Homemade bread brings family memories to the ofrenda

Mara Velez, head baker at Larkspur Oven, placed pan de agua made from her grandmother’s recipe on an ofrenda this year to honor her.

Tasting Table and Smithsonian descriptions identify food and drink among the offerings used to honor departed loved ones on Día de los Muertos. In the two offerings described to Bonzai, bread made by the person placing it carried a particular memory of a family member.

Both Velez and Walt Brennan, co-founder and brewer at Kettle Yard Brewing, placed bread they had baked themselves. Brennan added a small glass of table beer from his brewery. His offering was mostly for his father, who Brennan thought would have appreciated the time spent making the bread and beer more than something bought.

Their memories of the bread were different. Velez learned to bake with her grandmother in Puerto Rico, where her grandmother showed her how to shape dough and encouraged her to try again rather than worry about perfection. Brennan remembered his father tearing off bread at the kitchen table after a long day. “He’d have a small beer, not say much. That’s what came back to me,” Brennan said.

For both people who described an offering, homemade bread honored a family member through a memory of making or eating it.

Velez remembers the loaves she shaped beside her grandmother: “Mine were always a little crooked.”