Bill Johnson/billjohnson@ddtonline.com

Posted: Monday, June 20, 2016 7:16 am

Hot Tamale Heaven is expanding
Mary Alford/malford@ddtonline.com Delta Democrat Times 

GREENVILLE — Hot Tamale Heaven won’t just be a drive-through anymore. The owners are opening a new dine-in restaurant on Mississippi 1.
Although Hot Tamale Heaven is a family business that started more than three decades ago by his father, Aaron Harmon and his wife, Natasha, are leading this new endeavor and are full of excitement.
“We’re growing the business. Greenville is the Hot Tamale Capital of the world, so Hot Tamale Heaven has a vested interest in making sure that hot tamales are represented properly in Greenville. Hence why my wife and I decided to open a second location here in Greenville,” he said.
Harmon said they will be pulling out all the stops in the new location.
“We want to represent properly here in Greenville. We have multiple things we are going to carry on the menu,” Harmon said, noting they will have all things hot tamale as well as other items. “We are going to do more than tamales. We’ve been looking around seeing what’s missing and we want to cover the things that are missing in town. I don’t want to let the cat completely out of the bag just yet.”
He said the additional location will have extended hours, though not set yet, and he expects to hire at least 20 people.
“We want to do all we can to make sure Greenville is moving forward and as we know, Washington Avenue and the downtown area is growing; we have a lot of big plans for this area. We’re expanding the business but we’re not forgetting about home,” he said.
And “home” is a concept Harmon wants residents to associate with their new location at 1427 Mississippi 1 South, where they have recently broken ground.
“I want everyone to give us a shot, we’ve been here a long time. People know and love our product. We love serving them. I want them to come out to our new location and look around. I want them to feel at home there. We’re doing it for them, not just for ourselves and our family, we consider everyone in Greenville to be a part of our extended family, so we want them to come home to their extended home and enjoy themselves,” he said.
Harmon said he hopes to have the Mississippi 1 location up and running by this year’s Delta Hot Tamale Festival, Oct. 13-16. 
“If everything goes as planned we would love, absolutely love, to be open for the tamale fest. …But if not, we’re going to be open as fast as we can,” he said, noting they will have a soft opening at first to make sure the staff is well trained and the food is excellent.
“We don’t want to rush ourselves, we want to make sure everything is covered.”
A local family business
Harmon said Hot Tamale Heaven began about 35 years ago, when his father and mother, Willie and Inez Harmon, decided to delve into the tamale business.
“I was just a young lad of 6- or 7-years-old. My father started this business, my mother and father. My father at the time was working a factory job that he hated. And someone told him that a man could make a decent living making tamales, which he didn’t have any idea of how to do at that time,” Harmon said, noting his father wasn’t deterred. “He contacted a lady that he knew in Arkansas. … She gave him the rudimentary aspects of making tamales.”
From there, Harmon said his father took her process and her recipe and made it his own, adding his own ingredients into the mix.
Once his father came up with a tamale he liked, he had the family try it as well as some of his friends, all of whom loved the new concoction.
“So (my father) decided to sell tamales in the neighborhood and it took off from there. Everybody liked the recipe. They liked the product. And he began to slowly grow it from that point on,” Harmon said, laughing as he noted he and his five siblings were his father’s first laborers.
“We began to help him in business when we got home for school, and on more than one occasional he would get us out of school if he had a big order for tamales and needed some help,” he said.
But, the tamales were too good to just sell to neighbors. Harmon said they started selling tamales on Washington Avenue and what is now Stein Mart Square. He said often his mother would be set up at Stein Mart Square and his father at the old Greenville Mall location.
“And it took off from there. My brothers and sisters and I we were growing up in the business and sometimes (our father) would take us along with him to watch, to see how he did things, how he treated the customers. …We learned the tricks of the trade and we knew the making process, the rolling process and the selling process,” Harmon said.
And those are skills that Harmon and a few of his siblings continue to use in their shop on U.S. 82, where they’ve been since 2007, as well as their processing plant on Main Street.
“My father and brother pretty much run the factory process. He sells to many fine restaurants all over the Delta and beyond,” Harmon said.
And soon, they’ll soon have one more location for folks to enjoy their tasty tamales.
Their hours at the U.S. 82 location are 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 1-6 p.m. Sunday.

Music, inflatables on tap for Farmers’ Market season opener

Posted: Friday, June 3, 2016 11:36 am
Music, inflatables on tap for Farmers’ Market season opener

Mary Alford malford@ddtonline Delta Democrat Times | 0 comments

GREENVILLE — Saturday is the day everyone has been waiting for — the day folks will finally be able to get their hands on some fresh produce.
The Greenville Farmers’ Market will officially be open for the season Saturday — and will be stay open every Saturday afterward from 8 a.m. to noon. Residents will be able to purchase any type of fresh veggies or fruits from the market, which is at the corner of Washington Avenue and North Street. 

