La Mexicana bakery in Nashua has been baking nonstop this month. Owner Socorro Gonzalez is making batches and batches of pan de muerto, a popular offering for family ofrendas, or altars.
“It has to be exactly the way the recipe calls for,” she said. “It's not like the kitchen. It's not like making soup.”
People from Mexico and Central America celebrate Día de los Muertos on Nov. 1 and 2. The days are an opportunity for families to honor deceased loved ones with offerings of bread, altars and flowers.
Gonzalez comes from a baker’s family. She learned how to bake bread from her father. He spent 62 years as the baker at the same shop in Reynosa, Mexico in the northern state of Tamaulipas. Even though she inherited a talent for baking from him, she said that each baker adds their own unique touch.
La Mexicana has its own secret recipe for pan de muerto, and each region in Mexico has their own variation. Leavened wheat bread is not native to Mexico, and Gonzalez traces the tradition of pan de muerto as it’s known today back to the Spanish conquest.
“It didn't look like it looks right now. It looked like a heart and it was painted in red,” she explained. “So instead of killing somebody or sacrificing somebody for the gods, they used to just give a piece of bread.”
La Mexicana has been in the community for nearly 20 years, but has been under Gonzalez’s management for the past year.
After the Day of the Dead ends, they will continue to sell Mexican food and spices, as well as crunchy bolillo rolls and fresh-baked sweet conchas.
