shucks does anything for the taste. There are people who argue that it does. Tell me about the judging. All the blind judges--the others you saw walking around interfacing with the--with the contestants [in the arena]--are the onsite judges. They are operating on--[to judges] are ya'll through? I didn't know—okay. [To interviewer] They're operating on numbers--one, two, three, four, five--and we have one guy who's in it two times--six, eight—whatever. Okay. And they do--they do the judging that way. They [the blind judges] use the same scorecards that the onsite judges use but they have a different— Is there a score that the onsite judges have for their interaction with the vendors? No, no. The personal reaction? Yeah, and that's really where the overall impression comes in…You know, if somebody is really nice or somebody is really nasty then you give somebody a--. But I don't know. That's--that's how it's done and what's going on. Now these people are operating on the Food Festival [points to a separate table of judges, who are tallying scores]. They're the--they're the judges of the Food Festival. This is--this is part of the overall picture but not for the Hot Tamale Contest. So there are--are there five--there are five offsite judges? And five onsite. Five blind judges and five onsite judges…We try--last year we had fifteen contestants. The truth is [that] that really stretches the judges because I try to have the same judges judge everybody. Participating in barbecue contests—I’ve done that a lot--I realized that you get somebody who is picky, and they don't score you very high. And--and if the next set of judges are not quite as finicky, then you're at a disadvantage if you get the picky judge. But I don't know how to eliminate that. I'm attempting to eliminate that by having the same people onsite no matter how many contestants we have and the same people blind-judging no matter—therefore, I encourage them to take two or three bites of each tamale because if you've got like you have here now, ten contestants, well by the time you eat ten hot tamales—nine hot tamales--number ten is going to taste like all the rest. You're not going to do it right.
Well, I don't know that tamales themselves are any more important than barbecue or golf, okay. But it is a--it is a--I told you earlier, I think Greenville is the epicenter of--of hot tamales; it is a local tradition. It's something that has wide appeal, and I believe that it's something that we can--one hand washes the other. I think we can expand the hot tamale awareness, and I think we can also make money for WWISCAA. I hope at some point for it to be popular enough to--to both charge admission to the Hot Tamale Contest, and maybe split it off separately from the Food Festival, and also charge the entry fees. If--if it gets big enough then, of course, people will pay to be here. Would you consider doing the contest each year in a different location, maybe? I never thought of that, but that's a good idea. Yeah, roll it around. No, I have not considered that because I never thought of it. Well, there's your idea. Now that I think of it, I like it. [Laughs] It don't take me long to look at horseshoes. Yeah, that's a good idea. --- To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
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Yes,
my name is Frank Carlton, and I live here in Greenville, and lived
here all my life. And the--the Hot Tamale Contest is an integral
part of a food festival sponsored by a community action agency known
as WWISCAA [Warren, Washington, Issaquena, Sharkey Community Action
Agency. Pronounces this “Whiska”]. WWISCAA does a lot
of public service things, and the [annual] Food Festival, as you
can see is--they have different themes, and they try to cook food
that follows the theme. They [the entrants] dress and build a set
in the same theme, and so they're judged on costumes, sets, and
foods. Integral to that is the Hot Tamale Contest; they don't have--they're
not participating in that [the booth and costume judging]. These
are hot tamale vendors from all around the state. I have one here
from Jackson and one from Vaughan [Mississippi] and Indianola--and
all around--Greenville. Greenville is sort of a hub for hot tamales;
it's sort of the mega-center of hot tamales. There are more hot
tamales vendors in Greenville, Mississippi, than there are in Memphis,
St. Louis, whatever. New Orleans.
large--by--after
all 300 hot tamales is--is pretty stout. So in order to make the
Hot Tamale Festival a little more competitive and a little more--a
little easier to get in, I decided to start making hot tamales.
I bought a hot tamale machine [extruder] and made some hot tamales,
and they went over pretty good. And I bought two hot tamale machines,
and now I make hot tamales. And I have a crew that makes hot tamales,
and we sell pretty good many hot tamales.
Okay,
enough said. Well, do you have an opinion on how hot tamales got
to the Delta and how they stuck around so long?
[W]hat
is so important about tamales to you specifically, to want to support
something like this?
