Days of the Dead

Today, Mr. M and I walked to a farmers’ market held in the garden area of a large nearby hotel. We don’t usually attend this particular market because it mainly specializes in Baja grown wines from the Guadalupe valley. The wines are well known and apparently wonderful, but Mr. M and I don’t drink wine so it is lost on us.

The reason we went today is because they were sponsoring a free Dias de Los Muertos, or Days of the Dead, celebration, including dancers, costumed participants, and an Altar contest. In Mexico, Halloween is not recognized like it is in the US, although some of the more savvy kids here are catching on to the idea. But November first and second are big celebrations here.

Colorfully costumed Calaveras, or skeleton, dancers.

November first is the day families remember Los Angelitos , deceased children of the family, and November second celebrates deceased adult relatives. It is not a morbid idea here. The traditional Mexican belief is that there are three deaths: the first when the body physically dies, the second when the body is put into the earth, and the third is when there is no one to remember the deceased. That is why it is so important to celebrate the lives of family members who have passed on.

The days at the end of October are spent cleaning and decorating the graves of the dead. Altars may be set up in the family home. The altar usually has 4 to 7 layers and is colorfully decorated with playful skeletons called Calaveras, which often represent the favorite activities of the deceased. Objects placed on the altar can include decorated sugar skulls, pan de muertro, a sweet bread, everyday objects with special meaning, candles, incense, photographs, and especially, a special marigold called cempasuchil. Anything that might please the deceased can be added.

The celebration we attended today was a lot of fun! Here are some of the Altar contest entries:

This altar has a display carefully created with natural items like coconut and flower petals.

This altar has a costumed attendant lighting the candles.

This altar is a good example of seven tiers and it has living Calaveras, or skeletal representatives of the dead.

Here is a closer photo of them:

These girls were having a good time  pretending to be dead!

Independence Day!

Today is Mexico’s Independence Day, a grand fiesta and National holiday. We were quite surprised when our trash was picked up this morning, our regular pick up day. I thought they would take the day off. Great work ethic! This is a huge holiday here and I wrote about it previously here.

To celebrate this holiday, which actually started last night, I made a traditional Mexican fiesta dish: pozole.  Perhaps you have eaten, or even heard of menudo, the traditional Mexican New Year’s Day dish (reported to cure a hangover). Pozole is menudo’s elegant cousin.  Menudo is made from tripe and hominy, or pozole, as it is called in Mexico. The dish by that name does have the corn, but also has pork and, in my recipe, chicken, and best of all, no tripe! It can however include pigs feet; not yesterday though because I was making a batch that I could also can for later.

So after all that rambling here is my recipe:

Pozole for dinner and canning

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil (I used olive)

2 small pork loin roasts, cut into roughly 1 inch cubes (about 3 pounds each)

8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into roughly 1 inch cubes

1 #10 can of prepared hominy, rinsed and drained; or if you are really ambitious you can prepare about 13 cups from dried nixtamal, but that is a whole other deal

2 medium onions, chopped

1 entire head of garlic, peeled and sliced

10 peeled green chiles, diced into roughly half inch squares. Anaheim or Poblanos or other relatively mild chiles are good

1-2 jalapeno chiles, minced (optional)

Salt and fresh ground pepper

1 bay leaf

Chicken broth, about 10-12 cups

In your gigantic soup pot, heat oil, add the meat and cook until it just loses its color. Add the onions and cook until limp. Add garlic and chiles.  Add the pozole corn. Fill the pot with the chicken broth, depending on how much broth you like in your soups. Add the bay leaf, salt and pepper. Be careful of the salt, depending on the saltiness of your broth.

Bring the soup to a boil. This will create foam on the top; skim this off. Now you are ready to can the pozole. Fill each quart jar about three quarters full with an even mixture of the solids (meat, corn and chiles). Fill the jar with the broth to 1” below the top. Cap with 2 piece caps and can in a pressure canner for 90 minutes. Leave the bay leaf in the pot. Cook the rest of the soup for about one hour, or until the meat and the corn are tender. Remove the bay leaf and discard.

Serve the pozole in bowls with minced fresh onion, cilantro, dried oregano, lemon or lime halves to squeeze over the soup, sliced avocados, or salsa, if desired. (We prefer the first four).

If Its St.Patrick’s Day…

If it is St. Patrick’s Day and I am living in Mexico, how do I celebrate? Since my grandparents emigrated from Ireland to the US,  I really am of Irish descent. Today, we celebrated our Irish-Mexican relationship with green tamales!

Green chicken tamal

When we first moved to Baja we rented a little house for about a year before settling where we are now. The area we lived in was about 15 kilometers south of here. That is where we became acquainted with our good friend Aurora, the Tamale Lady. She would come by on a regular basis selling hot, homemade tamales.

After we moved here to Rosarito, we missed seeing her pass by until one day when I was walking through town. I saw her! Right there in the middle of town! After a few hugs and pleasantries, I told her where our new home is. Since then she stops by when she comes to town to see if we “need” some tamales. When we order them she will bring them piping hot, first thing the next morning.

Fortunately for us, she happened by yesterday, so this morning for breakfast we had warm, green chicken tamales (and some red pork ones too). Delicious!

Not to be denied, tonight, for dinner we will be enjoying our traditional corned beef, with carrots and cabbage fresh from our little garden. We also will enjoy my once a year treat, treacle cake with fresh lemon sauce for dessert. The lemon sauce is made from our own Meyer lemons. How I love their special flavor!

Treacle Cake

Here’s my recipe for Treacle Cake:

Ingredients:

• 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3  cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup molasses
• ¾  cup hot water
• ¾  cp raisins
• ½  cup butter or shortening, room temperature
• 1 large egg
• ½  teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground allspice
• about 2 teaspoons granulated sugar

Preparation:

Grease and flour a 9-inch square baking pan or spray with a baking spray. Heat oven to 325°.

Put raisins into a glass measuring cup with the water, and heat in a microwave for 3 minutes. Add butter and leave to cool.

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl; beat on low speed of electric mixer until ingredients are combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl and increase mixer speed to medium; beat for about 3 minutes longer. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. Sprinkle a small amount of sugar over the top of the cake.

Bake for 35 to 55 minutes, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Cut into squares and serve with lemon sauce.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!