Hot Tamales And The Blues

According to the Mississippi Blues Trail website, the correlation between tamales and the Blues can best be explained by famous bluesman Robert Johnson in his 1936 recording “They’re Red Hot,” (Johnson) "employed the imagery of a tamale vendor to describe a woman. Made of corn meal and meat, the tamale was a staple in the diet of Mexican migrant laborers in the Delta and became a popular item of local cuisine. Some historians maintain that U.S. soldiers brought tamale recipes home with them from the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) or that tamales date back to indigenous American Indian cultures."