The Season of Delight and Fear
Colors and light and how we live today.
The neighborhood is beginning to gussy itself up for the holidays. It hasn’t gotten to the point where carols are blasting from every store and restaurant. It’s coming soon, though, providing good cheer and fellowship, even when you can’t stand to hear The Ronettes one more time.
The street banners were strung the first week in November and the lights have turned on. They seem to embrace everyone—from the main shopping area on 86th Street to the Middle Eastern shops at 65th Street.
All the 99-cent stores outdo one another’s offerings of trimmings and lights. You wouldn’t believe how great plastic decorations look from afar. I can vouch for the fact that they remain unruffled and beautiful for years.
Beginning the day after Thanksgiving, my corner bar, Skinflints, begins to festoon itself inside and out. Two tall nutcrackers flank the front door. Inside is a wonderland of tinsel; green, silver, and red bunting; paper lanterns; and the famous toy train chooing-chooing around the chandelier above the bar. Like every great corner bar, it’s dark even on a brilliant sunny day, making it a companionable place for all kinds of neighborhood gatherings, especially funerals. (You can practically hear “A Parting Glass” even when no one is singing it.) But this time of year it is a den of conviviality. Some days it seems like everyone in the place is seeing one another for the first time in years. Lots of hugging and slapping backs. Lots of best wishes to “youse” and yours. Lots of memories shared.
And then there is Denis. He wasn’t around when I went about gathering photographs. It was 26 degrees this morning and I hoped he agreed to nestle in the local warming center. He left his worldly possessions tucked into his small slice of real estate and put up a special sign for the season.
Tomorrow is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. In 1531, ten years after the native empire was destroyed by Hernán Cortés, she appeared before a peasant, Juan Diego. Our Lady’s beauty took the form of an Aztec princess. With her brown skin, dark hair, and a black ribbon around her waist signifying she was soon to give birth, she became the country’s mother, a symbol of resilience in defeat, the defender of justice, the guardian of children, and protector of immigrants.
Every year, the neighborhood churches with large Mexican and Latino congregations celebrate Our Lady with a parade that starts at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and ends at the Co-Church of St. Joseph and St. Tersea of Avila, some four miles away. The priests lead the way, followed by alter boys holding candles and parishioners bearing small floats and banners with the image of Our Lady. Some wear Aztec head dresses and cloaks like the one Juan Diego wore. Many Mexican and American flags are waved around. It is late in the afternoon by the time the procession arrives at St. Joseph. A mass is said and, afterwards, there is a party in the church hall, featuring traditional dancing and dishes: tamales, enchiladas, tacos, pozole, and a very complicated mole poblano. A friend prides herself on being the best tamale cook in her parish. It takes her three full days of preparation and cooking to fill many deep aluminum pans.
(The video is somewhat long but don’t miss the food and dancing toward the end.)
Our Lady of Guadalupe has become even more important this year. ICE agents began to appear this summer and are a growing presence in the last few weeks. There is concern that the parade will attract their attention. My friend’s brother was picked up last month. She and her friends have plans for what to do if ICE comes for them, especially for how to care for the children they’ll have to leave behind. Most parishioners have similar plans.
But nothing will stop them from honoring Our Lady. More volunteers will walk alongside to shield the marchers. The priest will recite the evening mass and the feasting and dancing will fill the Co-Church of St. Joseph’s community hall.
Tamales for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
I wanted to find the most authentic recipe for tamales so I turned to The Art of Mexican Cooking, by Diana Kennedy, the hard-nose authority on Mexican cooking. The book’s index lists 29 versions. Instructions for the whole complicated process rakes in six pages. In Kennedy’s opinion, the best tamales come from Yucatán but she doesn’t offer a straightforward recipe for them since it would vary from cook to cook, and town to town.
The best way around this pickle, is to pass you over to YucatánToday, a reliable source of information about the state. The recipe I found there is very comprehensive.
Full disclosure—I never made them. I’ve eaten a ton of homemade ones and that was enough to tell me I could never do them.
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Great post, Pat. Delight and Fear this year, indeed.
Terrific video and photos. Good read, Pat. Thank you, once again.