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| STEWART'S
QUICK MART
It’s all about taste. See, with the spice in the dough and the meat, then when it comes together it’s better. Because when you first bite it, you’re going to bite the dough anyway, so why not make the dough spicy. – Robert Stewart Robert Stewart, owner of Stewart’s Quick Mart in Cleveland, Mississippi, has been making and selling hot tamales since 1992. But he has been eating them since he was a kid. Robert’s grandmother, Lela Mae Killen, from New Orleans, had a tamale recipe of her own. She made them for her family to eat and put them up in jars to stock her pantry. When Robert was looking for a way to put a little extra money in his pocket, he turned to his grandmother’s recipe. But he made it his own. Robert has crafted beef and chicken tamales, but he makes more turkey-filled hot tamales these days. Regardless of the filling, Robert says that the key to a good hot tamale is in the spice. He puts spices in the meal, the meat, and the water used for simmering. The result is a bright red hot tamale, one that his grandmother would be proud of.
--- 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: Robert Stewart-owner &
tamale-maker, Stewart’s Quick Mart --- Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans on Thursday, June twenty-third, two thousand and five, and I’m in Cleveland, Mississippi, with Robert Stewart, who has a store here over on Delta Avenue off of Highway Sixty-one. Mr. Stewart, would you mind saying your name and also your birth date, so we can have it on record? Robert Stewart: Okay. [My] name is Robert Lee Stewart, born ten, twenty-ninth, forty-seven [October 29, 1947]. Okay, and you say you’ve been making tamales for about fifteen years, is that right? Thirteen. How’d you get to making them?
Four types? How do you mean? Four types. Add or take away [ingredients]. Oh, okay. You mean, like a mild and a hot? Or do you mean like a turkey and a beef— I make turkey, beef—I make turkey now. I make beef, I make chicken. The chicken is your best hot tamale. Your turkey would probably be the next best one. Beef are kind of rough. And then, see, I like turkey because it’s less chance of having it spoil the meat, see. When you make a beef hot tamale, you got a whole lot of times you got to throw away hot tamales. It don’t take long; it’ll spoil just like that. So I go with turkey. What makes a chicken tamale better, you think? A chicken tamale is better because it’ll hold its spices better…Yeah. But it’s—it’s a long process. You have to grind the chicken up, boil it, take it off of the bone, grind it up. But now, it’s a good hot tamale…When I was making them like that, I was making like forty-five dozen a week. And was selling a whole lot of them. Well, I think I sell a whole lot now. But like I say, I got out of that because the state don’t allow that no more [selling commercially without the proper license]. So I don’t have an FDA license. I have a food permit license, but it’s only for me to cook and sell out of here [Stewart’s Quick Mart]. I can’t sell to other stores. So I just kind of let it alone. But it’s not a — did want to--my three oldest daughters, they’re not interested in too much work. My son, he’s too young. But I’m—I don’t know, I’m just probably going to make some more—just—you know, like--I make them here, and we sell some during the day. So I probably—may going to get a factory involved and—a small hot tamale factory. So that’s depends, you know, depending on the money. But this—this—have you seen Rainey’s hot tamales [Gentle Lee Rainey at the Delta Fast Food in Cleveland, Mississippi]? Have you had—seen his? Yeah. I make them about similar---the same way. Keep them red, you know. And see, the spices is what Rainey uses to keep them red. Now, you go to other hot tamales places, you find hot tamales white. Like, white. Not just say white, but like brown. Plain. Right. It’s all in the spices. Well, I was asking Mr. Rainey, because I came across a guy yesterday, who only spices the water when he’s cooking the tamales. He doesn’t spice the meal or the meat. And Mr. Rainey says that he spices it all. Spice it all, um-hmm. Yeah. And so do you think that’s a key to y’all’s—to your tamales and his is the— I—I make a good hot tamale. I know I do…And
I could not—if there’s any more—the hot tamale—the
best come from the seasoning in the hot tamale. Everything goes
into it in the cooking. See—see, I put spice in my dough,
spice in my meat, I cook them in spice, and then also, when I was
shipping them to San Francisco, I put a dozen in a one-pound bag
