U+1FAD4 · emoji since 2020
The tamale is a parcel of masa dough wrapped in a corn husk, a beloved Latin American dish. It means home cooking and festive food.
It headlines holidays and family kitchens, the warm, steamed bundle full of savory or sweet filling.
In texting, 🫔 does not carry a widely used hidden or slang meaning, so you can usually take it at face value. People send it just as it looks, to add a little visual touch or set the mood of a message. Only a handful of emoji have a separate texting code, and 🫔 is not really one of them.
Its official Unicode name is the Tamale emoji. In everyday chat most people just call it the tamale emoji or describe what it shows. Copy and paste it from the button at the top of this page.
The 🫔 leads off a short phrase, and the rest of the words are written in cipher, every letter disguised as another emoji. Tap decipher to reveal the whole line.
Or make your own cipher in the translator.