for the love of all that´s corn

back at the beginning of august, antonio and i went to visit courtney in her pueblo, dulce nombre de maria, for their annual fiesta de maíz. their celebration of corn includes various vendors selling elote loco, tamales de elote, rigua, atole de elote, and of course, tortillas de elote. all i have to say to that is yum. they also have a little parade and groups of bailes folkloricas, as well as the crowning of the year´s reina de maíz (queen of the corn). the candidates for queen all have to make dresses made out of corn...the kernels, husks, tassels, etc. a group of young kids also did a play about how corn was a gift from the earth.

in keeping with the corn theme, the other day papa chepe, this guy in san jorge gave me half a sack of elote. i was like ¨thanks,¨ but then i was thinking - what the hell am i gonna do with this corn? it was a nice gift because anybody would kill to have someone give them a half a sack of corn. so i asked niña domy if she would teach me how to make tamales. so last friday i went over to her house and she taught me the art of making tamales de elote and unlike my unsuccessful attempts at making perfect tortillas, the tamales turned out really well. mmmmmm....tamales and crema, the perfect meal.

anyway, here´s to corn!

little girls dancing a baile de maíz





candidates for ¨reina de maíz¨











this girl won, not surprisingly. courtney was saying how the candidate from dulce nombre wins every year. (the other candidates were from surrounding cantones and pueblos)



elote loco!