Tamaleros on every corner are a good idea, too (videos)


See the guy with the tamales in the hot box on wheels? He’s well-known in San Pedro, home of the Port of Los Angeles, on the south side of the City of Angels. This vato — The Tamale Guy — even has his own reviews (good ones!) on Yelp:

tamaleguyreview

Legalizing street vendors like the Tamale Guy is one of the key elements of the Manifesto of The Taco Truck Party, announced on POCHO last week by our Associate Naranjero Gustavo ¡Ask a Mexican! Arellano.

Via our friends at LatinoLA.com, here’s an academic analysis of the issues involved:

Why the City of Los Angeles Should Legalize Street Vending

Street entrepreneurs should not be criminalized

By Vanessa Alcantar and Robert D. Flores Jr.

“¡Tamales! ¡Tamales! ¡Tamales!”

Growing up in the East L.A. and Pico Union neighborhoods of Los Angeles, this shouting is something everybody in the neighborhood is accustomed to because it provides a sense of home. To everyone in our households, this is the cue to scour through the house for cash and hurry outside to catch the tamale lady in time before she takes off.

Mas…Tamaleros on every corner are a good idea, too (videos)

All about the ‘Maiz’ (video)


Corn — Maiz — is central in the Mexican food culture and was first cultivated over 100 centuries ago. Here is a short tribute to maiz, the golden gift of Mother Nature. [Video by Marysol.]

Pocho Ocho best ways to tell if your tamales are illegal

illegaltamalesAfter the Border Patrol at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) confiscated and incinerated 450 “illegal tamales” flown in from Mexico (photo), we asked tamale experts how law-abiding citizens could determine if their tamales were also illegal.

After all, when tamales are illegal, only illegals will have tamales. Here are the Pocho Ocho Best Ways to Tell If Your Tamales Are illegal:

8. The tamales “accidentally” turned off their body-cams

7. Fake Syrian passports

6. Hipsters keep asking you where you got them

Mas…Pocho Ocho best ways to tell if your tamales are illegal

When life hands you a blob of masa, make tamales!

tamaleexpert

When I arrived at Northgate Gonzalez market and was immediately handed a free apron that read I ❤️ Tamales and several blobs of uncooked masa, I knew immediately I had made the right decision for a Friday night.

Even my mother, who invited herself along after her favorite novela was cancelled due to soccer, looked grudgingly impressed. She’d spent the entire ride complaining  she did not need tamales-cooking classes because she was a world-class tamales expert.

Let me be clear: In all the years I’ve been alive, my mother has never produced a single tamal.

Instead, she criticizes everyone else’s tamales.

Mas…When life hands you a blob of masa, make tamales!

Pocho Ocho Important Facts for Mexicans about El Ocho de Mayo

ochodemayoOur Mexican friends have many misconceptions about today’s American celebration of El Ocho de Mayo. It is NOT the day the British burned the White House, for example, and it is NOT the day Gerry Rivers became Geraldo Rivera.

Help a hermano out with the Pocho Ocho Top Facts Mexicans Should Know about El Ocho de Mayo:

8. Best (Hellman’s in the East) Mayonnaise — El Jefe de Mayo — first introduced on this day in 1915.

7. Mayo West did not invent the life vest but she did flash her chichis to the sailors of the aircraft carrier USS Hooter on this day in 1942.

6. The Mayo Clinic — originally established to seek cures for La Cruda — opened its doors on this day in 1955.

Mas…Pocho Ocho Important Facts for Mexicans about El Ocho de Mayo

Pocho Ocho top reasons Obama’s State of the Union gave us a sad

barackonDespite the his many significant accomplishments and chingon new proposals, we were disappointed by what President Obama didn’t say at Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

Here are the Pocho Ocho top reasons Obama’s SOTU gave us a sad:

8. Still no federal funding for Flying Trocas research.

7. Didn’t announce plan to make Ted Cruz first U.S. ambassador to Cuba.

6. No tax cuts for tamale entrepreneurs, thus no Pedro Herrera III in the audience to give a shout out to.

Mas…Pocho Ocho top reasons Obama’s State of the Union gave us a sad

The Gay 90s: Hot tamales on Broadway, New York City, 1894 (toon)

tamales1864This cartoon, from 1894, is by Archie Dunn. The tamalero seems to be wearing a chef’s hat (?) and using a charcoal burner to keep the tamales hot. What do you think his medallion signifies? And aren’t the “Gay Nineties” couple elegant? Are they daredevils eating exotic street food or just another drunk couple with the munchies, hanging out at the food truck of the era?

Image courtesy the New York Public Library.

PREVIOUSLY ON TAMALES:

Mas…The Gay 90s: Hot tamales on Broadway, New York City, 1894 (toon)

All I want for Xmas is a burrito-wrapped baby in a tamal-looking hat

burritobabyRunning out of Christmas gift ideas for the little pochito in your life?

How about doubling down with a Comida Mexicana duo that wraps your baby up like a burrito in a tortilla-colored blanket and keeps his/her cute little cabeza warm with a hat that looks like the corn husk knot that secures tamales?

Bon Vivant Baby has you covered for only $48.  [Baby not included.]

PREVIOUSLY ON BURRITO-LOOKING BABIES:

Link via MiBlogEsTuBlog.

Editor’s Note: POCHO Subcomandanta del Ñews Sara Inés Calderón wants to remind you it is one tamal and two tamales; one frijol, two frijoles; one asshol, two assholes, etc.

