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| ABE'S
BAR-B-Q
People don't do it no more, but the way to eat a hot tamale--and I've seen it because we used to eat them from the Mexican on the street. We would get them, and when he cut the string off we would hold them by the bottom and push them and slide into your mouth, and that way you get the juice and everything. – Pat Davis, Sr. Abe’s Bar-B-Q has been in business in the same location since 1937. Pat Davis, Sr. remembers Mexican vendors peddling hot tamales in downtown Clarksdale when he was a kid. At the same time, Pat was helping his father, Lebanese-born Abraham “Abe” Davis, make his own pork-filled tamales by hand in the kitchen of the family’s restaurant. Eventually, Pat talked his father into buying an extruder to make their tamale chores a little easier. Today, their tamales are contract manufactured according to Abe’s original recipe. Recently, the Davis family introduced the “Tamaco,” a green salad with tamales on top. It’s a whole new twist on the generations-old tradition of hot tamales.
--- What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here. Subject: Pat Davis, Sr., Abe’s
Bar-B-Q - Clarksdale, MS --- Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance on Friday, August nineteenth, 2005, and I'm at Abe's Restaurant in Clarksdale, Mississippi, at the famous Blues Crossroads [of Highways 49 and 61] I'm here with Pat Davis, Senior. Sir, would you mind saying your name and also your birth date for the record? Pat Davis: This is Pat Davis. My birthday is September 3, 1937. And can you explain a little bit about who Abe was that the restaurant was named for and the family's history a little bit? My--my father was named Abe--Abraham Davis. He started
his first restaurant when he was about twenty-one years old on Fourth
Street, which is now Martin Luther King Boulevard, and he had a--a
sauce that he made to go on his barbecue sandwiches and the sauce
was--they call it the Comeback Sauce--and sort of stuff like that.
And for the last eighty-some years, we've been selling And I was a young man at the time and began to work with him and--probably about ten, eleven years old. And he began to make hot--let me help him make hot tamales. And since we want to talk about hot tamales, I'll give you all the--how the--how we went through it. He would get a couple pork shoulders and--and boil them and then, when they were done, he would take them out and grind them up and put it to the side. And then he would get cornmeal and a little flour and mix it in and put our secret ingredients in it to give it the flavor and all. Then he would pull the meat back out of the refrigerator, when it's cold, and then added the flavoring to that. And then we would boil bundles of corn shucks, and I would have to go through the corn shucks and separate them and pick out the ones that we were able to put a little--meal on them. And we did it all by hand. I had to get one corn shuck, and I'd dip it into the meal and--and spread the meal real thin on it, and then he would pick it up and put the meat in between it and roll it and set it aside. And we would make about ten or fifteen dozen at a time. And then once we got them all made, then we had to go tie them in bundles of threes, you know. And it was just a major project. And as I grew older and got tired of sitting there making--putting that meal on them, I said, “Daddy let's get a machine.” So he said, “I don't know if you can get a machine to make hot tamales.” And somehow or another I found a place in Waco, Texas, that made hot tamale [extruder] machines. And it was still a hand operated, but you would put the meal and the meat into this container, and you would press it down, and it would come out into one long hot tamale and--and we would make them--we would get a tray and we'd make them about thirty-inches long and that--line them up and had them about ten or twelve on a tray and then I went and had them--cut them--just cut down and we would cut them the right size, and we started making them that way. Well hot tamales caught on, and we were selling the heck out of them, and it just got [to be] a lot more problems trying to make them, and it just was taking too much of our time away from our regular business. So we found a place that could manufacture them for us, and they've been doing that for about a couple of years for us now. And I just found them. But we quit making hot tamales for quite some time because it was just too big of a chore until I found this factory. But when I was probably seven or eight years old I was--I was going to the Catholic School on Clark Street and I would walk home, and I would have to cross and come by the Union Planter's Bank down there. And there was an old Mexican man there with a copper pan, and it was amazing. It was—now, this is probably in the early [nineteen] fifties, and in that copper pan he had hot tamales, and they were steaming hot. And it had a little fire in the bottom of it. But he used to sell hot tamales on that corner, and people all over would just come and get hot tamales from him. And anyway, we just--I remember that. And selling hot tamales just started being a fad here in Clarksdale, you know, and a lot of people--we had one guy [Laughs] who came in from upstate one--one day when--at the restaurant and he saw the sign Hot Tamales and he asked my father--he said, “What's a hot tamale?” And my daddy was really proud of his hot tamale. And he said, “Well, I'll tell you what. I'm going to give you some