A San Francisco Breakfast Adventure

A tamale is a traditional Mexican dish made of masa – a soft, tasty dough made from cornmeal.  It’s filled with something yummy – usually some combination of meats, cheese, and chilies and then steamed in a cornhusk.  There are sweet versions too but for the purpose of this educational post we will focus on the savory version.  Tamales are generally considered comfort food and they are quite labor intensive to make – so I hear.

Now, let me tell you about tamales from a purely gringo point of view.  If you are a really lucky white-girl gringoette who hasn’t had twenty years of tamale training you might know someone who knows someone and you can buy a dozen or so yummy tamales from the back of a truck and keep them frozen.   When convenient you can pop them in the microwave and enjoy some warm, steamy masa loving.   Unfortunately, like any pusher these people cannot always be relied upon to provide a fix whenever you feel like it.

What is reliable is the absolutely, mind-blowing delicious tamales that Primavera sells at the farmers’ market at the San Francisco Ferry Terminal on Saturday mornings.  Nestled in the middle of an epicurean playground of gourmet coffee, organic produce, salumi vendors and more is the yummiest tamale you will find unless you have a Mexican grandma connection somewhere.   (Not familiar with the term salumi?  Check out these guys.)

This first picture is the breakfast L and I enjoyed on Saturday. 

This is the gorgeous view of San Francisco bay we enjoyed while devouring them. 

Tamales are eaten at both breakfast and dinner.  We chose the single tamale option because – well look at it!  Two of these yummy chicken stuffed treats smothered in that damn fine mole sauce might have induced a food coma and we needed to be alert for the farmers’ market exploration. 

And once I had entered my partial food coma, this gorgeous Blue Bottle latte helped keep me alert.  

All in this delightful breakfast experience set me back $7.95. FYI, these are all iPhone photos - hastily snapped.   And that dear readers, was my Saturday morning.