DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE DETROIT “HOT TAMALE MAN"?
If you know about the African American "hot tamale man", and the “red hots", then you also might know that he's been here in Detroit; coming to Paradise Valley, Hastings Street and Sugar Hill along with everyone else during the Great Migration from the dirty South to escape Jim Crow.
A fixture outside of late night clubs and bars, men and women had highly decorated pushcarts selling ‘males or ‘mollies (not today's kind! Short for tamales, of course) to folks on the way home to chase the effects of too much fun out of the system with heat, grease and meat- the true African American antidote to a hangover…I stand firmly behind this method as the #1 goto of my young carousing days (see Prince's Hot Chicken, Nashville TN).
The African American ‘molly came North with us as soon as we could leave; and it isn't made in the Mexican way - our Hot Tamale, a staple in the Delta still today, is an amalgam of Southern Native tribal cooking method, African spice and cooking sauce and Mexican form…representing the people of the farmlands working in the South.
What you might NOT know is that the hot tamale man is still here...not with the pushcart of the past, but out of the back of a truck in Eastern Market. Stay tuned - the COOK LIKE A BOSS®️ IN DETROIT website will be hookin' you up with the Detroit Spice Blend Collection - we would never leave out the special seasoning for the tamale sauce..😋