and let you see what you think.” So he pulled out a bundle of three and he gave them and the man ate them, and my daddy is watching, you know, every bite and waiting to see what kind of comment [the man would make]. So when he finished, my father said, “Well what do you think about them?” He said, “Well if you like cornbread, it's all right.” [Laughs] So anyway, hot tamales--the secret to hot tamales is to make them so hot that they don't know what they're eating. But we've been making them--we make ours real mild because we got a lot of kids and all that eat them. And my sister-in-law was here one day, and she wanted a salad. And she said to her husband and her son--she said, “Well I wonder if you get--can I get a salad and put some hot tamales on top of it?” And he said, “Yeah, I want to try it.” So he chopped up the tomatoes and lettuce, and he put three or four hot tamales on top of it. And then he got a little idea, and he went and dipped some chili and poured over that and then laid a piece of cheese on it and that's the “Tamaco.” We came up with a new invention called “Tamaco,” and we're selling the heck out of them right now. But anyway, I think I done told you everything you need to know. Well I have a couple questions…And one is about the--the Mexican man who was selling tamales on the street. Do you remember what they tasted like, or were they any different from what a tamale is now in the Delta? They had--they were more spicier then and the--the funny thing about it—well, not the funny thing, but there's only one way to eat a hot tamale. People don't do it no more, but the way to eat a hot tamale--and I've seen it because we used to eat them from the Mexican on the street. We would get them, and when he cut the string off we would hold them by the bottom and push them and slide into your mouth, and that way you get the juice and everything. But now people don't use that; they don't want to make the mess. So we shuck them for them before we serve them and all. --- So you said that your father started out making pork tamales. Are they still pork? Yeah, yeah, all pork. Okay, because mostly they're [made with] beef [here] in the Delta. Not really. In the--in the--out west, you might get beef, but everything--even barbecue is all pork, you know. But from the Mexicans and people around and your African Americans, you know, and all it's mostly pork. [Interviewer’s note: most Delta tamales are, in fact, beef tamales.] But I'm--some of them make beef hot tamales. I think in stores you might get some hot tamales made with beef and all. Pork has a better flavor, though. You know, we think it's got a little more--I don't want to say fat in it, but--but [Laughs] that sort of makes the hot tamale. Do you know where your father got the recipe, originally? You know, I really don't. I don't--my father was way ahead of his time. Now, your family is of Lebanese heritage. Lebanese, yeah…My father was thirteen years
old when he came to America, he You're brother, Abe--Abe, Junior, whom I just met? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tell Abe--I tell--I tell everybody. My brother, Abe, he's got his name on the sign, so I tell him he can tell everybody he owns the place, as long as I ain't got to pay him but two dollars an hour. But I'm going to see about that. No, my brother is--is a very big part of this business, really. --- [T]he family's hot tamale recipe, is that something that your father told to you, or is it something that you just learned to do, or is it written down somewhere? I--I wrote it down, you know. I made him explain it to me, you know, because he usually would just throw this and that--you know how people do, and it comes out perfect. But I--I wrote it down, and I have the recipe in the house. And the--the beautiful thing about making hot tamales when we used to make them is when you get that meat, and it's got the seasoning in it, you just put it on the grill and warm it and put it in between white bread, and makes a heck of a sandwich, you know. But then a lot of people tease about hot tamale. And they say, you know, sometimes it's more cornmeal than it is meat, you know. And then sometimes when we were making them by the machine ourselves, the meat wouldn't come out just right, and it would just be a long thing of cornmeal. So we'd always tell the customer to let us know. And even the people now--as a matter of fact, they make--sometimes they mess up [the company that is manufacturing their tamales], and it's all cornmeal so--. But they make your recipe? Yeah. [D]id they have to sign anything that says that they won't divulge [the recipe] information? Yeah, yeah. And our sauce--we have our sauce manufactured now and they--they signed a--as a matter of fact, they signed something, and I'm getting ready to change over back to--to Newlyweds [Foods Incorporated] in--in Southaven [Mississippi], and I don't know why it's named Newlyweds, but they make seasonings and sauces and all, and they got my recipe. But I haven't signed my papers with them, you know, stating they wouldn't, you know, divulge my recipe to anyone…I'm glad you mentioned that; I've got to do that. Well what do you think it is about hot tamales in the Delta that makes them so popular? It's just something different. It's a different flavor. It's--it's a—well, we've got a Mexican restaurant now [in Clarksdale], and people are willing, you know, to try different things, you know. And to be honest with you, they've got some great dishes over there but don't eat the hot tamales.
