Universal Tamal

225 S Main St
Goshen, IN 46526

Much to my relief, Google Maps severely overestimated how long it would take to get from my house to the Goshen library, so instead of being half an hour late, I arrived twenty minutes early. Just enough time for a quick snack at the Electric Brew, I thought, continuing north past the meeting place. It’s been a while since I had a good bagel and fair trade espresso with…BUT WAIT! I’ve never seen that place before! I saw through the window that it was almost full, with a group of four Spanish-speaking men standing just outside the door, talking away their Saturday afternoon.

The interior was very Goshen: Wood floor, stamped tin ceiling, a bay window—the richly crafted guts of a Main Street building in a city that built itself without realizing that a hundred years later it would be the kind of place the young or successful would want to leave. The original contractor was hired to make a glorious commercial structure. Subsequent contractors were hired to update in the cheapest way possible. So the tin roof is pierced by Menards light fixtures, the wood floor abuts vinyl. A 6-socket box triples the utility of an outlet.

An 8x4 mural of a celestial hand sowing a Mexican field precedes menu banners possibly printed in the USA but obviously designed in Mexico: The menu subheadings arch across photos of the offerings, font rounded, gleaming. Big ears of corn with flirtatious husks pose in such a way that makes it impossible to NOT order a tamale. Brutally superimposed suns shine into the logos for Coca-cola, Sprite, Fanta, and Jarritos.

They aren’t on the menu, but you can also purchase the following medicinal products on display below the cash register: OML PLUS, Starbien, KENYAN, and cumbia albums.

I had only 15 minutes until my meeting, so my first two questions were: (1) can I get carryout? and (2) How long will it take to get a wet burrito? The teenager behind the counter turned to her coworker for guidance on answering my second question, and within my earshot was told, cinco o diez minutos. I later came to learn that meant five or ten minutes.

No, that’s a lie. As time went on I came to learn that it actually meant twenty minutes, you shouldn’t have come to a real restaurant and still expected food in five minutes when the joint is full, silly guero. But I wasn’t too on edge; Viva la Familia on Univision numbed me down with its daytime normalizing propaganda.

The good news was that I ended up being ALMOST on time. The bad news is that the burrito wasn’t very tasty. I think my $5.99 could have been broken down as follows: $0.45 lettuce, $0.46 cheese, $1.03 crema, $1.96 steak, $2.09 tortilla. See? Too much tortilla. A little undercooked still, even after 20 minutes. Also, hard to eat a wet burrito in the car on the way to the library, but that’s not Universal Tamal’s fault, that’s that gueroness shining through.

So I came back after my meeting. That’s right. I couldn’t stop thinking about those cartoon ears of corn. Tamales awaited.
I ordered one of pork and one of cheese ($1.25 each), and asked about the natural juices against the wall: they had, for $2.00, tamarind and horchata (milk and rice). Washing a cheese tamale down with a big glass of horchata seemed like overkill so I ordered the tamarind and took a seat.

During lunch there had been only one other non-latino party, and one of those gringas spoke wicked castilian. The clientele at Universal Tamal is 95% Latino and Latina; about 95% of that subgroup is Mexican. If you are surprised that there are that many Latinos in Goshen, don’t be. Look up the statistics, or just consider the fact that Chelsea Clinton visited the discoteca just behind Universal Tamal while campaigning for her mom.

The tamarind juice—they actually say “fresh water” instead of “juice”—was uber refreshing. No sugar added. No colors added. Just brown brown quenching crispness on an unreasonably hot September day.

Wanna hear about the tamales? Okay, although I’ve never done it, I think you make them by taking the corn husk, rubbing flour on the inside so it doesn’t stick together then laying the corn meal mix, filling with the variable ingredient, and rolling. Then you steam it. Now keep in mind that this is a consumer-end deduction, but I’m pretty sure that the liquid factor is the hardest to get right. I’ve had a lot of too dry or too runny tamales. But Universal Tamal had it down. The pork was phenomenal, but the cheese one will stick in my memory much much longer. Probably forever. As my eyes scanned the menu I came to regret not ordering the birria (steamed goat) and made a mental note that my next breakfast in Goshen would consist of menudo.

I stopped at the Electric Brew on the way out of town, just so it would know that I still loved it. (But shhhh, there’s better eats down the street!)