Madeline's Travels: Mexican Wedding

Last week my friend invited me to the wedding of his neighbor’s friend in a small village about an hour south of Puebla. The town is so small that it was practically a whole-village celebration. In many respects it was a stark contrast to all the weddings that I have attended in the past. We sat at long tables outdoors amidst stray dogs eager for scraps of foods and with the sound of chickens clucking in the background. The church ceremony had already taken place in the morning, but we arrived in time for the village meal around five in the afternoon. Not only was there food to feed everyone in the village, but probably enough food to sustain the village for a week. The main plate was mole poblano. The quantity was astounding; there were literally hundreds of gallons of mole served with meat from dozens of chickens and half a dozen boars and accompanied by stacks of handmade tortillas and tamales. Guests went home with buckets filled to the brim with mole. After feasting on mole (which I managed to smear all over my face) we moved the long tables to make room for the traditional wedding dances. My favorite was el guajolote, “the turkey dance”. The bride and groom danced in the center of a circle of a group of people dancing around them and carrying gifts, among which, were live turkeys, baskets of tamales and bottles of tequila. After dancing they brought out the wedding cake. I couldn’t help but find it somewhat humorous that the Mexican wedding cake tradition is for the bride and groom to each smash their face into the cake. Apparently feeding each other the first bite doesn’t have quite the appeal as a frosting-covered face!