Christmas Eve in Guanajuato
Proof, if it were needed, of vast differences in Mexican cuisines.
1. A family in a rancho, a biggish village, about 10 miles from Guanajuato.
For the evening meal on the 24th
Chicken soup
Espagetti
Chicken salad (soup and salad from a rotisserie chickens to leave time to prepare the dishes below)
For guests, general goodwill.
Atole (maize gruel)
Pozole (soup of hominy, red or green chile, pork or chicken with lots of toppings)
Tamales
Ponche (hot drink of tejocotes, sugar cane, guavas, etc),
Buñuelos.
No midnight mass until New Year (not enough priests). The niño Jesus gets two new outfits from the godparents and then is put in his crib where he will stay until 2nd February, end of the Christmas celebrations, when he gets another couple of outfits (different ones for different avatars, el niño doctor, etc). Families go round to each other’s houses and the children get sweets. No one goes to bed until morning.
2. A well-to-do family in Guanajuato
The meal after midnight mass in the Basilica.
Brie baked in a pastry crust
Bacalao (essential)
Canelones with a ham and spinach filling
Roast leg of pork stuffed with the Christmas stuffing for pork or turkey: ground pork, chopped ham, biznaga (candied cactus), almonds, onion, garlic, cinnamon, pine nuts, apples . . . to the taste of the cook
Wine, tequila
No one goes to bed until morning.
No place on earth (well, perhaps the South Pole) is quieter than Mexico at 9am on 25th December.
