The former municipal government of Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, allowed 35,000 tonnes of trash to accumulate at a transfer station on the small Caribbean Sea island, according to local officials.
Mayor Atanea Gómez Ricalde, who took office at the end of September, blamed her predecessor, federal Green Party Deputy Juan Carillo Soberanis, for the mess on the island, a popular tourism destination.
The National Action Party mayor said her government began cleaning up the dump as soon as it was sworn in and 11,350 tonnes of trash have already been shipped to the mainland. Gómez also said that 1,600 tonnes of garbage have been removed from the streets of Isla Mujeres over the past seven weeks.
“Cleaning up Isla Mujeres, keeping our island clean and creating a healthy environment is a priority,” she said. “We could no longer live with these kinds of focuses of infection.”
Santiago Quiñonez Hernández, the municipality’s public services director, estimated that the previous government allowed trash to accumulate at the transfer station – located adjacent to the sea – for two years.
“There was at least 35,000 tonnes of accumulated trash,” he said, adding that it generated leachates (liquids) that filtered into groundwater reserves and the ocean.
Quiñonez said that about 23,000 tonnes of toxic trash remains at the dump and it will take at least two months to transfer all of it to a dump on the mainland part of the municipality of Isla Mujeres.
Local authorities also said they have discovered 53 clandestine dumps on the mainland of the municipality, which adjoins Benito Juárez, where Cancún is located.
Gómez said Isla Mujeres has been used as a dump for Cancún and Puerto Morelos for years and the situation must change. She indicated she was prepared to take legal action to that end.
The mayor also said that Isla Mujeres is the second fastest growing municipality in the state and she has a responsibility to look out for its environment and residents, even though previous municipal governments neglected to do so.
Best Natural Destination was the Montebello lakes of Chiapas. mexico desconocido
Mexico’s finest cities, states, sights and dishes were recognized at the Best of Mexico awards ceremony at the Tianguis Turístico travel show in Mérida, Yucatán, last week.
Voting took place online from March 1-15, 2020, but the ceremony — held during Latin America’s largest tourism industry event — was delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zacatecas was the only state to win in two categories: La Quemada ruins won Best Tourist Experience in an Archaeological Area and Zacatecas city won Best Cultural City.
Otherwise, the winners were spread around states in all corners of the country. Oaxaca won the Best State to Live Original Experiences, followed by Zacatecas in second and Puebla in third. Best Beach was Balandra, Baja California Sur. The second best was Mahahual, Quintana Roo, and the third best was Costa Esmeralda, Veracruz.
The Best Tourist Route was the El Chepe train ride in Chihuahua; second place was the Art, Cheese and Wine route in Querétaro, and third place was the Coffee Route in Chiapas.
Best Dish was Hidalgo’s barbacoa. más méxico
The Best Adventure Destination went to La Huasteca, San Luis Potosí, and the Best Natural Destination was the Montebello Lakes, Chiapas.
More specialized categories included Best Artisan Work, which was awarded to Nayarit for its Huichol craftwork, and Best Dish, which went to Hidalgo’s barbacoa. The Best Magical Town for Culinary Experience was won by Zacatlán de las Manzanas, Puebla.
The Best Destination for Day of the Dead was Pátzcuaro, Michoacán; Orizaba, Veracruz, won the Best Magical Town With Surprising Architecture; the Best Magical Town for a Romantic Escape went to Bacalar, Quintana Roo, and the Best Magical Town with Ancestral Roots was awarded to Huamantla, Tlaxcala.
The awards program is sponsored by magazine and web publisher México Desconocido.
The federal government’s proposed electricity reform poses a threat to home solar energy installations, according to energy sector insiders, but Energy Minister Rocío Nahle denies that is the case.
President López Obrador sent a constitutional bill to Congress in October whose main objective is to guarantee 54% of the power market to the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE)
A vote on the bill is set to take place next April, but there is no guarantee it will pass Congress as the ruling Morena party and its allies don’t have the two-thirds majority required to approve constitutional reforms without the support of opposition parties.
López Obrador’s bill doesn’t specifically mention distributed generation – a term that refers to a variety of technologies that generate electricity at or near where it will be used, such as solar panels – but it does say that private sector electricity generation permits and contracts with the CFE to buy that power will be canceled.
