For me it’s when the sun starts setting lower.
Once the sun starts merging closer to the southern horizon, I finally get that cozy fall feeling. I know that my favorite harvests are underway as shadows grow longer and a tad chillier. It also signals that Day of the Dead is near.
Here at Food, Día de Muertos is one of our favorite times of the year. The observance offers a perfect moment to reset as we careen toward the holidays, when we start cooking and gathering with the people we love well into December (or into January and February for those who are hardcore about the rest of the syncretic fiestas tradicionales that round out winter in Mexico).
As Paola Briseño-González writes in her stirring essay that anchors our coverage this year, Día de Muertos is a time to reflect on the boundaries that separate and bind us, across life and death, but also man-made borders and distances from our homelands. She offers two new recipes for dishes that would sit regally on any ofrenda: A mixiote, one of my favorite delicacies from central Mexico, involving meat in an adobo that is slow-steamed in parchment paper and unwrapped like a gift upon serving; and a tropical-ish capirotada, emphasizing guavas and apricots for a coastal take on a warm bread pudding that I remember so fondly from childhood visits with my tías and abuelas in Tijuana.
In Long Beach, at the epicenter of a new movement in pan dulce in California, Gusto Bread, deputy editor Betty Hallock meticulously documents owner-baker Arturo Enciso’s delicious pan de muerto, which should always be present on any Day of the Dead spread. Intimidating to some (raises hand), making that spongey, citrusy bun with “bones” on its crown is a rite itself.
I am making Briseño’s Muertos recipe from last year, her tropical mole with guavas and sweet potatoes over crispy chicken. To warm up while we construct our ofrenda, we’ll have my homemade ponche, with fall fruits and a strong kick of rum and brandy. It’s a more Christmassy drink but I’m already craving it. (Here’s a ponche recipe by Bricia Lopez, written by Jonathan Gold.)
Muertos is a time for reflection, but also, you can make it fun. I remember fondly many times a friend in Mexico City would invite over a group of us to have slices of freshly baked pan de muerto, often in variations of doughs or fruits as toppings, or in vegan form. These gatherings are usually accompanied by sips of mezcal, frothy Mexican hot chocolate spiced with cinnamon and hours of lively conversation.
Honoring the ancestors is universal. Anyone called to commemorate their loved ones can embrace and celebrate Día de Muertos.
For Día de Muertos, make these mixiotes of chile-marinated chicken cooked in bundles of string-tied parchment. Add a dessert of bread pudding soaked in piloncillo syrup and studded with fruit and pecans.
An easy chicken recipe for Día de Muertos: These parcels of chile-marinated chicken are wrapped in string-tied parchment bundles and steamed with sliced fall squash, for serving with tortillas, cabbage and wedges of lime.
This luscious bread pudding recipe is made with a spiced syrup rather than a custard, studded with fresh guava, dried apricots and toasted nuts.
Gusto Bread’s Arturo Enciso built his bakery around wood-fired breads, then changed the conversation around Mexican pan dulce. He shows us how to make pan de muerto for the Día de Muertos holiday.
Arturo Enciso’s recipe for pan de muerto includes sourdough starter, ground fennel and orange zest for maximum deliciousness. Follow his step-by-step instructions for making the holiday sweet breads.
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