Imagine this:
You’re an Aztec warrior battling it out with a neighboring tribe. After a long day of conflict, you’re famished, to say the least. Unfortunately, you’re in a war and can’t just stop for an hour to look over the menu, order a small appetizer, maybe the soup of the day and then get your grub on.
You need some sustenance, and you need it now.
Lucky for you, you’ve got women on your side, women who understand you’re a busy warrior and you need your food to go.
Enter the tamale.
Tamales reportedly date back as far as 7,000 BC in Pre-Columbian history and were created as a wartime solution, believe it or not. Women were often taken into battle to prepare food for the armies, including tortillas, various meats, stews and other indigenous concoctions.
But as the armies grew, so too did the need for a better way to ready the warriors’ food. In response, the women developed a way to cook the meals before the battles even started. Using wrappings such as cornhusks, banana leaves, avocado leaves, fabric and soft tree bark (yum!), these meals could be easily heated up or even eaten cold—and in a hurry.
The tamale soon picked up steam (literally), spreading through neighboring countries. Before long, there was a cadre of different tamale types for the choosing, almost like a Dr. Seuss rhyme:
Plain tamales, red tamales, green tamales, more! Honey tamales, egg tamales, turkey tamales, galore!
Nowadays, tamales typically come with red or green chile, pork, beef, chicken, cheese or beans. Though these delectable pouches of fun began as wartime Snack Packs™, eventually they became more of a holiday custom, eaten predominantly at Christmas.
There’s no documentation of which culture invented the tamale, but at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, we’re just happy they exist. We offer pork and chicken tamales (served with two sides) daily, perfecting the art of the past and delighting our guests.
And of course, you can always get them to go, you warriors, you.