Three energy sector experts who spoke with the newspaper Milenio believe that the reform – if passed in its current form – could spell the end for rooftop solar panels installed on people’s homes and on the premises and facilities of businesses.
About US $3.14 billion has been invested in solar panels, according to the Energy Regulatory Commission, and some 95% of them are installed at people’s homes and at small and medium-sized businesses. Solar is the source of 99.15% of more than 242,000 distributed generation points with wind, hydro, biogas, biomass, gas, diesel and cogeneration contributing to the small remainder.
Julio Valle, spokesperson for the Mexican Solar Energy Association, asserted that the electricity reform will affect distributed generation if it passes Congress.
“I’m aware that the [energy] minister and another person have come out and said that distributed generation won’t be affected but the initiative explicitly says something else,” he said.
Rocío Nahle, energy minister since the current government took office in December 2018, said on Twitter last month that the proposed reform doesn’t seek to eliminate the use of solar panels, while Morena Deputy Manuel Rodríguez González, president of the lower house’s energy committee, later made similar remarks.
Severo López, an energy policy expert and counsel with the law firm SMPS Legal, charged that Nahle’s assertion is wrong, claiming that distributed generation will be deemed “unconstitutional” if the proposed reform becomes law.
Carlos Tapia, CEO of the consultancy Balam Energy, said the wording of the bill is highly ambiguous and that the lack of clarity is cause for concern. The text of the proposed reform leaves open the possibility that homeowners’ contracts with the CFE will be canceled, he said.
The president tours the Dos Bocas refinery last fall with Energy Minister Nahle.
But Rodríguez, the deputy, said that homeowners with solar panels won’t be affected because they don’t sign contracts but rather enter into service agreements with the CFE. He did acknowledge that companies that generate their own energy will be affected if the bill passes.
López said that houses with solar distributed generation capacity need to connect to the CFE grid so that they can tap into the state-owned company’s power, or their stored electricity, when the sun isn’t shining. He disagreed with Rodríguez’s choice of language, describing the pact between homeowners and the CFE as an interconnection contract.
Special meters are installed at people’s homes to measure the quantity of energy injected into the national grid via their solar panels and the quantity of power used. Based on the measurements, a homeowner either gets a bill or a payment from the CFE each billing period.
One person who has benefited from installing solar panels at his home is Jorge Musalem. Fed up with paying up to 2,500 pesos (US $120) per month for power, he spent 50,000 pesos (about US $2,400) to install solar panels on his rooftop.
His monthly bills declined to just 150 pesos (US $7), allowing Musalem, who shares his home with five family members, to recoup his investment in less than two years. Thousands of other Mexicans have similarly cut their power bills by putting solar panels on their homes’ rooftops.
Nahle said in her October 6 tweet that the federal government has been a supporter of distributed generation since it took office in late 2018.
“It has promoted its use and funding via the Trust for Electrical Energy Savings,” she wrote, referring to a private trust set up by the CFE in 1990. “The electricity reform doesn’t considering eliminating this,” Nahle added.
More broadly, the government is considered by many to be an enemy of the renewable sector because it has enacted or is attempting to enact policies and reforms that favor the CFE and are detrimental to private renewable energy companies.
'We’ve applied the formula of banishing corruption,' President López Obrador told the UN this month.
The former head of Mexico’s state oil company, Emilio Lozoya, was extradited from Spain more than a year ago over alleged bribes. But it was only after pictures of him eating Peking duck in an upscale restaurant triggered public outrage last month that prosecutors requested he be put into pre-trial detention.
President López Obrador called the lavish dinner “provocation.” Lozoya’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment, though local media has reported he denies wrongdoing. But for the government’s critics, the saga was illustrative of the Mexican authorities’ approach to fighting corruption: a strategy deeply influenced by politics and little to show for it.
Speaking at the United Nations this month — his second trip abroad in three years — López Obrador said that corruption in “all its forms” was “the biggest problem on the planet.” He added: “[In Mexico] we’ve applied the formula of banishing corruption and put the money saved into helping the people.”
