Hot Tamales

Mmmmmmmmm, the cinnamon spiciness that are Hot Tamales make them one of the very very few non-chocolate candy that I will eat. The problem with them is that once you start to eat them, you think “I’ll just eat a few more” until you have consumed your body weight in them and the roof of your mouth is raw. And then you eat a few more.

I can’t remember the first time I ate Hot Tamales. I’m pretty sure that Troy introduced me to them while we were in college. When we lived in the US I would usually put them in his stocking at Christmas, but I didn’t eat them that much myself.

And then one fateful Thanksgiving, when we house-sat for someone. Downstairs in their family room, in easy reach of the two big comfy chairs, we found a large bag of them. And we ate way too many. I can’t remember if we bought them more or not, but we should have!

It’s now tradition that we eat them whenever we are back on furlough. It certainly didn’t help that we found 2 lb bags of them at Sam’s Club. I won’t embarrass us by telling you how many of those bags we consumed during various road-trips and catching up on TV sessions. Let’s just say that the roofs of our mouths have never been the same.

Wow, look what I just found. Good thing we can’t get our hands on this baby!

No, we don’t mean the real kind of tamale you would get in a place like Mexico. We mean the kind you buy in an American grocery store. Most people think of them as being “like Mike & Ikes”, but actually it’s the other way ‘round: Mike & Ike’s are like Hot Tamales.

For those of you who still don’t know what I’m talking about: Hot Tamales are a chewy cinnamon-flavored candy. They come in a small box or a large bulk bag. Each piece is about the size of a baby’s thumb, but they are much tastier than your average infant digit. I suppose the size of each piece is intended to be thought of as “bite-size” but my personal opinion is that Hot Tamales are best eaten two-at-a-time, and, on rare occasions, three at a time.

The other day we were talking with Kristen, who is part of our church home group, about Hot Tamales and how much we liked them. (No doubt, Heather will tell you in her post that we usually eat two bulk bags of Hot Tamales during a two-month stay in the States every other summer.) Anyway, because you can’t buy Hot Tamales here in Spain, Kristen arranged to have her boyfriend bring us FOUR big boxes of Hot Tamales (he came to visit her here).

Thanks, Kristen! And, by the way, all four boxes have already been consumed. And, yes, the kids did not get one morsel.