Capirotada: A Mexican passover tradition By Marisa Renwald, Post-Tribune correspondent March 14, 2011 5:18PM 3 0 Share 135 Updated: September 24, 2012 6:25AM In Mexican and Spanish culture, there is one certain food with a history that is as old and legendary as King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table, and as spellbinding as the search for the Holy Grail. Its tale reeks with elements of romance as mythic heroes take this dish on an adventurous quest from the rotting cells of the Spanish Inquisition to the sandy shores of the New World. The archaic stories of Spanish kings and queens, good battling evil, murder, survival, exile, and religion are baked into this legend, making it perhaps the single most interesting food in the history of the world. Capirotada. You may have heard it mentioned only in passing, for it holds no place in history books— or even cookbooks, for that matter. The greatest of food writers have sloughed over it in utter disparagement, like cats turning their noses to sweetened cream. To them, it is peasant food, perhaps. An ever-changing recipe with an undiscovered history. Let the great food writers of the world hand their heads in disgrace, for this single dish has enough adventure and legacy in it to prompt a summer blockbuster, let alone a single page of a cookbook. A Mexican bread pudding prepared with a cinnamon syrup, fruits, nuts and cheese, Capirotada shares a common link to both Catholic Lenten and Jewish Passover traditions. While traditional Lent-followers snack on this meat-free treat during their days of abstinence, the Jewish Spaniards of Mexico, too, celebrate with the same holiday food for Passover (using unleavened bread, of course). But the legend isn’t that simple. The history of capirotada goes back to the Spanish Inquisition of the 1500s. When Ferdinand and Isabella forced the Jews living in Spain to either convert or leave the country, those that stayed—crypto-Jews as they became known—secretly held on to their Jewish heritage but adapted Catholic practices, including indulging in Lenten foods. Capirotada, with a bit of a tweaking here and there, became a prominent Lenten dish for the crypto-Jews. Although the history from thereon is a little muddled, the recipe for capirotada was recorded by the Holy Office of the Inquisition in 1640 in a book called Regimento de Inquisitor General. The Spanish officers looked under this entry when researching how to search for fake converts from Judaism to Catholicism. Whether capirotada was at first a real Catholic invention or a new-fangled crypto-Jewish recipe that the Spanish then noticed is still a little unclear. However, when a mass exodus of Spanish Jews fled the Inquisition and arrived in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, they brought this representation of their bloodshed and struggle with them. In the centuries that followed, Mexicans generally ate capirotada during Lent and the Sephardic Jews in the country kept the dish as a Passover treat. Ask any Mexican cook for a recipe of this Lenten snack and you won’t find a similar pair in the bunch. From its historic roots, the legend continued and grew into a sort of “Stone Soup” sort of fairy tale. The ingredients vary so vastly, ranging from dried fruits to tomatoes, that each region of the country is said to have their own capirotada specialty. Some say that it is a dish used to sweep up all of the leftovers into one meal before giving up all of the goodies for Lent. Others say each ingredient is a symbol for the Passion of Christ: raisins for nails, bread for Christ’s body, and the cinnamon syrup for His blood. Each making of the pudding, each bead of sweat formed in preparation is a story, a legacy of Spanish and Mexican culture. Unfortunately, the tradition of serving capirotada has gone the way of all Christians going meat-free for forty days of Lent. According to José Luis Juárez López, a Mexican food writer, capirotada is a threatened species, in danger of vanishing forever. While Mexican families both here and across the border may still prepare it during Lent, it is one of those recipes that is probably only passed down through oral tradition—a shame, for its story and deliciously unique combination of Spanish and Mexican flavors make it something worth preparing again and again. Capirotada, although actually considered a bread pudding, can’t really be called a dessert. It has both savory and sweet elements. Bits of fruit and a dark cinnamon syrup give it a hit of sugar, but like so many other Mexican desserts, it is not equipped with exaggerated sweetness. Nuts and shredded cheese baked on top offer the dish a savory quality. The choice of cheese, another debatable story, is left to the chef. Some love the sharpness of cheddar, giving this dish a Southern apple pie sort of flavor. Others prefer a milder, softer taste. Chevre and queso fresco offer a creamier rendition. But it is this combination that makes this dish perfect for any time during those long Lenten days.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 16:09:26 +0000
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