Tamale Thursdays In Fort Stockton
Every Thursday a store in Fort Stockton sells tamales.
“We start cooking our tamales at one o’clock in the morning,” says JB Gallegos, owner of The Comanche Tortilla and Tamale Factory. “I come in, put them in the steamer and at seven o’clock they’re ready to go. Our steamer cooks 14 trays of 6 dozen apiece, so if you do your math, that’s a lot of tamales that go out of here in the course of a day. We sell them only here at the store, only on Thursdays. They honk outside and we run outside, see what they want and we take them their tamales. They don’t even have to get out of their car.”
His grandfather started the business 75 years ago and it has been in the same location since the late fifties.
“The art of making tamales is almost a dying art. Whole families used to get together and have a tamalera. You just don’t see that happen much anymore. I’d like to see that tradition revived.”
His company makes only two types of tamales: pork and a cheese-jalapeno combination. JB says pork is king, the one that sells the most. His company makes other items that are sold all over west Texas. These include three types of tortillas, a salsa line and masa, which is stone-ground corn.
JB graduated from Fort Stockton High School in 1972 and left town.
“I hit that back door running, and knew that I was going to see the world and I did that for 40 years. I traveled from here to San Francisco where I finally got my degree, then went to New York City and was there for 10 years. I was at Julliard for 5 of those years working on a master’s degree.”
He worked as a professional lighting designer in New York theaters.
“It’s a very specialized field that I enjoyed immensely. When I was at Lincoln Center at Julliard I worked independently and had the opportunity to work with many wonderful designers, directors and of course Julliard was the cream of the cream and I met and worked with numerous artists, just amazingly talented people. Eventually I left the theater because it wasn’t paying what I expected and went into human resources and had a 35 year career in that field.”
He retired, came home and planned to travel. “You know life sometimes throws curves at you and you just kind of go with the flow. Three years ago, my father at 91 decided to retire from the tamale business, so I said, ‘OK, Dad, let’s give it a go. We’ll try it.’”
JB’S talents as a lighting designer are not being ignored. His store is just across the street from Fort Stockton’s famous community theater that has just completed a multi million-dollar renovation and has plays and muscles year round. It is always seeking advice, counsel and muscle from JB, which he gladly supplies.