Corn festival in Vega Redonda

Sunday was the final day of a week-long Festival of Elote in the village of Vega Redonda.

Elotes are ears of corn that are recently harvested and eaten in several different ways.

We eat them as people in the US would eat sweet corn – but this is more like field corn than sweet corn.

They make sweet tamales (tamalitos dulces):

tamales with meat (montucas):

a hot sweet drink (atol dulce):

a hot drink with spices and beans (atol chuco [dirty drink] or atol agrio [bitter drink]):

frittas (fried corn fritters):

and riguas (corn dough cooked on a grill between two banana leaves):

I went out with Padre German and two people from Dulce Nombre for a Mass to end the celebration. Of course, we ate before Mass.

After Mass, there were some cultural events, including singing and a series of dances performed by students from the Maestro en Casa (a distance learning by radio program).

This was the fifth year they’ve had the festival, a good way for them to try to come together as a community as well as to remember their cultural values and traditions.

And the riguas and frittas were great.

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More photos can be found in my flickr set