and put the sauce in there with them And that’s a good way to sell them, too. With the sauce on the hot tamales. Like it makes them more moist, you know, when you boil them. Yeah, it’s a--I make a good hot tamale. It’s all in the—in how much money you want to spend. See a whole lot of people go the shortest way, because they don’t want to spend no money. Because when you make them good, you know, it’s going to take a little bit of money to make them good. What do you spend money on to make them good? Your spices, you know, like you buy the best spices and then, you know, you add in a little more than necessary to make it come out right. You could—you really could—when I would sell a hot tamale to people, I’d give them the spice already mixed up and found out that I had mixed the spices together—mix the spices—I could put the spices in the water. Just keep the hot tamale—gives it flavor at the same time. It’ll always keep the flavor. But like, I could sell some hot tamales now frozen, and you go home and put them in a pot and boil them in some water, they ain’t going to taste like nothing…It take all the spice out of the hot tamale. But you boil them in the sauce that—that you carried with your hot tamales, they’ll taste good…All the time. And see, that’s a little secret that I liked about when I started off. I didn’t—I didn’t—I had—I’d be [making them] how the recipe went, but I didn’t like how they looked and how they tastes, see what I’m saying? My wife, she loves them. We’d go all over Mississippi trying hot tamales. But every one we found were garlic—too hot from garlic. See what I’m saying? It would never be something that people could enjoy eating. So, that’s one reason that I changed the way I made them. Because the old people, they just made them with just garlic. Little garlic, little pepper. See what I’m saying? Yeah. And I [laughs] I couldn’t stand that…So after we started making them, we just changed, you know, changed our way. And about a year and a half—six months—we got it right…And so it’s right now. And so, you talked about how a hot tamale looked and that yours are red and Mr. Rainey’s are pretty red too. Is that something that, if you go eat somewhere else, that you judge a tamale by is how it looks first and the how it tastes? Well, because if you see one that’s not red or not—got no color on it, it means there’s no spices in it. They done added garlic and pepper and, I mean, it’s not—there’s not nothing in there, you know. But a whole lot of people, okay, put more garlic. See, because anybody’s going to taste the garlic. Just know they just spice the dough, because when you bite down—excuse me—the first thing you’re going to taste is the dough, so why shouldn’t it be seasoned too? Yeah. So, see, it’s your—it should be seasoned too, or it ain’t going to taste right…A whole lot of people think it’s just very simple. Everybody can’t make a hot tamale. I don’t care what you do. It’s all about taste. See, with the spice in the dough and the meat, then when it comes together it’s better. Because when you first bite it, you’re going to bite the dough anyway, so why not make the dough spicy. I used—I used to make my dough red, when I was selling a whole lot of them, because it just tastes better. It’d be I quite selling so many because I quit making so many. I don’t make enough, but I still keep, you know, good flavor, you know. Keep them red. So it’s got quite a few things [in it]. It’s a—a good product to make. A lot of people just sell in the wintertime. They sell all the time! --- Well let me ask you this, you were talking
about, you know, selling to the black community and people having
high-blood pressure and being conscious of that. How about hot tamales
in the African American community in the Delta and the history there,
and how it has really Right. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I reckon it’s just something they did along in the house, you know. And as time went on, you know, different—most of the blacks made them for home—for to eat, you know. Once a month your grandmother made some. Most of them could make them. And then they made for hol—usually, as we come along, we done the same thing. It’s just something labored. And I think that most blacks got into making hot tamales and selling hot tamales because of lack of money. You know, you found out you make them and could sell them and make money. Now a lady down in Leland—I forget her name. She’s passed now. But she used to sell hot tamales years back out of her house. She had a sign on the door. On the side of the highway, you’d see a green house as you go into Leland. Turn off on [highway] eighty-two? Okay. And she sold tamales out of there for years. And she
was really about the onliest one around here selling to the public.
You know, in this area right there, I remember. And you had Joe
Pope over in Rosedale. Now he started selling—making hot tamales
and selling them to the public. But most of the black people have
made hot tamales for years—for generations. You know, like
I say, when we were little kids, my grandma just made them for us
to eat. Well—well, yeah, that’s what—well,
see, my grandma, she was a [short pause] she was from New Orleans.
She was French, something or other, I don’t know. But her
mother—her mother was a—a gypsy. So that’s where
she got it from…They was—my grandmother used to call
them a rolling gypsy—say they were rolling gypsies, you know,
so—Her mother was a gypsy. They migrated from Louisiana—from
New Orleans down there up—up to this way. In, I think--I think
she said in nineteen twenty-two. When they had this big flood [in
1927], they got separated, her and her mother. And her brother came.
