Hot Topic

Hot Tamales?

Hot topic.

The other day, after we dropped our friends, the Normans, off at the airport, we stopped at a big American-style grocery store in Sosua.

As we were checking out, we were floored (FLOORED, I tell you!) to find bags of Hot Tamales available for purchase.

We immediately start throwing them into our cart, hand over fist. We reflect on our recent conversation with Bart (Norman), where we shared that one of the major drawbacks of living in the Dominican Republic is that you can't get Hot Tamales. We take the miraculous sudden appearance of said Hot Tamales as a sign from God that we should eat all of them.

Actually, we just buy three little bags: two regular, and one "fire." What we don't anticipate, as we're quietly rejoicing, is the stir we're about to cause at the cash register.

Everyone - the checker, the baggers - takes notice of the Hot Tamales. They warn us that they are very hot, then the one guy with previous Hot Tamale experience (a gringo had given him a few several years ago) tells all about the tears that the candy immediately brought forth from his eyes, and they way it "peeled" his throat.

Everyone is very interested. Managers and other cashiers come over to join in the light-hearted fun and apparently, quite interesting conversation.

TJ and I share that we LOVE Hot Tamales, and this is the first time we've EVER found them on the island. Everyone confirms that this is, in fact, a momentous occasion.

We tell them that the "fire" ones must be even hotter than the regular ones. They can not believe this fact, and repeat it to each other over and over again. "Can you believe that - he says the "fire" ones are even hotter!!!!"

We pay for our groceries amidst a hailstorm of earnest warnings and well-meanting admonitions for our health and esophageal safety, walk to our car, rip into our Hot Tamales and marvel at the weirdness that is this country that we live in.

You see, this is an American-style supermarket, very professional and VERY busy. But business absolutely stopped for 2-3 minutes while ALL of the front employees came over to share in the Hot Tamale hullabaloo.

Funnily enough, we came away asking ourselves: Why not?!