Steve Harvey’s Hilarious Account of That Time in El Paso When He First Ate a Tamal

Remember when you didn’t know what a tamal was or how to eat one? Neither can I. But I’ve been brown all my life and born and raised in South Texas so I’ve always been quite familiar with all the traditional Mexican and Tex-Mex dishes.

Steve Harvey, however, was 28 years old the first time he had one of our delicious delicacies, “cause I'm from the hood... Cleveland. There wasn't any Mexican food.”

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His very first taste of Mexican food was before a comedy show in El Paso sometime in the mid-80s, and it was so memorable he shared his first-time experience with the "Family Feud" audience.

“I’m in El Paso, Texas and walked from the condo down to this Mexican restaurant. So, I open up the menu and I don’t recognize nothing, you know. I don’t know what an enchilada is, it’s just Q’s and U’s,” Harvey recounts on a recent episode of his web series "Rollin’ with Steve Harvey," a behind the scenes look at his interaction with the audience in between filming segments of the game show.

He tells the crowd he ordered tamales, and when the plate arrived “I got the knife and fork and I start cutting it,” adding he had a hard time swallowing it. I bet you know where this is going, don’t you?

Steve continues, “Mexican dude sitting next to me, he said, ‘hey homes, what the f*** are you doing? You’re eating too much. You’re supposed to unwrap it first.’” Yup, Steve dived right in without removing the corn husk first.

And that wasn’t the only food faux pas Harvey committed during that meal. Prior to the tamal blunder Steve confused chili with chile and ordered a bowl full. You can listen to the story in the video below.

He never said if he liked the dish, but since the tamal in question was here in El Paso, and our Mexican food has always been incredible, it was probably pretty good. Oh, and Steve, if you ever try chorizo, F.Y.I.; you don’t squeeze it out and eat it like a tube of Go-Gurt.