Traditional sweets vendors are ready and expecting good sales during this season, especially on October 30th, 31st, and November 1st, as people customarily place traditional fruit sweets on the altars for the Day of the Dead. During this season, the sale of homemade traditional sweets such as yucca, papaya, pumpkin, plum, nance, cocoyol, sweet potato, hicaco, and siricote increases. This is a time when vendors take advantage of the opportunity to see good economic returns, for which they have to invest up to 20,000 pesos in products, said Rosa Huerta Navarro, a traditional sweets vendor at the main market “Alonso Felipe de Andrade” in Ciudad del Carmen.
She explained that to avoid raising the price of the fruit sweets tray, they bought sugar when the price dropped. Therefore, the homemade fruit sweets will not increase in price this year. The tray is sold for 50 pesos, and if sales are low, the price can be reduced to 45 pesos to sell more.
Preparation
She mentioned that traditional sweets are prepared well in advance, taking about 15 hours over the fire. It’s not just about cooking; the pumpkin, papaya, siricote, and others are constantly boiled to achieve consistency and color. The main ingredients, apart from the fruits, are sugar, cinnamon, piloncillo, and fig leaves.
She pointed out that during this season from October to November, they manage to sell between one to two tons of fruit sweets, with the highest sales days being October 30th, 31st, and November 1st. However, if they see that they still have products left, they have to lower the price to sell them and avoid economic losses.
Source: La Chispa
