Last Saturday we popped into the Exploratorium museum for a Day of the Dead altars display and holiday food from Mexico and Guatemala.
During Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos), November 1 and 2, families remember deceased loved ones with special foods, flowers, candles, photos, sugar skulls, and skeletons arranged on altars (ofrendas) in homes.
Altars for the Ancestors
Four different altars of ancestors are on display in the Exploratorium center gallery.
Tree of Life
The altar created by the Marigold Project honors “lives of children, their light, and their sacred place in the cycle of life.”
Top on the altar is ornamented with garlands of marigolds, figures of a boy and a girl, and monarch butterflies.
In Mexican tradition, migrating monarch butterflies represent spirits of deceased family members returning home, marigolds guide the way.
Look for colorful figures of animals throughout this altar – purple and blue sea otter with green baby otter, armadillo rolled on its back, spotted jaguar, pig with pink hooves, possum with three little possums, pink and purple octopus, blue donkey with swishy tail, and more.
Big photo at the top is from the Tree of Life.
Collage below shows three altars, two images on either end are Oxacan altar, on the left is Guatemalan altar, Yucatec altar is on the right.
Oxacan Altar –
The Oxacan altar has Zapotec traditions, three levels of Upperworld, Earth, Underworld with a marigold path for the spirits in the middle. On the altar are seasonal foods, chocolate, bread, tamales, nuts and fruit.
Guatemalan Altar –
For Guatemala, Day of the Dead coincides with end of rainy season and bounty of corn harvest. Marigolds are arranged in circular crowns, and kids fly kites to send messages to the ancestors.
Yucatec Altar –
This altar from the Yucatan Peninsula, also has three levels, photos of loved ones, and marigolds. Foods on the altar include fruits, the green bundles are pib, tamales wrapped in banana leaves, and traditional Maya foods too.
Altar display at the Exploratorium is up until November 2.
Comida es Vida – Food is Life
For Day of the Dead, wide variety of special foods are prepared to eat, and also put on altars as offerings.
At the Exploratorium four tables were set up to taste foods from Oxaca, Guatemala, Yucatan and hot chocolate.
At the Oxacan table we enjoyed preserved sweets – Tejocote (fruit from Mexican hawthorn tree) and apple (photo above).
The Guatemalan table had camote (sweet potato) and ayote (squash), both part of traditional K’iche Maya culture and gratitude for the harvest, both above and below the earth.
At the Yucatan table we tasted pib, a kind of tamale, cooked in banana leaves in an oven underground. The tamale was delicious, but it’s not readily available in the Bay Area, these ladies came from Mexico to prepare this seasonal holiday dish.
The hot chocolate we tasted from Cru Chocolate, produced by farmers in Central America, was seasoned with delicious spices.
For more about Dia de los Muertos holiday and children’s books, read our blog post: Day of the Dead.
Day of the Dead wouldn’t be complete without sugar skeletons – calaveras de azucar – decorated with colored foil, sequins and icing.
As always, on Travel for Kids fun things to do with kids in San Francisco.