For the first day of the Farmers’ Market, Daniel Boggs, chief executive officer of Main Street Greenville and Greater Greenville Development Foundation, said they are going to pull out all the stops.
“As with every year, we always want to open it up big. … It’s a good time for the family to come down. We’re going to have inflatables for the kids. We’re going to have live music. We really want people to come down and just kind of experience the Farmers’ Market and see what we’re going to have available for the year,” Boggs said. “Like everything that Main Street does, we’re going to try to create a family environment for everybody, all ages.”
Boggs said Mike Flaton, from the Nashville area, will be playing music from about 9-11 a.m. Saturday. 
Although they are getting a later start than normal, Boggs anticipates the market staying open through the end of October. 
Boggs said the Farmers’ Market is important to the community because it gives residents the ability to get quality, organic food. He said this was especially important to Greenville because parts of the area are identified by the United State’s Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service as a food desert, meaning residents have limited access to supermarkets, supercenters, grocery stores or other sources of healthy and affordable food, which may make it harder for some to eat a healthy diet.  
“As an organization, we understand the importance of a Farmers’ Market to a community and providing the opportunity to buy the fresh fruits and vegetables,” Boggs said. “But to offer up a lot of other central items as well.We’re definitely opening it up to more than just farmers.” 
Boggs said they have seen growth around a lot of Farmers’ Markets throughout he United States and they are making a conservative effort to increase the visibility of Greenville’s Farmers’ Market and increase the vendors, goods and opportunities that will be there. 
“Hopefully, over the next couple of years, the people will see the Farmers’ Market evolve into a bigger thing than what we’ve had in the past,” he said. 
Those interested in setting up a booth can do so for $30 per month or $100 for the whole season. Setups do include electricity. 
For more information, residents can call Main Street Greenville at 662-378-3121.

Main Street Greenville is once again partnering with EE Bass and the Greenville Arts Council for the 2016 Delta Hot Tamale Festival Poster Contest. There is a $250.00 prize for the winning entry and entries must be submitted by August 12.

For a copy of the official contest rules and entry form visit: https://greenville-arts-council.com/2016/03/18/delta-hot-tamale-festival-t-shirtposter-design-contest-announced/

Scott’s Hot Tamales in Greenville, Mississippi, is barely the size of a snow-cone stand. If you are driving north on MLK Boulevard, it’s easy to miss the red-and-white walk-up. The main clue for those hunting Elizabeth Scott’s famous tamales? Cars. Lots of cars. People carry off the Delta’s best by the dozen from sundown to past midnight.

The cravings began around 1950, when Elizabeth and her husband, Aaron, moved to Greenville with a tamale recipe he’d bought from a cook in San Antonio. The Scotts first sold tamales from a wooden pushcart and station wagon in Bolivar County.
More than 50 years later, Elizabeth, 87, has passed the award-winning tradition to her five daughters and oldest son, plus several grandchildren, who hand make thousands of tamales a week at the family’s farmhouse in Metcalf outside Greenville. Tuesdays and Thursdays are tamale days at Elizabeth’s house, where her daughters and granddaughters hand-wash each corn shuck and slow-cook the beef brisket filling in a small room next to the kitchen.

When I visit, Elizabeth is resting in her sitting parlor. “Do I still make them?” she says. “No, I retired. But I like being near.” What she and her husband began six decades ago is relatively unchanged. Elizabeth’s glassy eyes observe the room, and she quietly says to me, “This is nice.”

Taylor Bruce for Southern Living Magazine
Image by Jennifer Davick

6. Hot Tamale Festival, Greenville

Celebrating the Delta’s specialty, the hot tamale, this annual festival takes place each October. The three-day long affair includes a tamale cooking contest and a tamale eating contest, making it the perfect time to indulge on the food that has become synonymous with the Delta.

To see the complete list: http://www.onlyinyourstate.com/mississippi/food-festivals-in-ms/

More information on The Hot Tamale Festival: Hot Tamale Festival, October 13-15, 2016

The organizers of this years Delta Dragon Boat Regatta are changing things up a bit. Friday night will now feature a block party event hosted by the Trop Casino Greenville and will feature a tiered entry system. $40.00 will get you through the door plus access to food and alcohol but only for the first 250 ticket purchasers. At a cost of $20.00, the next tier allows block party entrance but then the ticket holder is responsible for their own food and drinks costs.

For the block party entertainment, festival organizers have tapped Nashville recording artist Travis Bowlin, a Rhythm & Blues/Rock/Roots artist from Nashville, TN. Travis’ latest single, "See You Again", debuted at #5 on the New Blues iTunes Chart and #3 on the Roots Music Radio Report. The single was also on the entry ballot for possible 2016 Grammy Nomination for America Roots Song and Performance Categories (see the official music video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkAKOMZgyyE). 

Block Party Tickets are currently on sale at the Wetherbee House, or online at http://www.mainstreetgreenville.com/dragon-boat-block-party.html