Missing the Tamale Lady

The Sayulita Tamale Lady. Photo by David Lansing.

So much has changed in Sayulita since the flood swept through town last fall with its wall of mud. Many little shops and restaurants that I had gone to over the years are gone. But many new ones have sprung up. And some, I think, have just moved and I haven’t discovered them yet. Maybe they are still in Sayulita, maybe not.

When I used to spend the day at Sayulita lounging on a beach chair in front of Don Pedro’s, one of the things I particularly looked forward to was waiting for all the food vendors to come by with their wares. There were men in white shirts selling grilled shrimp on sticks and spears of freshly cut pineapple and guys pushing wheelbarrows full of candy and nuts in the hot sand. But my favorite was always the Tamale Lady. I don’t know what her name was. Everyone just called her the Tamale Lady. The waiter from Don Pedro would walk across the beach carrying a tray with my icy cold Negro Modelo and he would ask if I wanted to order something from the restaurant and I would say, “No, gracias, estoy esperando a la Señora Tamale. ¿La has visto?” And he would say, “Yes, she should be here soon.” And then I would wait and in five minutes or maybe half an hour, here would come the Tamale Lady.

Like almost all the beach vendors, she was always dressed all in white except for a well-worn pink cap on her head. I don’t know why the food vendors always dressed in white. Maybe to keep them cooler as they walked back and worth across the hot sand. Maybe because it made them stand out more from the rest of the crowd. The thing is, the other vendors—the ones selling bracelets or dolphin-shaped beer openers or instant tattoos—were always more colorfully dressed. It was only the food vendors who dressed all in white.

Anyway, the Tamale Lady is no longer here or, at least, I haven’t seen her. Nor the woman who sold the drowned Guadalajara-style tortas called ahogadas or the men with their skewers of grilled fish and peppers. They are all gone. In fact, the only food vendor I saw at all was a man with a tray of muffins and Mexican sweets and as he was walking up the beach, two very official looking men in dark slacks and dress shirts approached the man and a few minutes later, he too had left the beach. I followed the two officials as they walked further up the beach and asked them if it was now illegal to sell food on the beach. No, they said. You can sell food. Then why are there no food vendors? I asked. “¿Dónde está la Señora Tamale?”

The men shrugged. Maybe she has not bought her license, they said. And then they explained that in order to be a food vendor on the beach, you needed to get a permit. And most of the vendors did not have one. I do not know if this is a new policy, since the flood, or perhaps it have been the law before but they did not enforce it. Or maybe the permits are granted after the first of the year and many of the vendors just have not gotten around to getting theirs yet. I don’t know. All I know is that the Tamale Lady is gone from the beach at Sayulita and it is a shame.