Don Paco López Panadería
CINCO DE MAYO isn't even a real holiday. It commemorates a trifling victory in a war that Mexico ultimately lost. We didn't even get the day off school.
If Americans want to celebrate Mexican culture, there are certainly better choices. Independence Day is Sept. 15, and there's the anniversary of our mostly ineffectual revolution (or "rob-olution," as my anti-government family likes to call it) on Nov. 20; both celebrations are richer in tradition than the fifth of May. Truth is, most Americans wouldn't recognize Mexican culture-or any culture for that matter-if it hit them in the head the way some kid would whack a piñata.
The same goes for food. Although true Tex-Mex, an American invention, can be tasty, most of what is found in the Northeast is nothing but a vile corruption of the original. But then, what do I know? This is simply my opinion as a humble, greasy-haired native of Spic-land. Maybe I just haven't done any legwork or put any effort into finding a good restaurant; after all, I am lazy like a?well, like a Manhattanite.
Recently I was shaken out of my pleasantly self-righteous state of culinary sloth by an unquenchable craving. I was dying for a particular kind of sweet Mexican bread that gets baked around this time every year, from mid-October to mid-November, specifically to celebrate the Day of the Dead on Nov. 2. In my search to calm my pastry pangs, I was lucky to find a bakery called Don Paco López Panadería that produces these panes de muerto.
The owner of the bakery, Francisco López (or Don Paco, as he is affectionately known), belongs to the third generation of a family of traditional bakers hailing from a picturesque village called Chila de las Flores in the southern region of the Mexican state of Puebla. He opened his first bakery in Brooklyn 14 years ago and ever since has produced the bread according to a traditional family recipe. Paco Jr., Mr. López's son, says that his father holds very strict standards for taste, smell and texture.
"He follows the recipe as it was passed on to him by my grandfather," Paco Jr. explains. "He hasn't even converted the measurements of the ingredients into pounds and ounces, and goes as far as importing balances from Mexico."
The bread is prepared from cinnamon-laced dough shaped into a round hojaldra (puffed bread) that is decorated with bone-shaped pieces of the same dough called huesitos (little bones). In Puebla and other, more rustic locales, the bread is further decorated with sesame seeds, while in the nation's capital and other big cities, sugar is sprinkled on top. Paco Jr. says that different regions of Mexico exhibit many different variations in the ways they prepare and decorate the bread.
The "bread of the dead" tradition encapsulates both pre-Hispanic and Christian origins. Like Halloween, Dia de los Muertos is a harvest festival; the community comes together to thank the ancestors for a good crop, and the bread, among other items, is offered to them in an elaborately decorated and colorful altar. Bread is a symbolic food for the community, because it is meant to be shared; the whole Jesus-and-the-breaking-of-the-bread bit adds further significance for Catholic Mexico. Most important for me, though, is the fact that pan de muertos makes a mighty tasty treat (especially with hot chocolate).
This weekend, the Guggenheim, El Museo del Barrio and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian will be hosting Dia de los Muertos events. Activities include the crafting of papel picado (carved paper) place mats, paper flowers, and sugar- and paper-mâché skulls, as well as performances by Mariachi bands and folkloric dance troupes. They will also be serving pan de muerto and other traditional foods. I hope they will also teach the kiddies about Calaveras (literally translated as "skulls"): short, irreverent verses, somewhat akin to limericks, describing the tragic, painful and ultimately very funny death of either oneself, a family member or a public figure like an actor or a politician.
Excuse my crude versification, but I will venture forth a not particularly clever example:
With false promises and sot
Thou hast caused my gut to rot.
Yet hear my dying proclamation;
I curse thee thus with indignation:
Jingle, jingle, Taco Bell,
I hope you die and go to Hell.