With Holy Week Festivities Canceled, Chiapas Food Vendors Scramble to Recover

SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO — Not many people have the patience to labor over batches of candied fruits that take a year to complete. But Rocío del Carmen Arellano Morales takes pride in a 12-month recipe that has earned her family much acclaim through the decades.

She was looking forward to bringing her prized confection to the 2020 Muestra Gastronómica de San Cristóbal de las Casas, a local food festival that is part of the city’s annual Spring and Peace Fair. The fair was scheduled to take place after the Christian Holy Week, from April 12-19, but it was canceled.

That spells economic hardship for Arellano Morales and her family. They planned to earn as much money selling traditional foods and sweets in one day as they would in a month.

“When the food festival started (at the fair) 35 years ago, my grandmother, mother and brother began to attend,” says Arellano Morales, who owns Servicio de Banquetes Rocío, a catering company in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state.

Marissa Revilla, GPJ Mexico

Rocío del Carmen Arellano Morales and her mother, Evi Morales, stand near the counter at her home in San Cristóbal de las Casas, where they sell the family’s famous culinary products. They would have participated in the 35th annual Muestra Gastronómica de San Cristóbal de las Casas festival during the 2020 Spring and Peace Fair, but upon its cancellation due to the COVID-19 health crisis, the women must now try to recoup the money they spent producing delicacies for the event.

But when the Chiapas Ministry of Health recommended that festivals and other large events be suspended due to the global COVID-19 health crisis, it meant that the fair would be canceled for only the second time in its 152-year history.

The federal government has also mandated school closures, home quarantines and bans on public gatherings.

The Easter season, especially the two weeks before and after Easter Sunday, typically offer a revenue influx for culinary vendors. Not only do local residents spend more money on specially prepared dishes and treats, but the region typically sees an increase in foreign tourists, which also boosts income.

More than 85% of Holy Week tour-group cancellations in Chiapas came from Italy, France and Spain – countries that were among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, says Maricela Flores Velasco, president of the Association of Travel Agencies and Tour Operators in San Cristóbal de las Casas.

Miguel Ángel Muñoz Luna, a historian whose focus is San Cristóbal de las Casas, explains that for many Christian families, Holy Week is the highlight of the year, as tourists celebrate Maundy Thursday, the Seven Churches Visitation, Holy Saturday Mass and the burning of an effigy of Judas Iscariot.

In the days leading up to Easter Sunday, the diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas published an urgent announcement on social media asking the faithful to avoid large gatherings and to instead listen to Holy Week broadcasts on social networks and Radio Tepeyac, its local radio station.

Marissa Revilla, GPJ Mexico

An archive photo of the Muestra Gastronómica de San Cristóbal de las Casas festival during the 2017 Spring and Peace Fair. The event preserves and promotes the culinary tradition of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Each year more than 90 exhibitors display the city’s signature dishes, including chicken and turkey mole, stuffed chiles, bread and rice soup, and pressed chicharrón.

Antonia de Jesús Ballinas García earns a living making bread and regionally popular sweets. For 15 years, she has been selling her delicacies at the festival. She says it’s an important source of income for her.

“I prepare five times more than what I normally do,” says Ballinas García. “The sales are good, and it’s just from one single day.”

With no festival sales, Ballinas García says her budget is in big trouble. She has to figure out what to do with all of the raw materials she bought in advance. With the festival canceled and few customers in her store, she has to make tough decisions about staff too. Her dilemma also affects the suppliers she usually works with during the holiday.

“I hire two more people, and if I don’t hire them, they lose out economically, as well as the providers who bring me the fruit from other municipalities,” says Ballinas García.

Raúl del Carmen Oropeza Trujillo, who has been a local caterer for 35 years, says customers are spending cautiously as there is no end in sight to the global pandemic.

He sells dishes like tamales and pavos prensados, pressed turkeys that are a traditional regional dish, from his home and at local events.

Marissa Revilla, GPJ Mexico

Raúl del Carmen Oropeza Trujillo and his family at the 2017 Muestra Gastronómica de San Cristóbal de las Casas festival, which takes place every year around Holy Week in San Cristóbal de las Casas. Oropeza Trujillo and his family usually participate in the event, displaying their dishes for locals and tourists, but this year’s festival was canceled due to the global COVID-19 crisis.

Oropeza Trujillo says he’s still selling dishes, but in smaller quantities because people are saving their money. He’s making just half of the portions he normally would.

Watching his Holy Week preparations fall apart was painful.

“In my case, I have to pay 50% upfront to reserve suckling pigs, turkeys and lard,” he says. “I had already sent off for my clay dishes for the (traditional) bread soup. I didn’t get it back, but they’ll credit it to me for the next year.”

Like Oropeza Trujillo and the others, tourism officials are scrambling to recover.

“We are analyzing what to do, so that the visitors will want to visit us after this process,” says Claudia Patricia Sancho Aguilar, who coordinates the Industry, Commerce, Tourism and Crafts Commission of the San Cristóbal de las Casas City Council. “Specifically in San Cristóbal de las Casas, many people live from tourism.”

Sarah DeVries, GPJ, translated this article from Spanish.