Now that we're back in the states I'm already starting to ponder my Christmas tamale strategy. Growing up in Pearsall, tamales are a ritual at Christmas - guessing that may be true for many of you too. I'll order some to ship to Atlanta for our family gathering. Our go to in San Antonio has been Tellez Tamales, but we spoke at a church in Mission last year and had Delia's - wow. We'll probably get them there this year.

Where do you guys get yours, favorite variety, etc?

Delia's for sure. Spicy pork. They ship anywhere.

I am a tamale snob. I will not eat a tamale unless it is from Delia's. Spicy pork is the best if you are a purest, but the other flavors are interesting. I think they opened one up in San Antonio.

My favorite tamale story - a number of years ago, Melissa got a couple of tickets for Trans-Siberian Orchestra through the law firm she worked at. It was a matinee performance at the AT&T Center on December 23. As we waited for the show to begin, we discussed our tamale inventory and decided we needed some more for our Christmas Eve gathering. We discussed our options and she mentioned that some of her co-workers had brought tamales from Ruben's on the east side of SA to the office and they were pretty good. We'd never gotten them there, so I googled Ruben's saw it was pretty close so after the show we drove by to plot our strategy for the next morning which was Christmas Eve. There were RVs parked waiting for the next day!

We woke up and got to Rubens at 5:00 am and were about 100 people back in the line. Folks had bit marine ice chests to fill with their tamales. The folks just in front of us had driven from Austin to buy their. About 6:30 an employee came out to discuss the proper protocol once they opened at 7:00. When they did open, the line began to move pretty quickly. Rubens is a little ice house type market - they'd but duct tape arrows on the floor, up and down the aisles. The canned goods had been there so long there were rust circles on the shelves from the cans. There was only one variety available, pork, and they had to be purchased in multiples of 10 dozen. When you got to the counter it was sort of like the tamale version of the Soup Nazi.

We got them home, celebrated Christmas Eve and the tamales from Ruben's were pretty darn good.

Now fast forward about six months. One night we were watching the 10:00 o'clock news and the Kitchen Cops segment was visiting Ruben's. The health department had conducted an inspection a few weeks earlier and they'd scored terribly low - roaches, rat feces in the kitchen... But when the Kitchen Cops showed up, apparently Ruben had been tipped off - there was a piece of notebook paper taped to the front door with a hand written note - "On Vacation."

Melissa was horrified, but I told her if we start disqualifying tamale places because of some roaches and rat
****, we going to have a hard time finding our tamales.

When we lived in Austin we always got ours from Rosies in Bee Cave.

Damn that's an expensive mail order but tempted. Any DFW recommendations?

Don't discount Delia's jalapeo and cream cheese tamales.

wadd96 said:

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We need a decent tamale shop in the wasteland that is The People Republik of Austin.

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I realize that I'm going to be ridiculed for this opinion but the tamales at Central Market are pretty good, and you don't have to have a connection with someone's abuleita to get the hook up.

I'll send you my address.

I bought some out of the trunk of a car on the side of 188 on the way to Rockport one time and I am still here to tell the tale.

Normally we get them from someone's coworker's cousin's roommate's abuelita. Have never bought them retail.

OK, so OB knows **** and I guess Tamales! Just ordered some, clicked purchase prior to checking the shipping cost, they better live up to their rep here on OB!