OK, so a Rosca de Reyes cake is really not very strange, it’s just new to me. This weekend is a festive time in Mexico (long-time readers: You’re learning it’s always a festive time here, aren’t you?) because Jan. 6. is King’s Day (Dia de Reyes), also known as Epiphany. It’s traditionally when Mexican children are given their gifts. One way of celebrating this time of year is to serve a Rosca de Reyes. (Mexico City also serves up a “mega-rosca” and throws a parade.)
The cake is very similar in taste and appearance to a King’s Cake of the Mardi Gras tradition — there’s even little baby Jesuses in the cake. (Note: I got the first baby Jesus, which means I have to invite Brendan over to my house later this month and serve tamales. But there are apparently numerous Jesuses in one cake.)
The purchase of the cake was capped off by a mini-adventure today. First, we went to the Mercado Medellin, a huge indoor fruit and veggie market (and lots of other yummy sundries). We wandered around, not sure what to do or buy, basically overwhelmed. So we found a restaurant, had some lunch, made a gameplan, and went back in. Our plan: to buy fruit you can’t get at the regular grocery store.
This is what we ended up with:
The big fruit in the back is mamey, the small yellow fruits in front of the mamey are guayaba, and the orange fruit and the longish yellow ones on the left, well, I don’t know what they are. I know we bought them from a tienda that specializes in Colombian produce….(They are not persimmons or bananas, trust me.)
With the exception of the mamey, all the fruits were heavy with little seeds, similar to pomegranates, so I’m not quite sure how to eat these. The mamey, while having a nice creamy texture, doesn’t strike me as a fruit you want to eat plain — it needed something, I just don’t know what.
Joy Victory 
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