Chiapas Painted Bread of the Dead (Pan Pintado)

Chiapas, in the Central Depression around Chiapa de Corzo, makes pan pintado for Dia de Muertos with a seriousness people outside the state often miss. This is not the orange-blossom pan de muerto from central Mexico. This is Chiapaneco bread, colored by hand, placed on the altar beside candles, flowers, fruit, tamales, and cups of atole. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

The dough is enriched with eggs, milk, sugar, and manteca de cerdo. Yes, lard. La manteca es el sabor, and in this bread it gives tenderness without making the crumb greasy. The paint is not decoration for decoration's sake. The women who make this bread in family kitchens and small panaderias paint flowers, crosses, leaves, borders, and small figures in red, green, yellow, and blue because the altar is a table of memory. The bread has to feed the living and honor the dead.

I learned this version in Chiapa de Corzo from a panadera who worked before sunrise with bowls of color lined up like a child's school paints, except she moved with the discipline of someone who had done it for forty years. She told me, 'No lo hagas palido.' Do not make it pale. The bread should look alive. If you are afraid of color, make another bread.

Understand this before you start: pan pintado is a two-stage bread. First you build a soft dough and let it rise properly. Then you paint it with patience before baking. No me vengas con atajos. A rushed altar bread looks rushed, and the dead deserve better.