Delta Hot Tamale Festival Listed Among 50 Things To Do by Garden & Gun Magazine

Arts & Culture
Celebrate the South's Fifty great things Southerners should see, do, cook, read, and drink—at least once

April/May 2017

Juleps at the derby, check. Quail hunting in the Red Hills, check.Tailgating at the Grove, check. But beyond these quintessential experiences, a world of under-the-radar adventures awaits.

N° 40: Stop by a Small-Town Festival
by Antony Hare

From Crisfield, Maryland’s Hard Crab Derby to Helen, Georgia’s lederhosen-heavy Oktoberfest, small-town festivals in the South are idiosyncratic ecosystems, each with its own rituals and customs. Take the Delta Hot Tamale Festival in Greenville, Mississippi. There, cornmeal-in-corn-husk dough packets are just part of the funky fun. Winners of the Miss Hot Tamale contest wear gowns made of corn shucks. Celebrity chefs compete in a cook-off. Roy Blount, Jr., cracks you up with his prelunch blessing. And the Hot Tamale Parade rolls through downtown, with blues musicians, Hot Tamale royalty, and children in tow.


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