So they ended up back in Louisiana until after the flood, however
long that lasted, she came back to Mississippi. But she got hers
from her mother; she had a whole lot of recipes. Yeah. My grandmother, she used to make all that kind of stuff. And I didn’t feel anything about it. A certain part of the year she would make this and jar it up and put up hot tamales the same way…See, I never thought nothing about that. Same thing about hot tamales. I never thought about hot tamales being sold to make money. She’d make them and put them in jars. I don’t know how she made them preserve. I don’t know. I didn’t fool with that. I didn’t think about that…But she could preserve them. And you don’t know—she just picked up these recipes— Oh, it was passed down to her…Um-hmm. She got—she got them from her mother. What was your grandmother’s name? Lela Mae Killen…But they say Mexicans are—I mean, hot tamales come from Mexico, but they’ve been in the black neighborhoods for generations. You know. And now Mexicans do deal with them, now. They’ve been making them for years. But I—I used to buy my shucks, when I was making a whole lot of hot tamales, out of Waco, Texas. And this guy called me--he was selling them by the bale; I used to buy them by the bale. He said, “Well, Mr. Stewart, I want you to make them hot tamales because you know every black man I know makes the best hot tamales. But I didn’t know, shucks. But we Mexicans can make some hot tamales.” And he was a Mexican. I was buying shucks from him. So I reckon it passed from the Mexican to the black, you know. It’s—it’s a—they--You know, it’s just another way to make them. --- So now just you and your wife make them or do you have st—or do you have help still? I just make them. Um-hmm, I just make them myself…I don’t—I’ve got some new stuff here now. And some dough I cooked this morning. I’m not going to do more than ten dozen, now. I’ll do ten dozen a day, and fifty dozen a week. That’s all I’ll do…I’m going to make a little more next week. Got the Fourth of July coming up. And we’re having a family reunion, so my sisters and brothers, they come from Chicago and everywhere else. So I know what that means. One year they whipped the devil out of me with these hot tamales. They wanted five-dozen to carry back. --- So your grandmother was around to see you at the store here making hot tamales, yeah? She did. Yeah, because she’s been dead like four years. I’ve been making them—I’ve been making them thirteen years. And she loves her some hot tamales. She said I could make them better than her…She said, “Boy, you can make hot tamales better than I do.” Because she liked hers hot. She liked hers hot. When I made some, I would make--I made all of them together, and when I got done, I took two dozen out, and I cooked hers in a separate pot and put all that [cayenne] pepper on them. Red-hot. She said it was the most—she said it was good. I mean, red-hot. Because she used to—she used to eat a pepper off of the stalk. She’d stay out there on the porch and pick up a hand of peppers—like picking an orange or grape and eat peppers like that. So, yeah. I tried it one day and stayed sick for a week. From trying one piece. And she did that. She would sit down on the porch in a chair and eat peppers like you’d eat grapes. I ain’t never seen nothing like it in my life. That’s maybe why she lived to [be] ninety-eight. [Laughs] That’s right. And didn’t have nothing
wrong with her…I’m saying nothing. In all them years.
She didn’t have need no teeth. It’s just like--she pulled
them out herself. Hot peppers. And she loved her some hot tamales
too. Well, they say—I’ve seen—heard one time—they
say, if you eat a pepper, it’ll clean you out. So maybe it
did her the same. Because they say the Mexicans don’t have
no trouble with high blood pressure than black people do. Form that
hot pepper. See, we [are] totally opposite; eat something hot, it’ll
cause high blood pressure. See what I’m saying? She never
had it. In her life. Ninety-eight years old. Never had it. And I
can’t eat nothing hot. I make those hot tamales, I’ll
taste that sauce [and] it will burn me up. Once it’s cooked,
you know, it gets hotter. I can’t stand it. There’s
some people that will try to do that in this day and age, eat some
So was she proud to know that you were making her recipe or that you were making hot tamales? Oh, yeah. She asked how much did I change them. She said, “Well, you changed them.” I said, “Yes, ma’am. I just improved it.” You know, what I thought was improving. Had she ever written anything down, or was it just a recipe she kept in her head? In her head like I do. Yeah? You haven’t written it down? Mm-mm. Just got it in my head. I never wrote it—see, it’s just so much in it [that] you have it [in your head]. See, me and my wife were talking one day, and when I first started, I used to measure—so much chili powder, you know. Measurements for how much of this to put in. I don’t do none of that [now]. I just take it and put it in there. Can you talk about making tamales? Like how you start and kind of the process. Um-hmm, yeah. There’s corn shucks. Well, we’ll
go with the meat first. I just season it—spice it. Put enough
spice in the water. You just have to use pepper, chili powder, camino
[cumin], paprika, stuff like that, garlic [powder], onion [powder],
and salt. Put it all in the water and then put your meat in there.
