Ensalada de Manzana Navideña

This is a Bajio dish. Guanajuato, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, the central Mexican states where Christmas Eve means a long table and a cold ensalada de manzana sitting next to the bacalao and the pavo. It has cousins in every region of Mexico now, but the version with crema, condensed milk, pineapple, and nuez de Castilla belongs to the central altiplano and to the December holiday table.

Do not call this a fruit salad. A fruit salad is what you eat in the summer with yogurt. This is a Christmas dish, sweet on purpose, served cold, made the night before because it has to sit. The condensed milk is not a mistake or an excess. It is the recipe. The cream binds the apple and the raisin and the pineapple into something that tastes like the December of a Mexican childhood, the bowl your aunt brings to the posada in a glass refractario covered with plastic wrap.

My mother made this every Nochebuena in Colonia Roma. She would dice the apples on the morning of the 24th, plump the raisins in warm water (never skip this, she would say, the raisins have to come back to life), and let the whole thing sit in the refrigerator until midnight. The pomegranate seeds went on at the last minute because she wanted the colors of the flag visible on the table. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to central Mexico in December. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.