Abundance

January the sixth is the day when you cut open a large cake and see if the figure representing baby jesus is in your slice. At least that´s what happenes in Mexico. The cake is bejewelled with slices of glacé fruit, the electrified colours variety and is to all intents and purposes a bit of an eye sore. The french one is all together more refined and more tasty, but we don´t care about things like that here. (We? Since when did I start counting myself as a Mexican?) What you want is a bit of eye-socking garishness to start the year off.

Everyone takes it in turns to cut a slice. I was first and out popped a rabbit. If you get a baby jesus or in this case, a rabbit, it means you will have abundance for the year to come. On the second time round, I got a tree. So I will have double abundance this year, it seems

I have already begun by having two slices of cake.

being the lucky receiver of all this abundance means that you have to make Tamales on February 2nd. This is Día de la Candelaría, and frankly I have no idea what it is all about. it seems to be about eating tamales. I have made tamales once before and it involves enormous quantities of lard. There is another thing which can be made, called Canarios (Canaries) which are similar but made with butter. I assume they are called canaries because the butter makes them yellow. But that is just my assumption. Anyway, have enough time to find a recipe and get on with it.

I can´t fathom what a rabbit or a tree have got to do with the nativity, I suppose there were some around at the time. But, no matter, if they will bring me double stuff this year then that´s fine by me. Except of course, if it´s double trouble.