But analysts say there are few advances back home to shout about. Mexico has long been plagued by corruption, from payoffs to avoid speeding tickets to multimillion-dollar theft from public works contracts. Each year, Mexicans pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to public officials for basic day-to-day paperwork such as starting a company or paying car taxes, statistics body INEGI estimates. Transparency International ranks Mexico in 124th place of 180 countries.
The federal anti-corruption prosecutor has only managed to secure two sentences for offences in more than 2 1/2 years in the job, one expert said. High profile cases are slow to advance.
In terms of transparency, Mexico is in the red.
“They don’t have a criminal prosecution policy . . . they choose cases for very unclear reasons,” said Eduardo Bohórquez, head of Transparency International in Mexico. “That arbitrariness is a bad sign in a prosecutor’s office.”
More worrying is the apparent pattern of exoneration of political allies and the pursuit of government critics and political opponents by both the administration and the nominally independent federal prosecutors.
“Before, corruption wasn’t being fought so that people in power could make money illegally,” said Miguel Alfonso Meza, a former civil society lawyer who now works in the municipal government of Monterrey, run by an opposition party. “Now corruption isn’t being fought to allow the group in power to consolidate itself but also to hurt democracy and pursue critics.”
López Obrador insists corruption is being fought in his government and that more than 200 criminal complaints have been made. “No one is being protected,” he said. The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
The president’s image of being personally uninterested in amassing money for himself — something even many opponents believe is real — gives him credibility with voters on corruption. The problem is that institutions lack the independence or resources to sustain a real anti-corruption fight, activists said.
Thousands of accounts blocked by the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) have produced scant results in criminal cases. Earlier this month its head, Santiago Nieto, resigned after being rebuked by the president for his lavish wedding in Guatemala.
Other key oversight bodies like the Federal Auditor’s Office — part of the lower house of Congress — have presented far fewer criminal complaints during this administration than in previous years.
López Obrador has also undermined the National Anticorruption System — meant to co-ordinate different institutions — by calling it the “last straw” in a “pretend” anti-corruption fight.
“We still have the same problem, we don’t have institutions . . . that really work,” said Edna Jaime, director of think tank Mexico Evalúa. “The president hasn’t invested any of his political capital or resources, it’s not part of his project to strengthen these institutions.”
At one of his daily morning press conferences last month, López Obrador promised to publish details of those who have been sanctioned or accused of corruption. The subsequent release said thousands of officials had been barred from government and hundreds of criminal complaints had been made, but didn’t mention a single criminal conviction.
Defense Minister Sandoval: 'Contributing to the fourth transformation is a badge of honor.' sedena/twitter
National Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval has come under fire after publicly expressing support for the “transformation” President López Obrador and his government are carrying out in Mexico.
Speaking at a ceremony on Saturday to mark the 111th anniversary of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, Sandoval said the “fourth transformation” currently underway has the nation’s best interests at heart.
In that respect it’s like the previous three transformations, he said, referring to independence from Spain, 19th century liberal reforms and the revolution.
Despite differences of opinion about the federal government – colloquially known as the 4T for “fourth transformation” – Mexicans need to unite and support the “national project” it is carrying out, Sandoval said.
López Obrador has given the military a prominent role in the transformation he claims to be executing, assigning it a range of non-traditional tasks such as public security, infrastructure construction and management of the nation’s ports and customs offices.
The defense minister said the military “will continue putting all its efforts into compliance with the visions and tasks entrusted to us because we’re sure that this is the path for our country to continue developing.”
“… The army, air force, navy and National Guard are present in the entire country providing security to citizens, we’re present where the public’s assets and safety are at risk due to a disaster, we’re present where we can contribute to actions being carried out to avoid corruption … [and] we’re present where we’re needed to support progress and well-being,” the army chief said.
“… Being able to contribute to the transformation … is a badge of honor,” Sandoval said before echoing the president’s claim that the groundwork for such a monumental change has already been laid.
He said that actions being carried out by López Obrador and his administration are forging a “freer” and “more democratic” Mexico and addressing the “legitimate needs of the majority of Mexicans.”
“… On the verge of beginning the second half of the administration and in the context of the 111th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, the soldiers, marines and National Guard members affirm our loyalty [to the president] and commitment to continue working with honesty, integrity, discipline and professionalism in the projects entrusted to us,” Sandoval said.
