The Same Shout, Different Soup

Mateo has heard the same shout in three different towns.

Mexico’s independence day is the sixteenth of September, but the party starts the night before. In 1810, a priest called Miguel Hidalgo rang the bell of his church in the town of Dolores and called people to fight against Spain. He was the first leader of a long war, and Mexico became independent eleven years later.

Every year on the night of the fifteenth, the president stands on the balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City, rings a bell, and shouts the names of the heroes. Then he shouts “Viva México!” three times, and the whole square shouts it back. At the same hour, the mayor does the same thing in town squares all over the country, including very small ones.

The words are fixed. The food is not. Mateo grew up in Mexico City, where his family eats pozole, a hot soup made with corn. In Puebla, where his aunt lives, September means chiles en nogada: a green chile with white sauce and red seeds, the three colours of the flag. In Dolores Hidalgo, where the bell was, people arrive from several states and the square is full by nine o’clock.

Mateo has an opinion about which pozole is best, and he keeps it to himself. On that one night the country is united, and he isn’t going to be the man who starts an argument about soup.