I've been a fan of tamales since I was 13. The problem is, I didn't grow up in an area that had any tamales.
I had gone to the grocery store with my mother one day and was wandering their "ethnic" aisle. Basically every single food that had something remotely to do with people that weren't exactly white was relegated to this cramped aisle at the end of the store. As this was where the soy sauce was (and we needed some) we were in the aisle when I noticed a strange looking jar. It was glass with a gold top, and inside were these red and white tube looking things. The label read BEEF TAMALES. I asked my mother if I could try them. She told me to stop trying to waste money and kept walking.
Two weeks later I rode my bike over to the grocery store and bought the jar (this is how I ended up trying most new foods). I snuck the jar into the house in my backpack, and later that night opened it. Stupidly, I pulled one tamale out and tried to bite into it, not realizing that they were each wrapped in paper. I also didn't get a chance to heat the tamale, as any microwave sounds would cause my mother to come bounding down the stairs demanding to know what I was eating and why.
Despite being from a jar and room temperature, I loved these tamales. The spicy beef, that half cake half aspic texture that only masa can make... it was wonderful. I ate the entire jar in one sitting and later that weekend snuck the jar out with some office trash.
Over the next few years I probably consumed 100 of those jars. I'm pretty sure I was the only one buying them at the grocery store.
When I got to college years later, I was hanging out with a group of people after a class when we started talking about food. To the utter shock of the two Mexican guys who were there, I mentioned that my favorite food was tamales. They asked me how the heck some corn fed Ohioan even knew about tamales. They even went as far as to confirm that I wasn't talking about Hot Tamales, the movie theatre candy.
Their excitement was short lived when they found out that the tamales I was talking about came out of a can. The next day, they drove me out to a construction site where it was rumored the best Mexican catering truck set up shop every day. One of the guys walked up and ordered three tamales. When he brought them back, I told him those were the wrong tamales, the real ones had paper and not that crazy yellow stuff on the outside. He (bless his heart for his patience) explained that real tamales were made in corn husks.
He handed one to the other Mexican guy but didn't hand me one. He said that Team Mexico had to confirm that the tamales were good before I could have one, that my palate for tamales had almost been completely destroyed by the jarred product and that they weren't going to risk any more damage. They tasted and approved, so I got one.
It was amazing. The texture of the masa was similar but much more satisfying. The filling of the tamale was not like the mystery meat in the jar, it was savory and delicious and had an actual texture. I ordered 6 more tamales and ate them all there on the spot.
Since then I've probably consumed 1,000 kinds of tamales from different places. I've ordered tamales in every Mexican restaurant I have set foot in, stopped at every taco truck, spoken to every lady wheeling around a cooler. I drove the entire Tamale Trail in Mississippi and ate 240 tamales in one week.
Obviously, tamales are one of my favorite foods. And yet, even though I live in California, I have never had a reliable source of spectacular tamales. Until now.
We first spotted this place last week. The proper name of this place is Azteca de Oro, but the sign just says Tortilla Factory. The sign should say TAMALE HEAVEN. Seriously.
One of their cases full of sweet treats. Actual got the thing in the lower left. This thing was CRAZY. It's a plastic cup filled with chunks of tres leches cake, whipped cream and strawberry topping. Actual has stated she's only going to buy these one at a time, as they're so good she's going to eat every available portion if there's more than one.
More baked goods...
The entire front wall is stacked with baked goods as well! We usually try to eat one of everything at places we like but it's going to take a while here.
Pig shaped cookies. Yay!
And finally, the tamales. I got a dozen beef tamales. The lady informed me that they were now making their third batch of the day (I guess the rest of the neighborhood figured out where all the good tamales were) and that I would have to come back in 20 minutes to pick them up. A short trip to Dollar Tree later and we were back to get our piping hot tamales right out of the steamer.
Of the 1000+ tamales I've ever consumed, these are easily in the top 10. They might even be better than the ones I got on the Tamale Trail, but it's not fair to compare an actual product to a fading food memory.
I could go on and on about these tamales, but I'm going to go eat a few of them before Actual wakes up. A dozen tamales doesn't go very far when they're this good!
