Food recipes

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

The game isn't over

Oh yes...the marathon of food for the Holidays continues. The Mexican tradition for Catholics is to celebrate the arrival of the Three Magician Kings who offered gifts to baby Jesus. Kids receive gifts today...yes...again. Today we Mexican eat a special bread that we call Rosca de Reyes, Kings Bagel, generally accompanied by hot cocoa. It's a big bread since it yields for 10 to 20 persons. Bakers all over Mexico make this bread with flour, egg yolks, yeast and sugar, offering this product ONLY for this date. It's cover with acitron, Mexican candy, which consist of fruit and/or cactus boiled in sugar and water and let dry until crystallized. The Rosca we bought for this day has figs, cherries, almonds and something that looks like visnaga candy. This last one I don't think it is, since it's illegal to sell visnaga cactus. In recent years the Mexican government declared that this cactus was overexploited and in danger of extinction, but the culture and traditions in Mexico are so strong, that I'm afraid one can still find it in the market. A good substitute could be chilacayote candy, a sort of squash, frankly I don't know the difference between them, since the taste is similar. Inside the bread there are few little plastic babies. If you got one in your slice, then you will have to offer tamales for the Candelaria Day, the second of February.  It is then when we "lift" or store the Nativity Scene in our homes for next Christmas.  Also, that's when the game of food is over.

2 comments:

  1. Great sketch and surprising appetizing!! Great sketch and informative backstory Adrianna.

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