At the same ceremony, López Obrador declared that members of the armed forces are loyal to the constitution and government institutions. There was speculation two years ago that there was a rift between the top ranks of the armed forces and López Obrador, leading military leaders to pledge loyalty to the president at the 2019 Mexican Revolution ceremony.
The president Saturday’s event in Mexico City: ‘The Mexican soldier will never betray the homeland.’ sedena/twitter
“They [members of the armed forces] haven’t belonged nor will they belong, I’m sure, to the oligarchy. They come from below, their origin and identity is deep Mexico,” AMLO said Saturday.
“A soldier is a common man in uniform, that’s why he doesn’t betray the people and he will never betray freedom, justice and democracy. The Mexican soldier will never betray the homeland,” he said.
Sandoval’s remarks attracted criticism from academics and lawmakers. Catalina Pérez Correa, a law professor and researcher at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, described his support for the 4T and his call for all Mexicans to back its political project as “very concerning.”
“I have no memory of any general openly supporting a political project in this way,” she wrote on Twitter, asserting that the army chief’s remarks were even worse given the power the military has been assigned.
Jacobo Dayán, a criminal law expert, said it was “regrettable” and “very worrying” that the armed forces had expressed explicit support for one side of politics and that Sandoval had called on Mexicans to join the 4T.
National Action Party Senator Lily Téllez and independent Senator Emilio Álvarez were also critical.
“Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval took sides with the 4T. How unfortunate,” Téllez wrote on Twitter.
Álvarez said on the same platform that the armed forces had shown they are “no longer a neutral institution of the state” but rather a “bastion of the 4T.”
“Sandoval’s call to join the 4T is concerning,” he added.
Governor Barbosa speaks at the funeral service for the three agents. twitter/miguel barbosa
The municipal police chief, his bodyguard and 12 officers have been arrested for the murder of three state investigators in Tecamachalco, Puebla.
After an attack on a Coppel store in the city on November 19, state investigators were called to the scene but were shot in the head by municipal police. Members of the force are allegedly linked to criminal organizations, the newspaper El Sol de México reported.
Minutes after the confrontation, state investigators arrested the 12 municipal officers and and Chief Alejandro Santizo,Santizo later turned himself in.
The victims worked for a department of the state Attorney General’s Office which specializes in high incidence crimes.
Mayor Ignacio Mier Bolaños initially said the attack was the result of confusion.However, Governor Miguel Barbosa confirmed at a ceremony for the victims on Sunday that the investigators were murdered intentionally. “It was an execution …”
Attorney General Gilberto Higuera Bernal said the three investigators were shot from a strategic position, supporting the murder hypothesis. “It is evident that there was a specific firing position to shoot our personnel, who at no time fired [their weapons],” he said.
Barbosa observed that the different public institutions must be synchronized to work effectively. “Society works due to the fact that the three orders of government are articulated, coordinated, and seek to maintain … the well-being that we all aspire to, but if something fails in that coordination of the public powers, the situation becomes complicated,” he said.
The youth hit the man three times on a sidewalk in Guadalajara.
A group of youths assaulted a senior in Guadalajara for no apparent reason last Thursday and shared a video of the attack on social media.
The video shows one of the youths approach the senior, who is waiting for a bus and doesn’t notice them. The youth struck the senior three times in the head before he fell to the ground.
The attack took place near the Alcalde Market in the city center, and the perpetrators were identified on social media.
Three of the four youths and their parents turned themselves into the state Attorney General’s Office. Two of them were identified as Jesús “N” and Alonso “N” through their social media profiles, but their names have not been officially confirmed, the newspaper Informador reported. The news website Reporte Índigo identified the youth who filmed the attack as Alan “N.”
Governor Enrique Alfaro confirmed that the senior was well and said the attack was the sign of a wider social problem.
Dos de los cuatro adolescentes señalados como probables partícipes en la agresión a golpes a un adulto mayor afuera del mercado Alcalde, ya comparecieron ante las autoridades correspondientes y se encuentran individualizados en torno a lo ocurrido. pic.twitter.com/r6iWDEZDAi
“The youths without conscience or values, who hit an elderly person for simple fun outside the Alcalde Market, are the harsh reality and consequence of when social decay spreads like cancer,” he said.
