Mississippi delta tamale, recipe below
Yesterday I started a Veterans Day post talking about WWII veteran and civil rights activist Medger Evers. After the war Evers returned to native Mississippi and opened a NACCP office over the top of the Big Apple Inn a restaurant on Farish Street in Jackson. African American in Jackson referred to Farish Street, located close to the city’s train depot, as little Harlem because so many black people walked the streets and did their shopping and entertaining there. The story goes Juan “Big John” the owner of the Big Apple Inn Mora and an immigrant from Mexico City started off as an entrepreneur selling tamales out of a hot tamale cart on Farish Street. Big John married an African American women and in 1939 he and his son Harold purchased an old grocery store on Farish Street for one hundred dollars. The two renovated store into a restaurant and opened it as the Big Apple Inn restaurant; Harold named the restaurant after a popular dance in 1939 that he loved called the Big Apple. Regulars, including civil rights leaders Medger Evans, Fannie Lou Hammer, and others affiliated with the NAACP in Mississippi made their way to Big John’s to buy hot sandwiches and tamales made from scratch. Evers did not have adequate office space to hold meetings, and he would often hold them down stairs in Big John where he would discuss civil rights organizing and protest strategies. When customers came in buy sandwiches and saw so many people meeting in the restaurant, they inquired what was going on. Customers liked what they heard, and joined the movement. “In fact they would be lined up at the [restaurant’s] door just to hear Medger’s strategy,” says Big John’s grandson Gene Lee, Sr. So the Big Apple represented a big part of the civil rights movement in Jackson providing a place where Evers could meet and discuss strategy in safety and it fed the civil rights revolution in Mississippi. WWII veteran and Ku Klux Klansmen Byron De La Beckwith assassinated WWII veteran and civil rights leader Medger Evers in front of Evers' Jackson home in 1963. Today the Big Apple Inn has two locations, the original on Farish Street and the other on State Street in Jackson. In addition to the smoked sausage and big ear sandwiches dressed with slaw and mustard (which cost a dollar each) the menu also includes bologna sandwiches, tamales, and soul shine pizza! Here is a recipe for a Mississippi tamale which are very popular thanks immigrants from Mexico like Juan “Big John” Mora (1890-1976).
Mississippi delta tamale recipe: http://www.tamaletrail.com/recipe_howto.shtml
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