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Rouses Means Local brands

Mickey Brown’s by michael tisserand

He was making them right here in Houma, and years and years ago, I remember these warm tamales coming in. They would bake them, pack them up in little brown bags and bring them to the store, and we would put them in the freezer. It’s a great local product and it’s still there today. — Tim Acosta, Director of Marketing & Advertising at Rouses Markets

The tamale is one of themost versatile dishes, with its ability to serve as a quick bite from a street vendor’s cart or a gourmet appetizer, with a wide variety of exotic fillings to choose from. It’s also a storied food, dating back to ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations, and even earlier, when tamales were considered sacred foods. They served nomadic cultures and traveling hunters well, as the filling in a tamale came wrapped in its own container, such as a banana leaf or a corn husk, which handily functioned as a “plate” too. Tamales are most associated with Mexico and Central America, but the Southern Foodways Alliance has identified what it calls a Southern “Hot Tamale Trail” that dates back to at least 1928, when the Louisiana gospel-blues singer Reverend Moses Mason recorded the song “Molly Man,” with lyrics calling out the promise of red hot tamales, two for a nickel. The tamale song tradition continued into modern times, thanks to zydeco legend Clifton Chenier’s “Hot Tamale Baby,” which was also a hit for both Marcia Ball and Buckwheat Zydeco. While the Mississippi Delta is the primary home of tamales in the South, the savory delight was found in neighboring states as well. For decades, the epicenter of tamale production in Louisiana was a nondescript building in Houma, a city otherwise known as a seat of Cajun culture and home to families who made their living harvesting seafood from the Gulf and working in the oil industry. Speaking to Houma Today newspaper in 2005 — when the company was moving from hand- rolled tamales to an expanded production with greater automation — company owner Marshall Brown couldn’t recall exactly how his father, Mickey, realized his future was in tamales. “I’ve heard a couple different stories,” he said. But his father was an innovative cook, and when Mickey took a trip to Mexico and sampled the wares, the family’s future was set. He began making tamales by hand in his own father’s kitchen. Marshall Brown started out in this business as a child, going along with his father on tamale deliveries; in 1977, he took over the business operation. He confirms that he still uses his dad’s recipe, even though the production has grown exponentially. Instead of banana leaves or corn husks, Mickey Brown’s tamales are wrapped in parchment paper. And in South Louisiana — where everything and everybody seem to become Cajun sooner or later — it should be no surprise that packages of Mickey Brown’s tamales are stamped with a “Certified Cajun” seal, along with a map of Louisiana and a chili pepper with its tip pointing straight to Houma.

Mickey Brown’s employees wrap tamales in vegetable parchment paper at their production center in Houma, Louisiana (images courtesy of Houma Today )

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