The General Motors complex in Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila.
General Motors won’t invest in Mexico without laws that support renewable energy, the company’s CEO in Mexico said.
Francisco Garza said that GM and other companies won’t invest here in the short and medium term without a legal and structural framework that supports the production of renewable energy
“General Motors is not going to halt its zero-zero-zero vision,” he said, referring to the company’s commitment to a future in which there are no car crashes, no vehicular emissions and no traffic congestion.
“… If the conditions [companies require] are not on the table I believe Mexico won’t be an investment destination in the short and medium term, and as our investments take between five and seven years … if the conditions are not present, the money that was going to be invested in Mexico will go to the United States, Canada, Brazil, China and Europe, and Mexico will cease to be an important [investment] destination,” Garza told the annual convention of the Mexican Institute of Finance Executives.
His remarks came as the federal government pursues reforms that seek to increase the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission’s share of the electricity market and give power generated at its fossil fuel-powered plants priority over renewable energy on the national grid. The government is also proposing the cancellation of self-supply permits which allow companies to operate on electricity they generate themselves, including that from sources such as wind and solar.
If enacted, the proposals would deal a significant blow to private renewable energy companies that have invested heavily in Mexico since the previous government’s energy reform took effect. They would also affect companies such as GM that want to increase their use of renewable energy.
While President López Obrador champions the continued use of fossil fuels and seeks to wind back the 2013 energy reform, Garza stressed the importance of transitioning to clean, renewable energy sources.
GM has committed to investing US $27 billion between 2020 and 2025 to accelerate its transition to the manufacture of electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles. The company announced in April that it would invest more than $1 billion in Coahuila to open a new paint plant and expand its Ramos Arizpe manufacturing hub so that it can begin making electric vehicles there in 2023.
“There is an important factor that will determine whether the hand brake is put on investment or not,” Garza said, referring to government support for the renewable sector.
GM’s objective is to operate on 100% clean energy by 2040, he added.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the leaders discussed energy – including a constitutional bill that seeks to overhaul electricity market rules – but the issue was not a major discussion point.
A gray whale checks out a new boatload of Whale Magic Tours guests in Mulegé's Ojo de Liebre Lagoon. Photos by Shari Bondy
When she was 20, Canadian Shari Bondy, who worked on various boats in the Pacific, found her watercraft blown out to sea by a storm in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, off the coast of Oaxaca. At some point, she fell unconscious, came to, and found that the vessel was surrounded by whales, who were keeping the boat from flipping over.
She thinks she might have had a near-death experience or something similar because her memories of the event include the whales somehow “talking” to her, telling her that she would be OK and — when she realized she was safe and wanted to somehow thank them — urging her to tell people about them.
She later found out that it was not rare for whales to come to the aid of unlucky humans at sea. So back in Canada, she began studying whale behavior and working on tours that took people to view gray whales on the northern end of their migration route off British Columbia.
But to understand the whales meant to also know the southern end of that migration route — in Baja.
During Bondy’s first visit to Baja California Sur in 1988, she heard about a then-unknown lagoon in Mulegé where whales were so comfortable with humans that they regularly interacted with them, even bringing their babies along. She decided to check it out.
Guest on a Whale Magic tour kissing a whale.
What was supposed to be an hours-long visit to Ojo de Liebre in Mulegé, also known as Scammon’s Lagoon, turned into weeks. It changed her life.
She became pregnant there with her daughter, but that is certainly not the only way the trip profoundly affected her. The experience with the whales in Ojo de Liebre floored her, and she knew she needed to study them.
But finding a way to live here and finance her research wasn’t easy. For some time, she literally lived in a tent on the beach with her daughter and teamed up with local fishermen to give whale sighting tours in English for tips.
She says she was “flying under the radar” since she didn’t know that she needed a permit to do this.
The years went by, and after about a decade, one tour guest happened to ask her what her company’s name was.
She had never thought about it. It was just an informal thing she’d worked out with local fishermen, and most of what she got out of it was the chance take pictures and do other whale research activities.
This guest suggested that she formalize the tour business and asked her, “What is it? What is it that you do?”
Her answer was, “It’s not really what I do; it’s what the whales do. They do this whale magic.”
Hence the name she finally gave her business: Whale Magic Tours.
