Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is, next to Dieciséis de Septiembre, my favorite Mexican holiday. I have been setting up ofrendas (altars with offerings) at home, collecting related folk art, and cooking traditional foods for many years. As is true with most Mexican festivals and holidays, food is central to the celebrations and the significance of the rituals of Día de los Muertos.
Día de los Muertos is observed from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2. It’s a uniquely Mexican festival and a perfect example of the complex heritage of the Mexican people, blending the cultures and beliefs of our native ancestors with those of the Spanish conquistadors. Although customs vary regionally, they always involve colorful celebrations where families visit, clean, and decorate graves of loved ones, and offer food and gifts in preparation for the annual arrival of the spirits of their deceased. In rural communities, where the traditions are more of a Catholic nature, families honor the saints, their ancestors, and their dead with home altars to greet the spirits as they return to visit the world of the living during this time every year. Although their limited economic resources may force them to offer very simple things, they always offer something, even if it is just bread and water, for fear that otherwise their dead will be “left out” and “dishonored.” In cities, the offerings are more elaborate and the Catholic beliefs blend more apparently with the pre-Hispanic concept of death as part of life itself. Offerings consisting of special foods, fruits, candles, flowers, incense, photographs of the departed and their favorite foods and beverages, are placed on graves or altars. Offerings often include bottles of beer, tequila, or mezcal, cups of atole (a sweet corn-based beverage flavored with fruit or spices and served hot), hot chocolate or coffee, tamales, chicken or pork in mole, and lots of sweets. An indispensable item is pan de muerto, traditional egg bread decorated with bones made of dough and sprinkled with sugar on top. Bread, salt, and fresh water are always present because they have symbolic meanings. It’s traditional that the specially prepared and offered food be shared among family and friends after the dead return to their graves, since the dead can only consume the “vapor” or steam emitted by the foods.
The sights and smells of Mexican markets in anticipation of Día de los Muertos fill the air with festive excitement. To this day, the smell of copal incense and marigolds, known in Mexico as cempasúchil (from the Nahuatl cempoalxochitl, the flower of the dead), instantly reminds me of this celebration. The market stalls are filled with a colorful variety of skulls and skeleton toys and figurines, folk art decorations for altars and graves such as incense burners, elaborate candles, and papel picado, sheets of tissue paper carefully cut to depict everyday life scenes performed by skeletons. Children flock to the stalls filled with sweets like calaveritas de azúcar, sugar skulls inscribed with the names of deceased or living members of the family. These days, chocolate calaveritas are as common as sugar ones, and on rare occasions calaveritas de alegría, an ancient confection of amaranth seeds and honey with pre-Hispanic ritual origins, can still be found. There are also candied fruits: figs, pineapple slices, sweet potatoes, whole oranges, tunas (known in English as prickly pears), coconut-filled lime rinds, and chilacayote (a type of native squash), among others.
Other traditional dishes, which can be purchased or prepared at home for the offering, include calabaza en dulce (pumpkin cooked in syrup made of piloncillo, cinnamon stick, orange rind, and cloves) and many different tamales and moles. Recipes and traditions are passed down from generation to generation, preserving the connections between our past and present and solidifying our identity as Mexicans regardless of where we may live. However, in modern-day, “globalized” Mexico, these ancient traditions are threatened by the growing popularity of imported Halloween celebrations and iconography. The growth of the Mexican community in Austin has resulted in an increasing awareness of Mexican culture and availability of Mexican products and markets. These factors, together with the curiosity that this festival piques within the non-Mexican population, have helped to increase the popularity of Día de los Muertos celebrations in a city famous for its giant Halloween party.
If you wish to celebrate this holiday, you can start by setting up your own ofrenda at home. Mexican bakeries La Mexicana (1924 S. First, 443-6369), Fiesta (3909 N. I-35, 406-3900), and La Victoria (5245 Burnet Rd., 458-1898) make pan de muerto and sugar skulls, and some of the folk art stores carry the necessary decorations. However, you may choose to get better acquainted with the festivities first by visiting Austin area restaurants that will observe the holiday with ofrendas and special foods.
Marco Garcia of Curra’s has designed a menu for Saturday night, Nov. 2, at the north location (6801 Burnet Rd., 451-2560), which includes a wide array of specialties from many regions of Mexico including Oaxaca — the state with perhaps the widest variety of Día de los Muertos foods — and the Valley of Mexico. “We are trying to preserve this beautiful tradition and educate people in Austin about it,” says Garcia, who will also set up an ofrenda to match the permanent mural of drinking and dancing skeletons that adorns the interior of the restaurant. Aside from the traditional pan de muerto and atole de fresa (strawberry-flavored atole), Curra’s will feature mezcal margaritas and special dishes. These will include pollo con mole Oaxaqueño amarillo (Oaxacan yellow mole with chicken), meat-stuffed chile anchos, and shrimp in escabeche (spicy pickled vegetables) with chile pasilla sauce, among many others. They will also have a rare dessert treat: mamey ice cream, a delicious tropical fruit with a unique, indescribable flavor.
Miguel Ravago of Fonda San Miguel (2330 North Loop Blvd., 459-4121) has enthusiastically set up his altar a week ahead of time. “I love this holiday; I wish more people knew about it and celebrated it! It is so much fun,” he says. He has ordered dozens of sugar skulls from La Victoria bakery and marigolds for decoration and has asked his employees to participate by bringing a photo of a loved one to include in the ofrenda. On Nov. 3, in addition to many of their regular dishes, their famous Sunday brunch buffet will include Día de los Muertos traditional foods like mole Poblano, two kinds of tamales, pan de muerto, and calabaza en dulce, to name a few.
Last but not least, Marisela Godinez of Taqueria El Meson (5808 Burleson Rd., 416-0749) will reproduce Día de los Muertos specialties traditionally prepared by Frida Kahlo. Inspired by recipes from “Frida’s Fiestas,” the beautiful cookbook by Frida’s stepdaughter Guadalupe Rivera Marín, El Meson will serve over the weekend calabaza en dulce and capirotada, a traditional Mexican type of bread pudding, for dessert and will have champurrado, a chocolate-flavored atole, to drink. Their special entrées will be mole de olla, a rich stew made with beef, corn on the cob, green beans, and squash in a thick red chile broth, as well as Sra. Godinez’s (Marisela’s mother) recipe for mole Poblano.
I encourage everyone to experience these wonderful dishes and traditions. This year I will be in Mexico for Día de los Muertos to visit the graves of my grandparents and great-uncle, to find new items for my skeleton collection, and to visit Oaxaca to learn more about their traditions and foods. And, of course, to have some memorable meals with the spirits of Mexico’s past. 
This article appears in November 1 • 2002.
