Irma Yolanda Perez, a 60-year-old Guatemalan woman, makes about 80 Guadalajara-inspired tamales daily. She makes them petite, and as she folds the corn husk over the masa, she cuts off the extra ends and uses them to make the cutest little tamal samples you’ll ever find.
She gets a ride to Venice Boulevard, props up an umbrella, and a small table for the tamales, pulls out a book, and sits there reading, hoping someone will come by to try her tamales. And if someone is hesitant, she’s ready with her blazing smile, her bubbly personality, and the tiny tamal samples as cute as her jokes.
The tamal samplers, surprisingly, aren’t a sales or marketing strategy, as brilliantly as they naturally may seem to be. Irma Yolanda Perez simply loves samples and getting free samples because “it feels nice.” She would go to Trader Joe’s and just thought about how lovely it was and how nice it felt to get free samples, so she also decided to do the same. “I’m going to make samples too. People need to be able to taste what they’re buying, and it feels nice.”