Urban Legend

When I first moved to the city and worked in the Mission, I started to hear about the Tamale Lady.

A colleague and member of The Extra Action Marching Band played me the song they had written for her.

Over the years I would ask what kind of tamales, thinking the non latinos probably didn't know the difference between the Mexican corn husked goodness and some of the other varieties.

I had never seen the Tamale Lady or one of her tamales. I had almost forgotten she existed.

Last night my friend and I were at Casanova, not wanting to head to Dub Mission too early. Over our four-dollar drinks the entertainment began.

Met some local surfers that asked if we were local. Then started in on how not local the girls next to us were. Only because they had been rude did the conversation come up that they were bridge and tunnel. The guys said- Danville, who lives in Danville? Right? I totally agreed.

Everyone was having a good time, it was obvious the levels of sobriety varied, but we had just started our night.

Then I heard some one talking about tamales. I turned to see a woman walking away. I asked the guy standing near me is that The Tamale Lady?! Yeah, get her for me please!

I turned in my bar stool and said hi! English then Spanish I asked her are you the famous Tamale Lady? Si, I told her how long I had been wanting to meet her, did she have veggie tamales? I settles on rajas con queso. She asked if I wanted some salsa and I said only if it was not spicy- then she said here you better just eat it with out.

It was cool to meet her and the tamal was delicious. My friend said, I didn't know I liked tamales. The guys next to me asked me how my drunk tamal was, I looked at him puzzled and he explained she is the patron saint of the Mission drunks.

At Dub, I ran into my neighbor and told him about my tamal experience. He said he has had them at Zeitgeist after a day of drinking. I told him I had never seen her and thought the gringos wouldn't really know a good tamal if they had one. He is from Michoacan, and he said no- they really are good. Agreed, yum...

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