Meaning

noun a city in northern Ghana

noun corn and cornmeal dough stuffed with a meat mixture then wrapped in corn husks and steamed

originBack-formation from the plural tamales, derived from Latin American Spanish tamales, plural of tamal, derived from Nahuatl tamalli (“wrapped”), derived from Proto-Uto-Aztecan *tïmaL-. Compare O'odham cemait (“tortilla”), Hopi tuma (“stone griddle for cooking corn flatbread”), Ute tʉ'ma- (“to roast under ashes”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0