Happy National Tamale Day!
There’s something reassuring about a product that hasn’t tried to reinvent itself for over a century. XLNT beef tamales have been doing the same thing since 1894, dense, compact, unapologetically consistent. No artisanal rebrand, no small-batch storytelling, no reclaimed heritage narrative. Just tamales.
Originally sold from horse-drawn carts in Los Angeles, they made their way into cans, freezers, and grocery store shelves across California. Generations have opened the same parchment, revealing the same familiar structure, masa holding together a beef filling that doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
In a time when everything is reimagined, elevated, or deconstructed, this might be the real outlier. Nothing to explain. Nothing to decode. It is exactly what it has always been.
And maybe that’s the point.
From my Food From Bag To Background series.
See the full gallery at https://www.secondfocus.com
Thank You!
Happy National Tamale Day!
My photograph of XLNT beef tamales, broken open to reveal their dense filling and crumbly masa. These familiar grocery store tamales have been made in California since 1894, originally sold from horse-drawn carts in Los Angeles. Over the decades, XLNT became a West Coast staple—first in cans, now frozen and still wrapped in parchment. Once called “California’s favorite tamale”, they’re a lasting part of Americanized Mexican food history.
National Tamale Day was established in 2015 by Richard Lambert, owner of Santa Barbara Tamales-To-Go, to recognize the cultural importance of tamales and to give them a celebration beyond the holiday season.
From my series From Bag to Background. See the full gallery at http://SecondFocus.com Thanks!
SecondFocus Blog 