Dr Shawn Baker 🥩@SBakerMD
This really happened
1988, Austin Texas. I’m 20 years old, currently a junior in college at the University of Texas, studying for my biology degree as a pre-med student. I’m currently rocking a 4.0 GPA and life is pretty good.
Myself, my roommate and one of my high school buddies who is up from San Marcos, is by for a visit and we are just hanging out on a Saturday evening imbibing in some beers at our Stassney Woods apartment down in South Austin.
My roommate, who was studying to be an engineer thought it would be a great idea to drive out to Edna, Texas and hang out with his friend Chuck, who had a rice farm.
Not sure why we agreed, given that the likely hood of meeting attractive girls in Edna was about 1% as likely as it would be in Austin, but we all hopped in my 1985, black Pontiac “Knight Rider” Firebird and headed that way.
As an aside, Edna Texas is where the famous wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was from and I shared this story with him when I did his podcast several years back.
Anyway, I was relatively new to Texas at the time, having moved to Lake Jackson in high school having come from Indiana. And although I liked some of the “new” food, I was exposed to, like chicken fried steak, I absolutely did not like Tex Mex food.
Now, mind you I liked the meat in things like fajitas, but guacamole, peppers, tomatoes, onions, salsa were all things I just never liked. This will become relevant soon.
Anyway after about a 2 and a half hour drive we arrive in exciting Edna Tx
It’s now around 10 pm or so and we were hanging out in the barn, putting down some more beers, when in walks one of the migrant workers carrying a large sack of food.
I think his name was Miguel, but I don’t remember for sure as it’s been almost 40 years and as I said, we all had a few beers on board.
So, as I’d mentioned I was somewhat new to Texas and at this point, I had never tried or even heard of a tamale before. This is what was in the bag and Miguel wanted to share them with all of us.
Given that I literally hated all of the vegetables in Mexican food and had no idea what was in a tamale, I politely declined.
Some Spanish was exchanged between Chuck and Miguel, which I did not speak at the time. Turns out these tamales were made by Miguel’s mother and he was a little upset that I wasn’t going to try one.
I explained to Chuck that I actually pretty much hated Mexican food because of the various vegetables and that I still would not be trying his mother’s tamales.
Now, like the rest of us, Miguel also had been drinking and apparently my refusal was pretty upsetting and offensive to him.
As I said I didn’t understand Spanish but I got the gist that he was becoming pretty pissed off at my refusal to partake in what I thought was I diabolical mixture of nasty vegetable gruel.
It was at this moment when I was standing resolute in my refusal that Miguel, opened his jacket, pulled out a pistol, pointed it at me and said in heavily accented English “Eat the Fucking tamale”
Let me tell you, that tamale was delicious and I ate three more!
Now this story actually end with all of us in a Mexican jail, but that one is for another time!
