Pork with Mashed Pumpkin (Puerco con Calabaza), Afro-Mexican Pumpkin Soup, Miahuatlán-Style Tamales (Tamales Miahuatecos), Sweet Preserved Pumpkin (Calabaza en Tacha)

This Pork with Mashed Pumpkin is one of my absolute favorite Mexican pumpkin recipes. The sauce can be served as a soup or as a pasta sauce even. I’ve served it with pumpkin agnolotti.

This recipe for Afro-Mexican Pumpkin Soup (also called Castile Pumpkin Broth) is from anthropologist Raquel Torres Cerdán, expert in Afro-Mexican cookery

María Concepción Portillo de Carballido, the well known Oaxacan cooking teacher, introduced me to these Tamales Miahuatecos, pumpkin-enriched tamales from the neighborhood of Miahuatlán in the Sierra Madre de Sur.

For the Days of the Dead (November 1 and 2), every home altar holds a plate of Sweet Preserved Pumpkin (Calabaza en tacha) — an offering that represents about four days’ labor of love.