Castanada is celebrated in the America as Haloween. On Friday 29 October we celebrated Castanada at EICA. Castanada is the day to commemorate the dead. It is common for Spanish people to go to graveyards and lay flowers on graves of their loved ones who have died. It is customary to eat confectionery called Panalletes during Castanada. In the lesson before Friday, each class had to make Panalletes.
On Friday we had to meet for the "Fiesta" of course. The fiesta kicked off with music from the different cultural groups represented at EICA. Many of the students are African so there was a large contingent of Africans dancing and playing unique African musical instruments. The staff at EICA were enraptured and joined in the dancing without hesitation.
Then came the Panalletes which we had made the day before in our classes. Unknown to us, they would have to be judged. Unknown to me, was that I had been selected as a judge. I took to my duties and agreed to assess the Panalletes. I never knew there were so many classes. Each class had their own tray of Panalletes. The judging took quite some time. Initially I thought it was only to assess the presentation and the creativity of each tray. But to my disappointment, we had to taste / sample each tray as well...
To be very honest, the Panalletes are a bit bland but not too bad. But after countless numbers of them, I did not want to see another Panallete. In the end I was just giving away points for taste - based on appearance but I did not tell anybody this . Perhaps that is why my class never won the prize for the best Panalletes. Well to be honest, our teacher never told us that we had to work on creativity and originality too. We did not even know there would be judges. It was a fun evening and I enjoyed the chocolate con churros - more than the Panalletes.
On Friday we had to meet for the "Fiesta" of course. The fiesta kicked off with music from the different cultural groups represented at EICA. Many of the students are African so there was a large contingent of Africans dancing and playing unique African musical instruments. The staff at EICA were enraptured and joined in the dancing without hesitation.
Then came the Panalletes which we had made the day before in our classes. Unknown to us, they would have to be judged. Unknown to me, was that I had been selected as a judge. I took to my duties and agreed to assess the Panalletes. I never knew there were so many classes. Each class had their own tray of Panalletes. The judging took quite some time. Initially I thought it was only to assess the presentation and the creativity of each tray. But to my disappointment, we had to taste / sample each tray as well...
To be very honest, the Panalletes are a bit bland but not too bad. But after countless numbers of them, I did not want to see another Panallete. In the end I was just giving away points for taste - based on appearance but I did not tell anybody this . Perhaps that is why my class never won the prize for the best Panalletes. Well to be honest, our teacher never told us that we had to work on creativity and originality too. We did not even know there would be judges. It was a fun evening and I enjoyed the chocolate con churros - more than the Panalletes.
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