Keeping Día de Muertos traditions alive in Montreal

It’s a bustling Saturday at Boulangerie Carlota, and there’s a steady stream of customers, all smiles as they look upon a counter laden with baked goods: Rollos de guayaba with dizzying layers of pastry curled around cream cheese and pink guava curd, fluffy concha buns with a crackled, shell-like topping, and focaccia flecked with hibiscus petals and oregano. 

But these days, the star is the pan de muerto.

Pan de muerto, as its name implies, is baked and eaten around the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead, el Día de los Muertos, a festival so significant that it is recognized on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. 

“Different parts of Mexico have their own way of doing pan de muerto, and we wanted to show a bit of that with our bread,” explains Mariana Martin, the owner and head baker at Carlota.

Across from a team of bakers working on the next batch of bread, Mariana invites me to sit down in the kitchen. She holds up bread that smells faintly like oranges and butter, glittering with sugar. 

“The round shape signifies the cycle of life and death, and the pieces of dough on top symbolize the crossbones and skull of the dead. Sometimes the pieces also represent the tears that are shed for loved ones.”

She takes another in her hands, this one covered in sesame seeds, flavoured with cinnamon and green anise and adorned with the face of a figure. Mariana explains that this variation is popular in Oaxaca, representing deceased loved ones in their tombs. The face was made by Oaxacan artisans with a dough that is sun-dried for three days before being painted by hand.

Instead of seeing this as a loss, she sees it as a sign of resistance and the survival of indigenous Mexican traditions.

Traditionally, the dough faces were made to reflect the deceased, but Spanish colonizers and their priests saw this as idol worship and a barrier to the Christianization of Mexico. Indigenous communities seeking to preserve this tradition capitulated by replacing the faces with those of various saints. 

“This is why the faces you see here have European features and white skin,” explains Mariana. 

Instead of seeing this as a loss, she sees it as a sign of resistance and the survival of indigenous Mexican traditions.

Mariana grew up in Mexico City and trained at the Institute for Culinary Education in New York, and also has a background in food anthropology. Her eyes light up as she explains that thousands of years ago before contact with the Spanish, pan de muerto was made with ingredients from the local harvest: corn, amaranth, honey, and vanilla. With the Spanish came wheat, sugar, butter, and oranges, as well as European baking traditions. Today, pan de muerto reflects the tumultuous history and ultimate triumph of Mexico.

Casual observance could easily mistake these breads as macabre, but the holiday goes beyond the grotesque depictions in its Western analog of Halloween. Instead, it brings families and communities together to look the inevitability of death in the face, reflect on the rhythms of the natural world, and celebrate lives lived.

As the Mexican diaspora across Montreal adapts Día de los Muertos traditions to the ingredients, geography, and people here, they honour past ancestors, and perhaps in their own way, create traditions as ancestors of the future.

Since 2016, Rafael Benitez, the artistic director of the non-profit organization PAAL, has been organizing events around the Day of the Dead, using it as a starting point to encourage learning and celebration of Mexican culture. PAAL’s mission is to use art and workshops to encourage the sharing of cultures, respect, and empathy, to “help us discover what unites instead of separates us.”

This year, PAAL is holding three weeks of events, culminating in a big party called Manalli on Saturday October 28. Taking place in NDG from 12 - 6 pm, the event will be an opportunity for Montrealers from all backgrounds to hear live music and storytelling, see dance performances, check out an artisan market, and see ten different offrendas – altars in memory of the dead.

Alongside photos, these altars are usually colourful and decorated with cempasúchil, vibrant yellow and orange marigold flowers that are native to Mexico. Rafael explains that the holiday is a time to honour ancestors and thank the deceased. 

He elaborates that yes, this involves grief, but that it is balanced with sweet things like pan de muerto, vibrant decorations, music, and laughter as families and friends recount the good, the bad, and the funny memories of their loved ones. 

Among the customs is laying out marigold petals, a nod to the tradition of a trail of petals guiding spirits as they journey back during the holiday. In this way, the dead are not forgotten, but remembered every year. Other objects are placed on the altar, including favourite foods, and if the deceased is a child or a pet, their favourite toys.

Rafael explains that the holiday is intimately tied to nature, with the colours of the petals mirroring the golden hues of the harvest.

“Día de los Muertos is the most beautiful day in Mexico, with flowers everywhere.”

“Día de los Muertos is the most beautiful day in Mexico, with flowers everywhere,” remembers Maurín Arellano, chef and owner of the Plateau restaurant Vivace. Maurín is usually speaking with enthusiasm about the latest produce from the local farmers she works with, but today she’s reminiscing about what it was like to celebrate Día de los Muertos in Mexico City as a kid.

“Everyone has an altar at home, and people leave their doors open so that neighbours can visit their altars. There’s always music, and the Paseo de la Reforma – the main avenue in the city – closes for a parade of people dressed up as skeletons or la Calavera Catrina. As kids, we would eat pan de muerte with hot chocolate.”

With these jubilant memories in mind, Maurín is hosting a Día de los Muertos event at her restaurant, starting at 9 pm on Saturday October 28. On the menu is music from DJ Killjoy, a performance from hip hop artist Tolentino, and hibiscus and tequila cocktails. She’s also working on a mole verde recipe with tomatillos, jalapeno and serrano peppers, cilantro, spinach and pepitas, which will be featured in the street food that she will be serving.

As the Mexican diaspora across Montreal adapts Día de los Muertos traditions to the ingredients, geography, and people here, they honour past ancestors, and perhaps in their own way, create traditions as ancestors of the future. And by sharing these rituals with the city, the trail of orange petals extends north, connecting them home.