Bread Babies? Bread Babies.

A few weeks ago we wandered into our local bakery and among the delicious caloric chocolaty monstrosities we found something that looked a bit different. It looked like a giant gingerbread man, but instead of gingerbread, he (and she in some cases) were made of sweet bread. Their features were made up of icing much like the icing on a gingerbread man. The biggest difference is that a traditional gingerbread man is about the size of your palm and this thing was the size of your forearm.

Of course we got two. We tried them and they were kind of like flaky croissant like sweet rolls. They were delicious. While it was good, the thing I kept coming back to was the fact that it was a baby, not a grown man like a gingerbread man. We were eating sweet sweet colorful bread babies. There is a certain visceral satisfaction to crunching the parts off of an animal cracker, but eating a bread baby was a little unsettling at first. The roll was almost the size of an actual human baby. 

Nonetheless, we enjoyed it and found it in nearly every store or bakery we went to. It was apparently an Ecuadorian traditional food. We picked them up every now and again and sooner than later the whole baby eating thing faded. We only found out recently what this was all about; oh and by the way, they are called Guaguas de Pan aka babies of bread. Here is a brief history of our delicious bread babies and their place in Ecuadorian culture.

On November 2nd, All Souls Day is celebrated in Ecuador and over the Andean region, with unique manifestations of religious syncretism. Throughout the country people visit the memorial parks to honor their departed. Indigenous communities massively visit cemeteries keeping an old pagan tradition of taking along the favorite food dishes to share with their loved ones by their graves.

They eat quietly and slowly in a solemn ceremony, sharing food among the families. Some of them circulate around the cemetery exchanging foods. They give food as a reward for those who pray for their departed.

The ancient belief is that the soul visits its relatives during these days and should have plenty of food to be fed and be able to continue further on its journey to the afterlife.

The typical food for All Souls Day is “guaguas de pan”, accompanied by a beverage called “colada morada”. These foods have a remote origin in the Incas, who offered their gods their bodies and blood in sacrifice ceremonies.

“Guaguas de pan” is bread baked in the shaped of child figurines decorated with pastry – colorful frosting. “Guagua” is the Quichua word for “child”.

“Colada morada” is a drink of a variety of berries with other exotic fruits and spices that give this beverage its purplish color.

Now day’s families take advantage of the day which is to visit the grave site and a mass is generally offered for those family members now gone out of respect.   The colada and guaguas are enjoyed in a much more festive atmosphere!

Restaurants offer the most elaborate meal leading up to this celebration, goes for weeks before and after.  Bakeries also offered decorated bread dolls. 

Enjoy this tradition and the vacation.

We may not know all of the traditions yet, but we're finding them on our own with some success.