The tour company is based in that same lagoon that captivated her so many years ago, but today she works with her now grown-up daughter, Sirena. Both are bilingual guides who have lived with and studied the whales for decades.
Unlike other tour operators, they are able to educate visitors from all over the world about whale behavior and biology, the history of the lagoon and stories of the human and whale encounters they have witnessed. Bondy says that gazing into the eye of a whale is a “humbling, life-changing encounter you will never forget.”
At the peak of the whale sighting season here, which runs from January to March, there can be up to 2,000 mothers and babies in the lagoon.
The blowhole, or marine geyser, that gives Bondy’s hotel, La Bufadora, its name. Bufadora is blowhole in Spanish.
So why do the whales approach people?
One reason is that there has been no hunting here in living memory, so the whales feel safe.
The other reason is that the whales here are kind of bored.
While in Baja, they are entirely focused on bearing their young and preparing them for the migration north. They are not even eating. So the gaggles of humans coming out to see them is a kind of entertainment.
They come close and like to be caressed by people’s hands. It is definitely a learned behavior, as it happens nowhere else in the world.
In the 1970s, Mexico began implementing the whale protection measures in the lagoon that are currently in place. The El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve was established in Mulegé in 1988.
Mexican authorities asked Bondy to help establish rules for the growing number of humans going out to see the whales in the lagoon.
But Bondy’s involvement in the development of this part of Baja has not ended there. Some years after settling in Mexico, she met and married a fisherman from the little-known town of Bahia Asunción, Mulegé, south of the whale lagoon.
The couple settled into a small house there in 2002 when it had no paved roads, no electricity and no running water. Despite that, they began receiving guests in 2006 and slowly expanded into a bed and breakfast.
It eventually became a hotel called La Bufadora, named for a nearby natural blowhole.
The two businesses keep the Bondy family busy, but Shari still wants to do more for this part of Baja. It attracts a certain kind of tourist, those looking for something off the beaten path or something more laid-back than the popular tourist destinations of Los Cabos and Ensenada.
Despite its growing fame due to the whales, the town of Bahia Asunción is still not terribly developed because even with a paved road, it is an hour from the main highway. “People are too busy to make the detour and check it out,” Bondy says.
Bondy lives in the small town of Bahia Asunción, Mulegé. She also works to promote the tourist economy there.
But it’s worth the trip for the miles of pristine beaches, fishing, boat trips to Asunción Island and, of course, fresh seafood, she adds.
Although the season for tours starts in January, Bondy suggests making arrangements now as spaces fill up quickly, especially with limited space due to COVID-19 rules.
• To book a tour with Whale Magic Tours, you can contact them at [email protected].
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
Capirotada is named for a hat worn by Inquisition-era Catholic penitents, but it's sinfully delicious.
Some kitchen problems are universal, and what to do with stale bread is one of those.
In Italy, they came up with strata and budi; in England, it’s “the poor man’s pudding.” Spain and Mexico have capirotada.
Whatever you call it, bread pudding is eaten all over the world, albeit with slightly different ingredients.
Traditional Mexican bread pudding is quite different than what I’m used to, though; it includes cheese — aged and sharp cotija, creamy, melty asadero or even a light queso fresco. That’s part of its Moorish heritage.
The word capirotada originates from capirote, the name of a tall conical hat worn by penitents of an extremist Catholic sect during the Inquisition in Spain. (The hat has holes for the eyes and covers the face and allowed the flagellants to remain anonymous. It was later adopted by the American Ku Klux Klan as part of its ominous uniform.)
At any rate, the bread pudding, so named because of its humble main ingredient of stale bread and the symbology representing the body and blood of Christ, was brought across the ocean by Spanish conquistadores.
There are several variations on Mexican capirotada. Blanca (white), is made with more milk and white sugar, and oscura (dark) is sweetened with piloncillo (unrefined brown sugar). Some recipes call for frying the bread first, but most call for stale bread cut into cubes.
Although supposedly Good Friday and during Lent are the traditional times to serve it, I find it more common here in Mazatlán during the cool winter months. While peanuts, almonds and raisins are customary, there’s no reason not to experiment with other dried fruits and nuts.
