A Different Kind of Bread

On Tuesday afternoon, I no sooner had a chance to get settled into Alejandro's house and change my clothes, when Alejandro said, "Come on, we are going to go buy bread."  I headed out the door with him, his sister and nephew.  I was confused, because we were not headed toward the bakery where they usually buy bread but in the opposite direction.  I was soon to find out that we were going to buy a special kind of bread that is a specialty of this part of town, San Juan de Aragón.  (When Alejandro's parents moved to this neighborhood many years ago, San Juan de Aragón was an agricultural village with dirt roads on the fringes of the city.  It is now completely absorbed within the urban sprawl of Mexico City.) This bread is made only in the month of October in the weeks leading up to Day of the Dead.  I have written here before about the typical "Pan de Muerto" (Bread of the Dead), which is found in virtually every bakery at this time of year.  It is a small, round, sweet loaf decorated with dough crossbones on top.

(image taken from the web)

This, however, is a different kind of Bread of the Dead...

After walking several blocks in a light drizzle, we arrived at a metal gate along the street.  Alejandro's sister, Sandra, rang the bell, and a man opened the gate.  Sandra put in her order, and a few minutes later a woman appeared with a couple plastic bags filled with bread.  We scurried back to the house as the rain began to fall more persistently.