Reyna: the bread maker
14 October 2004
With Day of the Dead drawing near, my thoughts once again drift back to Toliman. This time, I think of Reyna, the bread maker in the community. She is renowned for her ‘pan de muerto’ (‘bread of the dead’).
Her brieze block house lies just off the main highway into town, set on a rise overlooking the barrio’s dusty dirt soccer pitch. Wary of the dogs, customers make a point of stooping to pick up a loose stone or branch before making the approach up the steep rutted bank to the front door.
Inside, the bread room has one bare bulb and a concrete floor. Her dark and sooty adobe-and-brick bread oven is capable of baking 300 bolillo loaves and sweet pastries each day. She uses the dregs of the pulque pot as leavening for the bread and the results are redolent with pulque’s subtle aroma.
The oven is lit with firewood in the morning and has heated the oven by late afternoon. By 7:00pm, another room will be stacked with warm baked bread fresh from the oven. We would often arrive early and eager. Still unbaked loaves rest on a second rack. We make our selections using the ubiquitous metal tongs, hand over our pesos and head back to the house. Setting some aside for breakfast the next day, we’d sit around the kitchen table and bolt down the rest, occasionally pausing to dunk a piece in our hot chocolate or atole.
Filed in: Gastronomy, Tolimán