Stale bread works best; if using fresh, toast it first or let it sit out for a day to dry out somewhat.
Simple Traditional Capirotada
1¼ cups grated piloncillo or packed brown sugar
1¼ cups water
2 (3-inch) cinnamon sticks
4½ cups cubed bolillos or other soft white bread (can be stale)
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup slivered almonds, toasted
¼ cup toasted peanuts, chopped
2 Tbsp. butter, in small pieces
¾ cup cotija or grated Chihuahua cheese
With sweet fruits and salty cheeses, Mexican capirotada has something for everyone.
Combine first three ingredients in saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 10 minutes. Discard cinnamon sticks.
Combine bread, raisins, nuts and butter in a bowl. Drizzle with warm sugar syrup, mixing gently. Spoon mixture into 8-inch square baking dish coated with cooking spray. Top with cheese. Cover with foil; chill 30 minutes or up to 4 hours. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake additional 15 minutes or until cheese is golden brown. Serve warm.
Basic Bread Pudding
If you can find a sweet egg bread like brioche or challah, this pudding will be especially rich. Otherwise, use whatever soft white bread that’s available.
2 cups milk
2 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
⅓ cup sugar
Pinch salt
5-6 cups sweet egg bread like challah or brioche, in 2-inch cubes
2 eggs, beaten
In a saucepan over low heat, warm milk, butter, vanilla, sugar and salt. Continue cooking just until butter melts; set aside to cool. Meanwhile, butter a 4- to 6-cup baking dish and fill it with the cubed bread.
Whisk eggs into the cooled milk mixture; pour over bread. Bake at 350 F for 30–45 minutes or until custard is set but still wobbly and the edges of bread have browned. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Tres Leches Bread Pudding
This is baked in a hot water bath like a custard.
Butter for greasing baking dish
3 eggs
4 egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup condensed milk
1 cup whole milk
1 (12-oz.) can evaporated milk
2 tsp. vanilla
½ tsp. salt
About 8 cups brioche or other soft white bread, cut into 1½-inch cubes
Heat the oven to 350 F. Butter 9-inch square baking dish. In large bowl, beat eggs and egg yolks until combined. Whisk in 1 cup heavy cream, ¾ cup condensed milk, the whole milk, evaporated milk, vanilla and salt.
Spread bread in prepared dish; pour egg mixture on top. Press bread down gently with spatula so all pieces are immersed in liquid. Let stand at room temperature 10 minutes.
Bring a kettle of water to a boil. Drizzle 2 Tbsp. condensed milk over the pudding. Cover baking dish tightly with aluminum foil, then set it inside a large roasting pan. Pour boiling water into the roasting pan about halfway up sides of baking dish.
Bake until center of pudding is almost set but still slightly wet, about 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake about 30 minutes more until set in center and top is golden. Carefully remove roasting pan from oven; let pudding cool in the water about 20 minutes. Drizzle with remaining 2 Tbsp. condensed milk. Serve warm, cool or cold.
—nytimes.com
Goat Cheese and Broccoli Bread Pudding
Butter for greasing baking dish
6-8 cups stale baguette, bolillo or other bread, crusts removed
1½ cups milk
2-4 garlic cloves
½ lb. broccoli crowns, cut in small florets
2-3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. fresh thyme or 1 tsp. dried
1 cup (about 4 oz.) goat cheese, crumbled
4 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
Rub bread slices, front and back, with cut cloves of garlic. Cut bread into cubes. Place in bowl and toss with 1 cup of the milk. Set aside. Butter baking dish.
While there are many sweet versions, bread pudding can also be a savory dish.
In large bowl, beat eggs and goat cheese; add remaining milk. Add salt and pepper, then add the soaked bread and any milk remaining in the bowl. Mix gently. Let sit 15–30 minutes.
Mince any remaining garlic. Steam or microwave broccoli until crisp-tender.
Heat 1 Tbsp. oil over medium heat in skillet. Add garlic, half the thyme, broccoli and a bit of salt and pepper. Stir and cook for 2 minutes, remove from heat and stir into bread mixture.
Scoop bread mixture into baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining thyme, salt and pepper; drizzle on remaining tablespoon of oil. Bake at 350 F for about 50 minutes until puffed, set and lightly browned.