Because I--I just don't--they're not that good, really. I--you know--and then they might not even make them, you know. They're probably buying them someplace and all. But we used to get them from Sysco when we stopped making them, and they just wasn't the product but we still--when we added our seasoning to it or we cooked them, they got to be pretty good…But Hicks [in Clarksdale] makes a good hot tamale, too, now. Have you been there yet? Okay, he's--his are probably more spicier than mine, I think, 'cause--'cause I think that we tried his one time, and we were going to sell them here, and they were kind of hot, and I didn't want them. Have you tasted any other hot tamales around the Delta? Have I? Doe's [Eat Place in Greenville, Mississippi] has got a good hot one. It's wrapped in paper, you know. And it's a good hot tamale. Each one of them have a different flavor or taste of its own. It's still got the basic hot tamale taste, you know, but some of them, you know--they're a little more different taste to it and all. And can I ask you, too, about kind of the economics of making a hot tamale because there's so much labor involved, and your experience with making them by hand--and people who are still doing that and then people sell them for six dollars a dozen. Really? I can't--really? See, ours are eight dollars a dozen. Yeah. Even eight dollars doesn't seem like enough… [Laughs] I mean, when you really get into it and really see the labor and the time. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah…You've got to have--you've got to prep everything before you even start, you know, and it takes a day to prep. And then you've got to wait a day for it to cool to start back over. Do you remember how much a dozen hot tamales sold for when your father started making them? Gosh, I bet I don't have it on that menu. [Walks over to a framed menu hanging on the wall] I don’t have it on this menu. A barbecue eight-pack was two dollars and fifty cents, so a dozen hot tamales couldn't be no more than a couple dollars back then. What's the date on that—nineteen—nineteen sixty-three…That's the menu from 1963. --- [W]hat do you cook at home? Do you cook any traditional Lebanese? Everything—everything. I don't like--I don't eat much, but when I eat Lebanese food or barbecue I eat 'til I'm miserable. And grape leaves is my--my favorite. And I'll go home, and I could be depressed or tired or whatever, and I will reach in the refrigerator and start thawing out the hamburger meat, and by the time it's thawed out, I've done washed about fifty or sixty grape leaves. We get them in jars now--pickled or whatever, and I can make them, and within an hour I'm eating grape leaves. Do you see any links now that--you know, you mentioned grape leaves, and I know how they're prepared and wrapped and everything. There's so many steps. There's some comparisons, I think, there [to making hot tamales].There really is--there really is. And maybe that's why my dad even started, you know, making hot tamales back then because he used to love to make grape leaves and cabbage rolls and all, and then he just probably heard about hot tamales and then said, “Yeah, I believe I can do that.” And then started working that and came up with a beautiful recipe, you know. --- [T]alking a little bit, too, about how Clarksdale has changed over the years and is having this resurgence in popularity. And y'all had this big Sunflower Blues Festival last weekend, and so many tourists are coming through. You think hot tamales have anything to do with that? Or do you think hot tamales can have something to do with that? Yeah, definitely. Hot tamales and--and barbecue and blues go together, and we've been blessed really, because we've got--we've had people from Australia, England, Germany [eat at Abe’s]. --- To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
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Abe’s Bar-B-Q
Listen
to this 
barbecue
with the same sauce on it. And he moved over here to this location
on Highway 61 and [Highway] 49 in 1937. 
and
his sister and brother…And my father remembers--and he shared
with me that when they came to Ellis Island, they were asking what
were their names and the name was Dawood, which means David, and
he was saying “Dawood,” you know. And the man couldn't
understand how to spell Dawood, so he wrote Davis. And they stuck
it on him, and that's where we got the name Davis from...But anyway,
then my son and my brother now run the business, and I'm out of
it, but I--.
Why
do you say that?