I let it boil until it gets done, then I grind it out. The same
sauce that I cook the meat in, I save that for to make my dough
[or masa]. If I have to cook some more hot tamales, because I only
make dough like—if I ain’t going to do but fifty dozen
in one week, I only make dough one time. And I make my dough with
the sauce. Now, I also cook my hot tamales with the sauce. But—and
when it comes to rolling, once you clean your shucks, you use your
dough and your—the dough come on [the corn husk] first, the
meat come in the dough. And everybody can roll them; there’s
nothing to it. And the from there, you tie them up—if you
don’t have no sauce already made, you mix you some sauce and
put your hot tamales in. --- Do you have a certain length or width that you like to make them? Um-hmm. Because I have a gallon bag that I put them in…The reason I make them this length is so they fit into these [Ziploc freezer] bags. Okay. That’s why I make it like that [holds up frozen tamale he pulled out of the bag]. [Short pause] Now, you’re going to take the same dough and the same meat and make your hot tamales. And then it’s just a matter of folding shucks. One guy wanted some special hot tamales. I said, “Well, I have hot tamales already made.” [He said,] “I want mine full of meat.” [I said] “How much meat are you talking about?” He said, “Full of meat.” I do, “Okay.” And so I put some more beef in there—some shoulder—because that’s the way he wanted them. But when I told him the price, he didn’t want to buy them. Uh-oh. [Laughs] He didn’t want to buy them. I—I got a few customers that, during the hunting season, I make deer hot tamales for them…And they love—they love those hot tamales…I’m tired of working with these. These old dried up shucks…They tear. Have you had them wrapped in parchment paper? I have seen them…Okay, now the only thing about
that [unintelligible phrase] They don’t hold flavor. They
don’t hold as much flavor…But they say the paper’s
cheaper. You know, shucks now are high [expensive] because I roll
them—when I regularly roll them---like so many a week--every
[bag of] shuck[s] we open, we use all of it. But see now, I can’t
use this here [holds up a small piece of a corn shuck]…I’ll
throw them away. But I know, the kind I’m working with here,
take two or three and put them together and use all of them, see.
Because they’re not all that expensive. You can get a bag
for about—about three [dollars and] eighty-five [cents]. And
as you roll, like, you can get like twelve dozen out of a bag. So
--- And the work is part of it. I mean, you said that your kids aren’t interested in making them because it’s too much work, but do you enjoy making them? Me? Oh, yeah. I do. Mm-hmm. And after—I’d be enjoy making more. I enjoy just making them—like I’d be sitting down here, it’d be slow—business would be slow. I’ll sit over here and roll hot tamales. But, yeah, I enjoy making them myself. --- To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
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Stewart’s Quick Mart
Listen
to this 
Well,
just--my grandmother used to make them for us to eat. But I had
forgot [how to make them]. So when I decided, you know, to do something
else to pick up some extra cash, so I thought about that [making
tamales]. I went back and got the recipe and started back making
them. I just improved it a little bit. See, most hot tamales put
garlic and pepper; you taste the garlic, and you taste the pepper.
So I just kind of improved it, where you can taste the meat and,
you know, a good hot tamale. And the dough—the main thing,
I can make four types of hot tamales. 
and
shipped them, I think, twenty-seven dozen up there. The man supposed
to give the hot tamales to some guy to manufacture—to see
how they taste to manufacture them—manufacture hot tamales.
He had to send back for five more dozen because he ate five of them!
been
a tradition that’s been maintained in the black community.
AndI
didn’t know—didn’t take no mind until I got older.
Like this chow-chow [a cabbage relish] you see in jars that you
see uptown in some of the stores here?
pepper.
But she—she ate her pepper.
you are—if
you sell them—if you’re selling them wholesale, see,
you know, you can make some money. 
