Mexico’s Days Of The Dead Time For Celebration

For Mexicans, the Days of the Dead, Nov. 1 and 2, are not for mourning and fasting, but for celebrating and feasting. It is the time when the dead return, in spirit, to their family homes, where they find their favorite foods waiting on altars strewn with marigolds.

Corn, the foundation of Mexican cooking, is omnipresent. There will be hot, steamy tamales stuffed with minced chicken, slices of pork adrift on a near-black mole sauce made gently fiery with pasilla chiles, and wedges of pumpkin simmered in brown sugar and cinnamon, so soft they almost melt in the mouth.

The dishes made for the Days of the Dead are some of the most festive - and complex - of Mexico’s holiday foods. Only Christmas’s dishes are more extravagant.

The food is not there for the dead to consume, but rather to “absorb their essence,” Elizabeth Carmichael and Chloe Sayer wrote in “The Skeleton at the Feast: The Day of the Dead in Mexico” (British Museum Press and University of Texas Press, 1992.)

In Manhattan’s Mexican restaurants, however, the festive foods are there for the living to eat.

Following is a simple, sweet dish adapted from a recipe by Jose Hurtado Prud’homme, the owner and chef of Mi Cocina.

Pumpkin (or Sweet Potato) in Brown Sugar Syrup

1 4-pound pumpkin, or 3 to 4 pounds of yams or sweet potatoes (see note)

2-1/2 quarts water

2 pounds dark brown sugar

2 cinnamon sticks

If using a pumpkin, cut it in half, remove and discard seeds. Trim and discard stringy part. Cut each half into four sections, and each of those sections into thirds, so that each piece is about 2 inches square. Do not peel.

In a 4-quart saucepan, bring water, sugar and cinnamon to a boil. Add pumpkin pieces and simmer until tender, about 50 minutes; do not overcook.

Transfer pumpkin to a serving platter with some of the syrup; serve warm. Or even better, serve it the next day, after the syrup has infused the pumpkin or potatoes.

Yield: 8 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 460 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, 55 milligrams sodium, 1 gram protein, 120 grams carbohydrate.

Note: If using yams or sweet potatoes, choose small ones, about 4 inches long, trim off the ends, and cook them with the skin on, just like the pumpkin. Simmer until tender when pierced with a fork, 35 to 50 minutes. Peel and discard the skin, cut into quarters and serve warm with syrup.