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October 27-28, 2023
Southern Foodways Symposium ⟶
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Oral Histories

The SFA oral history program documents life stories from the American South. Collecting these stories, we honor the people whose labor defines the region. If you would like to contribute to SFA’s oral history collections, please send your ideas for oral history along with your CV or Resume and a portfolio of prior oral history work to info@southernfoodways.org.

< Back to Oral History project: Hot Tamale Trail

ORAL HISTORY

Larry Lee

Hot Tamale Heaven (main location)
1640 Hwy 82 East
Greenville, MS 38701
(662) 378-2240

A Greenville native, Larry Lee worked a passel of odd jobs before turning to hot tamales as his vocation. Now Larry sells his wares from a brightly painted tamale cart inside Bing’s County Market in Greenville. He began selling tamales in 2004, and his electric personality has made him a confident and popular tamale salesman for Hot Tamale Heaven. Owned by the Harmon family, Hot Tamale Heaven has been in operation in Greenville since the 1970s. Larry holds the Harmons in high esteem and considers their product to be the “caviar of hot tamales.” And he has tasted a lot of tamales. Pay a visit to Larry’s cart and experience tamale vending the way is used to be all over the Delta. He’ll wrap you a dozen for the road.

Date of interview:
2005-06-22 00:00

Interviewer:
Amy C. Evans

Photographer:
Amy C. Evans

Download Transcript

“

[Y]ou're not from the Delta, if you know nothing of the tamales. It's just that simple. What can I tell you?...[Y]ou know, you go to a regional part of the country and every – every place you go has the signature something, you know. And for the Delta, it's the blues, it's the tamale, it's the Delta. ~ Larry Lee

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