7 Things Mississippians Keep in the Deep Freeze That Baffle Everyone Else

Open a deep freeze in a Mississippi garage, and you’ll find a lot more than ice cream.

Here’s what Mississippians keep in the deep freeze that baffle Americans from other states.

1. Delta Hot Tamales

A story originally published in the Jackson Free Press in 2009 reported that Greenville’s Hot Tamale Heaven shipped its Delta hot tamales in frozen bundles.

At the time, the plant was certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

At the time, Hot Tamale Heaven’s retail side was a trailer on Highway 1 in Greenville, with a drive-through window.

Stop at the Onward General Store on Highway 61, and you’d find tamales the store didn’t make on site.

Those tamales arrived frozen from Greenville.

If you ordered tamales at Shipley’s Donuts in Vicksburg, they came from the same plant in frozen batches.

Crystal Grill in Greenwood ordered roughly 100 dozen at a time from the plant’s wholesale side.

A Smithsonian magazine article described the typical hot tamale maker as cooking at least a hundred dozen in a batch.

A hundred dozen works out to 1,200 tamales.

2. Venison

Venison takes up a lot of room in many deep freezes once deer season is underway.

Mississippi Sportsman’s 2026-27 deer-season guide lists the statewide limit as three bucks a season, plus five antlerless deer on private land.

Fill both limits, and you have eight deer to cut, wrap and freeze.

In the North Central unit, the limit rises to four bucks and ten antlerless deer a season on private land.

Before any of it reaches your deep freeze, the Mississippi State Department of Health wants you to refrigerate the carcass as soon as possible.

Cut meat goes into food-quality plastic bags or buckets, kept in a cooler with ice or dry ice.

After that, you keep uncooked venison frozen.

3. Figs

Mississippi State University (MSU) Extension puts the shelf life of fresh figs at two to three days after picking.

If you’re holding a basket of ripe figs, you have days, not weeks.

Two main fig varieties are found in Mississippi, and North Mississippi gardeners should plant a tree on the south side of buildings.

Publication 663, a freezing guide, packs whole or sliced figs in cold 35 percent syrup, with head space left in the container.

For a better product, add three-quarters of a teaspoon of crystalline ascorbic acid or half a cup of lemon juice to each quart of syrup.

Frozen fruit keeps for 8 to 12 months, and fruit packed without sugar or syrup loses quality faster.

4. Okra

A state extension publication calls okra a staple vegetable in Mississippi cooking and says it became popular because it thrives in the warm climate.

To freeze okra, you blanch the pods in small batches in boiling water for about 30 seconds, then cover them in ice water.

Then you drain the pods and let them dry before sealing them in airtight bags.

An oven-fried okra recipe starts with a 12-ounce package of frozen cut okra, thawed.

A second recipe, with corn, lima beans and tomatoes, calls for 12 ounces each of frozen corn, frozen lima beans and frozen cut okra.

5. Pecans

Pecans can hold their freshness for up to two years when frozen, a 1997 extension article said.

You can store them shelled or in the shell, in airtight containers in the deep freeze, so they don’t pick up other food odors.

The Stuart, the most widely planted pecan variety, originated in Mississippi, as did Desirable, Success and Schley.

Nuts in the shell keep their quality longer than shelled pecans.

Large halves and pieces store longer than tiny pieces.

Thaw the pecans before you use them.

Once thawed, pecans last for weeks if kept cold, and you can refreeze them once or twice.

6. Sweet Potatoes

If you cook a batch, you can freeze the sweet potatoes for 10 to 12 months, while the refrigerator holds them for only 4 to 5 days.

Uncooked sweet potatoes are different, and you shouldn’t store them in the refrigerator because it changes the flavor and hardens the centers.

In a cool, dry, dark, well-ventilated space, uncooked sweet potatoes last several weeks.

Mississippi made the sweet potato its official vegetable in 2025.

At the time, Mississippi ranked third among U.S. sweet potato producers, behind North Carolina and California.

The Beauregard variety is grown on 28,000 to 30,000 acres a year, and statewide production is worth $82 million.

7. Catfish Fillets

Mississippi supplied more than half of the nation’s food-size catfish in 2025, with nearly $214 million in sales.

Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas had 96 percent of the country’s catfish sales.

Fresh catfish keeps one to two days in the refrigerator but three months in the deep freeze, a 2015 extension story advises.

When you buy frozen catfish, pick individually quick frozen fillets.

At home, you put each fillet in a separate freezer bag or wrap it in plastic wrap.

Thaw frozen catfish in the refrigerator, or soak it in lukewarm water until thawed, and don’t refreeze it.

Venison Handling

Handling venison starts in the field, where the department says to field dress the carcass immediately after harvest.

Spreading the rib cage cools the carcass faster.

Don't leave venison in a car trunk, where warmer temperatures promote bacterial growth.

Dark-colored garbage bags may contain toxic resins and aren't meant for food, so they're no place for cut meat.