For the next month, Mexico Cooks! will publish a retrospective of articles about the Day (and Night) of the Dead in Mexico. This brief article was published originally on November 24, 2007, when Mexico Cooks! was just a few months old.
Mexico Cooks!' friend Simon Majumdar, on his first tour of Mexico, joined us for a week-long whirlwind crawl to some of our favorite food sites in Guadalajara and Morelia. In between restaurants, taco stands, and walking-around food, we introduced him to the Day of the Dead in both cities.
Papel maché skull masks at the Tianguis del Día de los Muertos, Guadalajara.
Fancy-dress clay catrines (skeletons), each about 7" high, ready for an evening out on the town.
Little clay calacas (skeletons) in sombreros and serapes, the perfect size for hanging from your car's rear-view mirror.
Muñecas de cartón (cardboard dolls) dressed in crepe paper and sequins.
Part of a large ofrenda (altar) in Morelia's Centro Histórico. This altar was dedicated to Don Vasco de Quiroga, one of Michoacán's most historic figures and the first bishop of the state.
A traditional ofrenda (with a twist–click on the photo to get a better view of the hand creeping out of the grave) at Morelia's Hotel Virrey de Mendoza. Click on any photo to enlarge it.
The Plaza San Agustín in Morelia. The ofrenda covered the entire plaza. The central pyramid is made of carrizo (bamboo) and ears of corn. It's surrounded by cempasúchil and terciopelo (marigolds and cock's comb flowers). The cempasúchil fragrance leads the spirits of the dead back to earth and the deep maroon terciopelo is a color of mourning.
A skeletal pair in the Jardín de las Rosas, the garden outside the Conservatorio de las Rosas in Morelia.
This ofrenda, in front of Morelia's Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, is dedicated to Frida Kahlo.
At the time of this 2007 article, our guest was traveling the world to research his first book, Eat My Globe. Today, Simon Majumdar is a well-known and well-respected Food Network personality, with several more books to his credit. His most recent, published a bit earlier in 2015, is Fed, White, and Blue: Finding America With My Fork.
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