Menudo Mornings

Each holiday my family gets together and drinks too much tequila. According to Mexican tradition, menudo is the best hangover cure. Each holiday it is a different sibling’s turn to make the pot of menudo for the rest of the family.

Julie’s family is of Mexican decent, and many of them only recently came to America.  Since much of her family grew up in Mexico, they like to incorporate Mexican tradition into their American traditions.  Menudo Mornings occur the morning after each major holiday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc. The holiday it’s self is usually celebrated in an American fashion, but Menudo Mornings is Julie’s family’s way of incorporating their Mexican heritage.

Menudo Mornings itself is not a Mexican tradition, but involves many aspects of Mexican culture, and has become a tradition of Julie’s family.  By bringing Mexican culture into American traditions, it is a ways to establish and preserve their identity as Mexican.  The tradition begins with drinking tequila for each holiday.  Many people drink on holidays, but tequila is a Mexican drink, so they are only drinking from their culture.  The second half of the tradition is eating menudo the next morning.  Menudo is a Mexican dish and it is Mexican tradition to eat menudo to cure a hang over.

They involve the whole family in this tradition.  The children who are not hung over because they are too young to drink still get involved the next morning.  The children help whoever has the duty of making the menudo.  They also take part in eating it even though they are not hung over.  This allows every member of the family to take part in the Mexican tradition and establish their identity as a Mexican.