Mexico- Dia de los Reyes

Mexico:

The Epiphany is a day when Catholics around the world celebrate the arrival of the three wise men. It marks the end of the Christmas season, meaning that tomorrow I will be take down all my Christmas decorations. In Mexico, this day is called Dia de Los Reyes (the day of the kings).

Many Mexicans celebrate in several ways. Many families add the Three Wise Men to the nativity scene the night before, and children asked their favorite Magi for a gift. Many parents give their children one gift to mark the occasion. http://www.inside-mexico.com/featurereyes.htm

Many families bake Rasca de los Reyes (bread of the kings). It is a sweat bread that contains candied and dried fruit. A small figurine of the baby Jesus is often placed inside the bread (occasionally a coin is used in its place). According to my friend, Igor Buller, a friend of mine from Mexico, the person that gets the Jesus is then expected to through a party on February 2, Dia de La Candelaria, where they are expected to serve tamales.

The Experience

I through a small dinner party to celebrate this special day. I served Mexican beer and sangria. By the end of the party the sangria was over, but very few people had drunk the beer. The beers in the selection was Victoria. It seemed much more flavorful than the dos equis and Corona that was served.

We served the rasca de los Reyes, and it was Egor that got the coin. I had used an old peso from a small coin collection that I have. The first thing that he asked when he got it was, “where did you get this?” I honestly had no idea.

“They don’t make these anymore.” He told me.

It turns out that the value of the money inflates so often that the make mint new money and retire old coins in order to deal with this. So this peso, from 1980, could never be used to pay for anything ever again.

Travel:

It has been 15 years since my last visit to Mexico. So, I had to ask someone else what Mexico is like.  
My Uncle, Keith Harrison, visits Mexico almost every summer. One of his favorite stories is about his trip to Javes, near the Mexico Guatemalan boarder. He was driving from Cancun; lining the road were Zapatistas (Revolutionaries fighting for independence from Mexico). The Zapatistas were carrying machetes and machine guns. Keith claims that it was lucky that they did not stop the car, for if they had he surely would have been kidnapped for a ransom. The worse part would have been that if he was captured negotiating the ransom would be difficult, because the Zapatistas only speak Mayan.

Of course putting your life in danger is not for every traveler. So I asked my uncle if he had some safer alternatives. Here are his top 10:

1)      Puerta Vaallarta – Great for first timers

2)      Caribbean Side- Best Beaches

3)      Pacific Coast- Best food

4)      Mexico City- Great food

5)      Mayan Ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula- Best tourist things to do

6)      Chiapas- best natural beauty, like water falls

7)      Las Brisas- Best resort chain in Mexico

8)      Meleia, El CID, Ibero Start- two best all inclusive resorts

9)      Puerto Escondido- best surfing

10)   Oaxaca- Best of Old Mexico

Movie:
One of my favorite movies about Mexico is an American film, “Casa de Mi Padre”, a film that came out in 2012 staring Will Farrell. The comedy is entirely in Spanish. The purposely bad cinematography is meant to poke fun at classic the poor production quality of some classic Mexican movies.

Farrell plays the son of a rancher who finds himself in the midst of the Mexican Drug war after his brother, who is favored by their father, returns to from the States. Though funny, the purpose of the film is not entirely to poke fun at Mexican film. The main point is to show us that we are in a large part responsible for the Mexican Drug wars going on today.

Food:
I made tacos and tamales for today, but not from scratch, along with three other dishes. Much of what I learned about Mexican cooking came from a Mexican babysitter I had, Mrs. Cunningham. She would make dinner or breakfast for us whenever my mom was late picking us up. Ironically, she almost never made anything that I normally found in Mexican restaurants. She often made menudo- a soup made from the lining of cow stomach, boiled pigs feet and pig ears, Rice Pudding, Sweet tamales (made with cinnamon and raisin filling, instead of meat), and my favorite chicken and barley soup. While many of these dishes I do not make, I do occasionally make a variation of her rice pudding, and her chicken and barley soup.

Recipes:

Rice Pudding:

1 cup white rice

2 cups milk

1 cups water

¼ tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

Sugar or sweetener to taste (I use 3 tbsp. of baking Splenda ®)

        ¼ cup cranberries

½ tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. flax seed mill (optional)

Directions:

1.      In a small baking pan, bring salted water to a boil.

2.      Add rice and let soak in for a 3 minutes

3.      Add half the milk. After you add the milk you have to keep stirring or you risk burning the rice or the mixture boiling over.

4.      Add the vanilla, cinnamon, sugar [substitute] and cranberries. Let boil for boil for 10 minutes while stirring, or until most of the liquid has soaked into the rice.

5.      If adding flax seed mill, stir it into the remainder of the milk. Regardless of flaxseed mill use, add the rest of the milk, and keep stirring.

6.      If you need to, it is acceptable to add more water. Remove from heat when rice is tender and pudding is nice and thick.
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Chicken and Barley Soup:

½ cup pearled barley

2 chicken thighs (bone still in)

2-3 cups water

1 tbsp. lemon pepper*

1 tsp. dried thyme*

2 tbsp. fresh cilantro leaves

Note: Mrs. Cunningham would use fresh lemon thyme instead of lemon pepper and thyme, and would add salt.

Directions:

Place ingredients in crock pot, and set on high. Let cook for 8 hours (or however long it takes you to get home from work).

Rasca de los Reyes:

Note: I ran out of butter making this, so instead of ¾ cups butter I improvised with coconut oil and flax seed oil, which worked out well. I also like to use flax seed mill and wheat flower, but white flower in the place of both ingredients will work too.

Ingredients:

3 ½ cups whole wheat flower.

½ cup flax seed mill.

¼ cup butter

¼ cup coconut butter

¼ cup flaxseed oil

½ tsp. Salt (use ¼ tsp. salt if just using butter)

1 cup baking Splenda (or other baking sweetener/sugar)

4 eggs

1 egg white

1 package yeast

1/3 cup warm water

1 cup candied fruit (I used ½ cherries, and ½ cup candied diced citron)

½ cup dried fruit. (I used apricots, but many people use figs)

¼ tsp. fennel seed

Powdered sugar

1 sterilized coin

Directions:

1.      Place yeast in warm water. Let it set for 10 minutes or until it foams.

2.      Beat the 4 whole eggs.

3.      In large bowl, mix flower, flaxseed mill, sugar/substitute, butter, oils, salt, vanilla, eggs, and yeast water (everything but the powdered sugar and fruit).

4.      Knead ingredients together until it is a dough. Flower the edge to the bowl, or the counter, and knead the dough for 5 more minutes.

5.      Place dough back in the bowl, put a towel over the bowl and place in a warm dry place for two hours or until the dough doubles in size.

6.      Preheat oven to 350˚.

7.      On flowered surface, roll dough out into two or three long skinny pieces. Twist them together and shape into a wreath.

8.      Brush the top with egg white, sprinkle with powdered sugar, and press the candied fruit and dried fruit into the dough.

9.      Hide the coin somewhere the dough.

10.   Bake the bread at 350˚ for 45 minutes.


Acknowledgement:

I want to give special thanks to people who inspired this post:

Keith Harrison- Supplied the photos and told me about his trips to Mexico

Igor Bueller- For letting me in on how they celebrate the Christmas season

·        Yolanda Cunningham: for having fed me such wonder

Work Cited:

http://www.inside-mexico.com/featurereyes.htm. Retrieved: January 5, 2014