I grew up in New Iberia, Louisiana, a sleepy town best known for the meandering Bayou Teche, the Shadows-on-the-Teche plantation house, and boudin, a Cajun delicacy (if that’s the right word) of rice, pork, pepper, and spices stuffed into a pig-intestine casing. People ate it in oyster-shell parking lots while they leaned against the hoods of their pickup trucks or Cadillacs.
Dad preferred hot tamales. He ate several as we drove down the two-lane road, under the limbs of mossy oaks and past stands of slash pine, to the city of Lafayette. We were on our way to Sears and Roebuck, which was the superstore back then, before Wal-Mart came to every small town in America. Dad smacked his lips and wiped the tamale grease from his hands onto the paper bag between us. “What you want for your birthday?”
