My dad Lamar Barthet started selling the Crescent City's most favorite hot tamales in the early 1960's after talking Manuel into letting someone else sell the hot tamales he had been making for years at his home on Carrollton Avenue, half a block west of Canal Street.
Each night Manuel would roll his vending cart over to the corner of Carrollton Avenue and Canal Street where he gradually became a legend selling the great-tasting tamales, still wrapped in corn shucks as all hot tamales originally were wrapped.
My dad was the first person to start selling them elsewhere, first at the corner of St. Bernard Avenue and North Broad Street, then at the corner of Canal Blvd. and Robert E. Lee Blvd., next to the famous Rockery Inn restaurant. My stepmother got her own vehicle and vending cart and set up shop selling them nights at the corner of St. Charles Avenue and Napoleon Avenue.
They first used Willis Jeeps to sell out of, but later my dad bought a Ford Falcon van (the first picture above) and that was used for several years. From the Rockery Inn site, he moved to the intersection of Causeway and Veterans next to Lakeside shopping center. We supplied many a thousand dozen of hot tamales to folks holding football watching parties at home.
When the construction on the intersection forced him away from that corner, he moved a couple of blocks west to the area in front of the General Tire outlet, near Barnes and Noble.
In later years he opened up a satellite tamale vending cart on Williams Blvd., near the airport, in front of the Dorignac's Food Center. I would sell tamales out of that cart on the weekends sometimes when the guy he had hired couldn't make it or wanted to take some time off. Most of the time, however, I would sit with my dad at Causeway and Veterans, dishing out and wrapping up dozens of tamales. My dad was the first to use aluminum foil to wrap the tamales, and put on extra gravy that made them, well, pretty juicy and flavorful (more than they already were.)
Dad in back of van waiting for the next hot tamale customer
In between sales, we would listen to the radio or talk about the events of the week. The late 1960's were a busy time, so we had a lot to talk about.
I ate a good many hot tamales in my younger days, as a result, and I can't help but think that eating Manuel's Hot Tamales helped make me the fine upstanding person I am today. At least selling them on the weekend helped pay for college expenses that weren't otherwise covered by my other jobs.
Lamar Barthet and his mobile hot tamale supply van
A typical day would go like this:
Dad would get home from his day job around 5 p.m. and by 6 p.m. he would be at Manuel's building on Carrollton Avenue, half a block from Canal Street. He would go past the hot tamale wrapping room and enter the cooking area, where he would pick up two (sometimes three) pots of hot tamales. There were about 50 dozen in each pot.
He would carry those pots out to his van, where he would snuggle them down into specially built boxes and stuff crumpled newspaper tightly all around the pots. That would help keep them hot. Sometimes he would get a container of extra grease to put on the tamales as the night wore on.
Once loaded up, he would drive out to his spot on the side of the road, open the side doors, unfold the awning off the top of the van, unfold the signage on the front corner. Then he would pump air into the Coleman gas lanterns and light the mantle. Once these lanterns were going bright, he would place them in front of the signs on top of the truck.
He sold tamales until around ten o'clock, then would close everything down, fold back the signage and the awning, put the lanterns back into their spot, and head back to Manuel's place to settle up. He'd get back home around 11:30 to go to sleep for six or seven hours, get up and start the process all over again.
He only got robbed once, but it was more like a transaction with a gun involved, he told me.
On some nights, when sales were going good, he call Manuel's kitchen and have them send out another pot of tamales. That didn't happen often, but he was ready if it did occur, due to a football game or some other special holiday occasion.
