I saw a post on the front page where this guy was asking what this thing was that his coworker bought him out of some girls trunk, and the comments were saying it’s a tamale, which I’m sure is true, but is it legit commonplace for them to be sold out of a trunk? How does that even work? How do you solicit customers? What country is this happening in?
This feels as if I’ve just found out some people regularly buy their pizza from a guy walking down the street selling slices out of his backpack. I’m just a tad skeptical but who am I to say
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Yes and they are the best tamales.
In Texas go to the part of your nearest city and find the area where advertisements and signs are in Spanish. Find a busy bar and wait outside. Then find the little old lady dragging an ice chest around. Those are the best.
I work in residential construction and it’s pretty typical for a few of the wives to cook a whole bunch of food and sell it out of their minivan when we all take lunch. I’ve never seen them selling them to anyone outside of the construction crews but it wouldn’t be all that surprising.
6pm on a Tuesday in semi-rural Southern California. You’re at the park waiting for your son’s baseball practice to wrap up. A 1995 Green Chevy Astro van is driving slowly through the parking lot with the side door open, honking one of those bicycle horns. You walk slowly towards the approaching van, intersecting its path. You say to the 10 year old boy in the back seat, “one elotes, on the stick, and 2 tamales… One pork, one beef, por favor” The young boy turns to his mother, who is moving from the front seat to the back, and relays the order to her in Spanish. You pay $6 (fucking inflation) and enjoy the best supper you’ll have all week. (Just don’t tell your wife)
In rural PA, you just look for a crude handmade sign stapled to a utility pole that says, tomales, the address, and day and time. It’s like a tasty yard sale.
I just bought some yesterday in a Ross parking lot lol delicious
The best trunk tamales in my town (there are plenty) are from the lady in the wal-mart lot. There’s a new place I gotta check out, they cut a hole in their back fence and sell from there.
Go to New Mexico, average parking lot in Albuquerque, Los cruces, non gentrified parts of Santa Fe, you will find multiple people finding homemade food out of their cars, including tamales. Bet your ass it’s the best damn food you’ve ever have.
Trunk tamales? That’s a l.a. breakfast treat
I used to work with a guy that sold tamales from a cooler he kept on the adult sized tricycle. We worked in manufacturing. He rode the tricycle around since he worked in maintenance. It’s weird how Mexican food gets a weird free pass for how it’s distributed to consumers.
In California, you can find them at a lot of parks and Home Depot parking lots. Damn good tamales, too.
Yes. Find a local construction site on a housing development and ask if there’s a guy that drives around in a van. 9 times out of 10 the answer is yes. Look for signs on light poles in places where you see Spanish advertisements.
We had one guy that drove around with snacks and sodas, and if you caught him early enough he would have a chest filled with tamales and burritos his wife made, best you’ve ever had.
In these moments, price does not matter.
What I haven’t come across, but I’d love to check out, are tacos de canasta/basket tacos.
Shout out to the show Taco Chronicles on Netflix.
Um yes. And they are the best. If the tamale lady comes to your work place you just go buy some
I’m in Southern California. There’s almost always someone in any Walmart parking lot selling tamales out of their car.
Fruit on one corner and tamales on the other isn’t unheard of in many CA cities.
yeah some people go further than that even & open up their own kitchen to the public to sell homemade food. Or they get little carts and sell elote or whatever in the sidewalk or literally where ever. I live in Arizona and I see it a lot – its really cool tbh. Its hispanic culture, so it checks out that people are seeing this in cali a lot too 🙂
We have a guy that walks all over town dragging a cooler and shouting “tamales tamales tamales!” They’re delicious.
Why is all the best Mexican food bought out of a vehicle? Tamales from a trunk, tacos from a truck in an odd location. Gd, I love Mexican food.
Best tamales you could ever eat too
In SoCal they are fairly common, frankly not common enough, I would buy them more often. Think of it as someone that cannot yet afford a food cart or a food truck, they can drive from one parking lot to another and basically sell out of a portable cooler. See them outside grocery stores sometimes, no different than a kid selling candy or girl scout cookies, just a different product.