Solly's Hot Tamales

The Man Who Came to Vicksburg With $5

In August 1939, Henry Solly arrived in Vicksburg with his wife, four young children, and five dollars to his name. He wasn't looking to open a restaurant. He was looking for a place for his family to stay.

He found a room for four dollars a month, bought baby food with what was left, and went looking for work. He walked into the store of Mr. "Foots" Farris and told him the shape he was in. Farris told him he would make him hot tamales — and if they weren't the best he'd ever tasted, he would leave him alone.

They were the best he'd ever tasted. Solly didn't ask for the recipe that day. He asked for six pounds of meat instead, traded a portion of it for cornmeal, borrowed spices, and set up a food business that thrived from the very first day.

Solly had learned to make hot tamales years earlier during his time in California as a young single man. Before settling in Vicksburg, he had ridden trains around the country traveling to likes of Chicago, New York, and out West. He had worked since the age of nine on a ranch. His father was French and his mother was Cherokee Indian. He once said you could have called him a hobo because he never stayed in one place for more than three months. Vicksburg changed that.

The Corner of Cherry and South

For years, Solly sold his tamales from a white cart at the corner of Cherry and South streets, wearing matching white overalls. He woke every morning at 5 a.m. to start the water boiling. He had his first batch ready by 9:30 and was always at his corner by 11:30 to catch the lunch crowd. He sold by the light of a kerosene lantern when he had to and he never left until he sold out or it got to be midnight.

While he worked the corner, his wife and children sold hamburgers and hot dogs from their home near the train depot. And later from the house on South Street. Solly's was never just a business. It was the whole family's livelihood, and it ran that way from the start. His children knew everything he knew, and if they really needed something, he would buy it for them.

Eight Decades and Still the Same

Solly eventually moved the business to 1921 Washington Street, where it has been ever since. A tamale rolling machine was added about forty years in to keep up with demand, and the business tried wrapping tamales in paper for a while. But the taste was different, and they went back to corn shucks. Some things don't need to change.

By 1989, Henry Solly was 98 years old and still getting up every morning at five to start the water boiling. He ran the operation with his daughters, counting change quickly and giving back business sense to anyone who asked. He had shown two people how to make his tamales over the years. One paid $150 for the secret and did good business for a while in Jackson, until he started cutting corners on ingredients.

Solly's hot tamale business never made him rich. But it always paid the bills, and it always kept him his own boss. And that was enough. Today, the family continues the tradition Henry started on a Vicksburg street corner with borrowed spices and five dollars. The tamales are made the same way with the same recipe.