in praise of sardines: Making sugar skulls on El Día de los Muertos

Friday, November 04, 2005

Making sugar skulls on El Día de los Muertos

Every day of this week has been a special holiday. Halloween fell on Monday, Diwali on Tuesday, El Día de los Muertos on Wednesday and Eid ul-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan, on Thursday.

I become especially sentimental during the Aztec/Mexican El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

Every year, I join thousands of San Franciscans in remembering our deceased loved ones by participating in a lively, musical night-time procession through the streets of the Mission District. Cradling a candle in my hands, I relish being surrounded by the joyous, raucous revelers, dancing skeletons, blaring trumpets and beating drums. I savor the sweet smell of burning sage and the explosion of fiery orange marigolds on altars. What a welcome contrast to the denial that surrounds death in the dominant American culture!

Although I've lived in the city a dozen years, I joined the parade for the first time just three years ago, a few months after my mother passed away. That year, I particularly found solace in having a celebratory day dedicated to honoring our ancestors and loved ones. I enjoyed the thrill of being squeezed and jostled through the dark alleyways enveloped by colorful graffiti, sweaty skeleton-painted faces and deafening samba music, as if descending into Hades. Then came the release of opening onto a spacious park full of altars strewn with sparkling candles and bright marigolds. No place could have been more comforting to me that year. I knew viscerally that my experience of loss was not unique.

On Wednesday, I journeyed to the Mission District to gather marigolds and pan del muerte, the traditional, sugar-coated round egg bread decorated with crossed bones, for the altar N and I now set up annually in our home to honor our ancestors.

With the good fortune that comes with living in a rich, multicultural city, I stumbled across an artisan making sugar skulls, another traditional addition to altars, on 24th Street. I watched with awe as Emilio Quintana poured hot sugar syrup into 150-year old clay skull molds, just as his ancestors had for the past five generations. Mr. Quintana has been traveling to San Francisco from Puebla, Mexico, for the last 18 years to sell and demonstrate the art of making these candy skulls.

To see how he made these surprisingly hollow sugar skulls, which took just a few minutes, click on the picture above to be taken to my Flickr slideshow of the process.