Royal abuse

Submitted by gwolf on Wed, 01/09/2008 - 10:54

I just went to our Institute's yearly ceremony of rosca de reyes. What's that? Well, according to the tradition, on January 6 the tres reyes magos (boringly translated to English as three wise men - It should be something like three wizard kings) payed a visit to the newborn baby Jesus. In Mexico, the tradition mandates that every family, group of friends, or whatnot should gather and eat rosca de reyes, a round, sweet bread, usually some 10cm wide. The rosca has some plastic babies hidden in it, remembering how baby Jesus had to be hidden and smuggled out of his birthplace. And, according to the Mexican tradition, if you cut your piece of rosca and get the baby, you are expected to buy tamales for everybody on February 2, día de La Candelaria. (why? Don't ask me!)

Anyway... An image is worth ~10Kb of UTF8 (so it's still better to describe it, as it weighs around 63K, but what the hell):

Two babies?! I was abused by the Three Wizard Kings! (at least it does not sound as sad as "I was abused by three wise men"!) I'll have to buy tamales for everybody on La Candelaria twice, even if they are no longer hungry!

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vicm3's picture

Not Buy

Make tamales... its my third year on a row that I got 2 babbies. And you're suppossed to make tamales... lately lot of people BUY them but the original tradition was to make (or better say cook?).
toxcatl's picture

Re: Royal abuse

In Spain this means good luck for one year !!!! En resumen, que no te puedes quejar aunque tengas que pagar unos tamales pa la Candelaria (que ademas estan bueniiisimos)
Gunnar's picture

I'm not complaining!

Oh, no, no way. We love tamales. And they are quite cheap - probably it will be ~US$15 for the ~10 people at my workgroup. Won't hurt a bit. Well, yes: It is a _lot_ of fat. But who am I to complain?
Simon's picture

Re: Royal abuse

I thought the bean in your cake thing, was from the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Think pre-christian.
drCursor's picture

Re: Royal abuse

In Portugal we have the bolo rei ("king cake"), each cake used to have a small "gift" inside it (strange things like horses, houses, etc etc, but I've never seen a but now, because of European Union regulations they had to stop putting the gifts. The cake is covered with crystallized fruits and other disgunting things.
Gunnar's picture


Who does the EU think it is to dictate what you can put in your cakes? Of course, nobody puts cyanide in it (or prizes small enough to be swallowed). EU is a fascist organization!
Alvaro Lopez Ortega's picture

Re: Royal abuse

The tradition is a little bit different is Spain. Here, if the figure (not necessarily a baby) is in your chunk, you will have to buy the roscón the next year. I guess mexican tradition makes a little more sense. At the end of the day, what's the point of delaying your duty? ;-)