Capirotada a sweet and timeless tradition for Valley Catholics

2 weeks ago 59

MERCEDES — The layers of the cheese and raisins and bread and piloncillo seemed to glow in the deep pan.

Dalia Carr spread the cheese over the three layers of bread and raisins and bananas and …

A multitude of ingredients in Carr’s capirotada at El Fenix Café in Mercedes sent sweet aromas through the kitchen and even into the dining area. One of her cooks poured a topping of cinnamon and sugar and piloncillo and anise.

“Some people just love it,” said Carr, whose family has owned and operated El Fenix for decades.

“Here at the restaurant, the only reason we started doing it was to get people to come in,” she said. “Back in the day nobody wanted to do capirotada because it’s an expense. We just kept it on because people look forward to it. Lent, only during Lent.”

Capirotada is a popular dish among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans during the Lent season which begins on Ash Wednesday. A broad range of ingredients go into the popular dish including apples, raisins, bread and piloncillo.

Piloncillo is a raw form of pure cane sugar commonly used in Mexican cooking. It is known for its distinctive cone shape.

Earlier in the week, a Brownsville judge and her sister-in-law met in a warm kitchen surrounded by a broad range of foods waiting to be mixed for capirotada.

“Here I am with my sister-in-law Flora Garza de Rincones,” said Judge Adela Kowalski-Garza.

She was not in her robes this day but in a red and white apron.

“We are here in her house, and we are going to do a recipe for capirotada which is a recipe passed down by her mother Mrs. Gloria Garza who already passed away, but she is the one who told us how to make the capirotada,” she said.

She now explained in detail the ingredients.

“First we are going to use queso panela. We are also going to use cinnamon,” she while holding up four cinnamon sticks in her hand, “and unsalted peanuts. We are not going to use the bolillos. We are going to use bread that is toasted.”

The judge’s mother also made capirotada and taught her the finer points of the dish.

“According to my mother, capirotada means ‘a little bit of everything,’ just like life,” she said.

Each little bit of everything has a significance.

The bread, she said, represents the Body of Christ. Piloncillo syrup is His blood, cinnamon and cloves are the spices used to prepare Him for burial, and the cheese symbolizes the Holy Shroud. Raisins and nuts reflect the bittersweet moments of life, the joys and sorrows mixed together, the judge said.

In the kitchen of El Fenix, Dalia Carr uses a different cheese. It’s not the Mexican white cheese of old, with a certain spark that would make the capirotada a little bit “tangier“ as she put it. These days she just uses American cheese or mild cheddar cheese.

“It’s cheaper, plus I like it more with the American cheese,” she said. “Plus American cheese has better shelf life. Mexican cheese is more risky. At that time, it was not available as it is now in our stores. We brought it from Mexico. At that time capirotada was a specialty.”

Back in the day she also used French bread, but now she just uses sliced bread. It’s easier that way, she said, and certainly that is understandable as capirotada is labor intensive. The assembling of the ingredients and the combining of the ingredients into three layers requires long hours of hard work.

However, cinnamon sticks are still a must have for her capirotada.

“Cinnamon sticks have more flavor,” she said. “Plus, if you grate a piece on the capirotada you can chew it for extra flavor. I personally like the sticks for presentation. It makes it look more interesting.”

The mere mention of capirotada brings fond memories for Professor Enriqueta Lopez Ramos, 93, of San Benito.

“My mother was very Mexican,” said the former modern language professor for the University of Texas–Brownsville and protégé of Civil Rights Activist Cesar Chavez.

“Capirotada was the most wonderful of all the desserts you could possibly make,” she said. “I was so worried when Lent would end because I would have the capirotada and she refused to make it any other time.”

She remembers purchasing a loaf of French bread and they would slice it themselves.

“I would help mother with the buttering of each slice,” she said. “She had a big wrought-iron pan where we would put them a little bit. They would go into the big pot where they would eventually become the capirotada.”

All of the ingredients had to be cut up into small pieces because it was, after all, “capirotada,” a little bit of everything. When everything was prepared and cooked the whole house and even the neighborhood smelled like capirotada.

“I think probably every Mexican-American home would have capirotada, if they had a mother like my mother and in Catholic homes especially, because you couldn’t have candy, you couldn’t have any cake or anything like that,” she said. “So, instead of candy or any other sweet we would have capirotada.”

The abstaining from candy and bubblegum is part of the Lent observance in which Catholics must sacrifice something during this period. It was, as the professor explained it, like a sacrifice.

“We would have the way of the cross, which it reminded us about Jesus dying for us and that would be a sacrifice that we would all be making,” she said. “So no candy, no bubblegum, not anything sweet except the capirotada.”

The post Capirotada a sweet and timeless tradition for Valley Catholics appeared first on MyRGV.com.

Read Entire Article