During Christmas in Bella Vista, Honduras, each family sends plates around of their favorite dish to share.

For Blanca Medrano, an entrepreneurial mom of two, this means taking at least one full day off from the coffee harvest. She has a lot of work to do to get prepared for the upcoming festivities. She makes pastelito de carne, a corn masa empanada with cumin and basil seasoned beef. Then there’s carne asada, seasoned grilled meat, and a drink called mistela– made with ginger and cinnamon, it’s a spiced wine, sometimes fortified with a little anise liquor.

But ask any Honduran – Christmas is not Christmas without nacatamales.

A nacatamale is similar to a regular tamale, but is chalk full of mouth watering ingredients. Imagine this: meat, peppers, onions, potatoes, olives and chiles stuffed in corn masa and steamed in a banana leaf. YUM! This process takes Blanca two days to make and produces a giant heaping mound of the beautiful nacatamales for the community to share.

Want to give it a try? For the recipe, click HERE! Or watch the video below:

While food can feed our bellies and souls, family fills our hearts. For Blanca and her family, the true focus of the holidays is time together celebrating family and Jesus’s birth.

“We celebrate Christmas with joy,” – Blanca Medrano

Blanca’s family stays up late on Christmas Eve so they can hug and kiss at midnight, wishing family and friends Feliz Navidad.

   Carly Boyden

Marketing & Communications Intern