During the cooler months, nothing says San Antonio like a dozen tamales. Jalapeño is a fairly standard tamale filling often paired with chicken, pork or cheese, but one local tamale company stuffs something a little hotter on the Scoville Scale inside one of their specialty tamales.
Delicious Tamales, which has been around since 1980, offers an assortment of tamales in its lineup, from savory to spicy to sweet, but its “atomic” tamales are made using the notorious ghost peppers. These tamales combine the extra-hot peppers with pork and spices encapsulated in flavorful masa, all wrapped up in a traditional corn husk. We visited the location on Culebra Road to learn more about these fiery tamales directly from the source.
Once there, Delicious Tamales owner Valerie Gonzalez explained that the atomic tamales came about as the extreme spice trend has grown more prevalent on social media. Think Hot Ones — but make it San Antonio.
“Everybody is starting to like that hot pepper. The hotter, the better. But these are real hot!” Gonzalez said. “It’s a ghost pepper, so it creeps up on you.”…