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Khan arrived, around eight thousand people for customers who wanted their food to go, and a
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lived there and, on the evidence of the local counter lined with stools for those who preferred
business pages, the town had developed a to eat inside. In addition to the tamales,
kind of frontier-cosmopolitan chic. It had Khan served hamburgers, chili, pie, and ice
seventeen Blacksmiths, one Bicycle Dealer, and cream — any flavor except chocolate, which he
five purveyors of Buggies and Wagons. It had a avoided because it sullied the cuffs of the white
Clairvoyant — one Mrs. Ellen Johnston — and button-down shirts he liked to wear to work.
a great many Coal Miners. Residents could For nomenclatural purposes, however, none
Redefining America
go Bowling, or to the Opera House, or visit a of these other menu items mattered. To the town
Health Resort. They could get a Manicure from of Sheridan, Khan would always be Hot Tamale
a Mrs. Rosella Wood, who was also available Louie, or Tamale Louie, or, because it sounded
for Massages. They could read two different best, Louie Tamale. He could have served steak
newspapers — one Republican, one Democratic. tartare and the name would have stuck. Purists
They could buy Grain and Guns and Horses, insist that it was apt, because nothing Khan or
Books and Stationery and Coffee, Camping anyone else ever served was as delicious as his
Outfits, Driving Gloves, Musical Instruments, tamales. He made them at home, from chickens
and Talking Machines. he kept in the back yard and killed in halal
But perhaps the most striking entry in fashion. Everett McGlothlin, who last tasted
the Sheridan business directory was the one one of Louie’s tamales when he worked there
tucked in between “Tallow and Grease” and as a high-school kid, in the nineteen-fifties,
“Taxidermists”: “Tamales.” When Zarif Khan first said, “I love tamales, and I still haven’t found
began selling them, he shouldered a yoke with anything that comes close.”
a bucket swinging from each end and walked For another faction, however, it was Louie’s
to wherever he could find customers: outside hamburgers that dazzled. Sixty years on, locals
the bank at lunch, outside the bars at closing who hear someone talking about Khan will
time, down at the railroad depot when the trains cross the room and interrupt the conversation
came in. Business was good enough that he to say that he made the greatest burgers in
soon bought a pushcart. By 1914, the Sheridan the history of burgerdom. Five generations of
Enterprise was referring to him, inaccurately Sheridan residents ate them, and those who
but affectionately, as “the well-known Turkish are still around go into a kind of blissed-out
tamale vendor.” (In fairness, nearly all references cholesterol-bomb reverie when attempting to
to Khan’s nationality were inaccurate, including describe them. Some claim that he used only
his own. Although he identified as Afghan and bull meat, and rendered his own tallow to fry it
official documents pertaining to his life reflect in. Others say he cooked the burgers in chicken
that, his natal village was ceded to British fat, or sizzled bay leaf into the grease, or mixed
India before his birth, and today belongs to the in hearts and tongues.
Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.) Whatever his secret, Khan was particular
In 1915, or maybe the year after, Khan 15 about how he served his hamburgers. Cheese
opened a restaurant — a hole-in-the-wall on was unheard of, and woe betide those who
Grinnell Avenue, around the corner from Main requested ketchup. A burger from Louie’s came
Street. The hand-painted lettering on the façade plain, or, if you chose, with mustard, pickles,
said “Louie’s,” and, forever afterward, that is and onions. (Several former repeat customers,
what both Khan and his restaurant were called. It now in their seventies and eighties, pointed
had a service window that opened onto the street an imaginary knife at me and said, “You wan’
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Copyright © 2021 by Bedford, Freeman & Worth High School Publishers. Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample chapter.
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