Free medical marijuana tamales? ‘Take A Hit’! (NSFW video)


In Garden Grove, a nice city in Orange County, qualified patients of the ABC Marijuana Cooperative can get free mota tamales on Fridays, according to Gustavo ¡Ask A Mexican! Arellano. The traditional delicacies come in chicken, cheese and pork varieties, and the pineapple tamales pack the extra miracle ingredient of cannabis.

North of Rancho Pocho, up in Oxnard, Ventura County, the Earthquake Institute shines the spotlight on the forces opposing pot legalization and suggests alternatives in Take A Hit. (NSFW.)

Mas…Free medical marijuana tamales? ‘Take A Hit’! (NSFW video)

Pocho Ocho worst new ‘Latino’ perfume scents after Eau de Tamales

Chicago perfumer Zorayda Ortiz was so excited by her Dead of the Dead perfumes that she’s concocted a tamale fragrance as a followup:

It’s the scent of freshly steamed corn tamales, rich with red chile and plump with juicy pork.

The Pochodores discussed this at the weekly Eskype conference Tuesday and all agreed that there is only one thing they want to smell like pork, and it’s not their respective sweeties. But maybe there are worse ideas for perfumes! Here are the pocho ocho other scents:

Mas…Pocho Ocho worst new ‘Latino’ perfume scents after Eau de Tamales

Tia Lencha’s holiday survival secrets for Mexicans in New York City

Is Tia Lencha here! Feliz Navidad!

So people ask me, Tia Lencha do you have recipes for Christmas? Not really, I say. Instead I have some Secretos for celebrating the Navidad in New York City. There are no mucho Mexicans here so you have to be esmart about it so you don’t have the stress. And you need to have a Metro Card.

First, the are too many mucho peoples out chopping for presents. Tia Lencha don’t like standing in line for an hour to buy a sweater.

Thas why I use more time to buy my mijo his presents, I give to him on January 6, the day of the Tres Reyes (three kings for you pochos.) Mijo writes a letter to the three kings to tell them what he wants for his present. Instead of leaving cookies for Santa Claus, mijo leaves some grass in his shoe box under the bed for the camels of the three kings to eat. Then his present is put in the box with the grass for the camels. Like magic no?

Mas…Tia Lencha’s holiday survival secrets for Mexicans in New York City

Ñewsweek: LOST GOV Jan Brewja, boobs, San Diego billboard

When Jan Brewja, governor of the Hate State of Arizona (photo,right), officially announced her absence from the jurisdiction, concerned Americans began a desperate search for LOST GOV, posting flyers on telephone polls and all over the Internets.

Her mysterious disappearance almost overshadowed the shocking revelation of Iowa’s Brian Peterson, who finally had to come to grips with the fact that he watches telenovelas for the boobs, not to learn Spanish like he originally told himself.

And in San Diego, a multimillionaire commissioned a billboard to get himself a new girlfriend for Christmas — a “Christmas Latina.” Our Especial Correspondents uncovered some earlier versions of the billboard, and an intrepid photographer snapped the final version of the message.

Here are the links to the top stories that broke the ñews:

Mas…Ñewsweek: LOST GOV Jan Brewja, boobs, San Diego billboard

Tía Chita: ‘It’s final! I’ve absolutely, positively made my last tamal!’

(PNS reporting from LAREDO) Tia Chita will not be hosting the annual holiday season tamalada at her house this year, she revealed to her family last night. As a matter of fact, she told stunned participants at her niece’s baby shower, she never wants to make another tamal in her life.

“First of all, I’m sick of all the gossip!” she shouted, pacing around the room quicker and quicker the more excited she became.

“I know the tamaladas are where all the comadres are supposed to catch up on ‘family news’ and everything, but did you ever think that I really don’t care who’s sleeping with whom and who’s going to have a baby? Ya estoy vieja, I’ve been a million weddings already!”

Chita is sick of everyone coming over to eat her food and then leaving dirty napkins everywhere, staining her nice couches with tamal grease, she said. Sometimes the bathroom gets stopped up, and she has to have the neighbor come over with the plumber’s snake. “He’s not a smell-good plumber,” she grimaced.

Mas…Tía Chita: ‘It’s final! I’ve absolutely, positively made my last tamal!’

Dear Abuelita: Foreskin and seven years ago, I’ve got man boobs

Dear Abuelita,
I have still my cuero (foreskin) and I was wondering if I get circumcised will I feel better when I am inside a choncho or will I be wasting my ficha.
Signed, Extra Carne

Dear Extra Carne Carnal,
Some people dislike extra carnita on their flauta but a little foreskin can be fun during foreplay. I can’t tell you how many times I played peek-a-boo with uncut pee-pees. Now you see it – now you don’t. Now you see it – oh, the laughs we had.

Mas…Dear Abuelita: Foreskin and seven years ago, I’ve got man boobs

Local man ‘sick and tired of sh*t breaking down and falling apart’

bobbyfigueroa(PNS reporting from ROUTE 66) Area resident Bobby Figueroa is “so totally sick and tired” of the effects of the Second Law of Thermodynamics that he plans to fight the entropy, friends report.

People close to the situation say Figueroa began complaining about the universal tendency of elements in a closed system to flow to an increasingly disordered or entropic state last Thursday, the day he endured a flat tire, a broken tooth and repeated loss-of-signal during a hot game of “Words With Friends.”

“This shit is getting old,” Figueroa, 38, told his dinner companions at Babosa’s Route 66 Diner in Barstow after an evening of bowling in which he broke a nail and tore a shoelace.

Mas…Local man ‘sick and tired of sh*t breaking down and falling apart’