Dia de los Muertos

Yesterday was Dia de los Muertos and we decided to celebrate. We invited some friends over and ate wonderful food. Di de los Muertos is a holiday celbrated in Mexico to remember those who have died and celebrate their lives. Now we didn't have anyone person in particular to remember, but we did want the food. James remembers the wonderful food of Mexico fondly and I love to cook, so we tried to recreate a little mission experience for him. We made pan de muerto, which is bread of the dead, it is a slightly sweet eggy bread that is decrated with bones and a tear on top as well as colored sugar. We also made sugar skulls that are mostly used as decoration, however the kids did all try to eat them. We had atole, which is a warm drink made with sweetend milk, rice and cinnamon. And the "piece de resistance" we had homemade tamales. We made two different ones, the first were a southern Mexico variety which had seasoned chicken, corn, tomatoes, and red chile sauce, then wrapped in masa in a corn husk. The second variety was a citrus marinated chicken with cliantro, cotija cheese, cerano peppers and orange juice, then wrapped in masa in a corn husk. It was a delicious meal.




Another tradition for dia de los muertos is that you write comic eulogies for friends and set up your shrine to the dead. So we also set up our shrine with our displays of earth, wind, fire and water. Here the earth is food, wind is the paper (it's thin and and moves freely-it's a stretch I know, but give me a break), fire-candles and water is the cup.