Alegría

Alegría is a Mexican sweet in which amaranth seeds, popped by heating, are bound together with honey or sugar. Besides square bars made of clustered whitish grains, it comes in round and various other shapes. Some include nuts, seeds and dried fruit, and the light crunch of the grains is enjoyed together with the sweetness of the honey or sugar that binds them.

The Spanish word alegría means “joy.” The name is used not only for the sweet but also for amaranth, the crop. The cultivation of amaranth and the sweet made from its harvested seeds are tied together by a single name.

Alegría made of popped amaranth grains bound together. Examples with nuts and dried fruit arranged on top are visible. Photo: AlejandroLinaresGarcia / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Original, unaltered.

Popping the seeds and binding them with syrup

The fine grains of alegría are not tiny balls of flour. They are seeds that have been heated and popped. The popped grains are combined with honey or sugar syrup and shaped so that they hold together. Unlike sweets made by kneading flour into a continuous dough, the cluster of grains remains visible in the finished sweet.

Some versions use honey, and others use a brown sugar called piloncillo. The sweet ingredient both provides flavor and holds the small grains together in one shape. Versions with walnuts or raisins arranged on top let you enjoy both the fine grains and the larger pieces. Not every sweet containing amaranth is alegría; this structure of bound popped grains is the typical form of alegría.

Amaranth is a different plant from rice or wheat. It is cooked in the same way as cereal grains, but in botanical classification it is not a cereal of the grass family. Making alegría takes advantage of the change in which heat causes the small seeds to puff up into white, light grains.

The continuing link between crop and sweet in Tulyehualco

Amaranth growing in Amilcingo, Temoac, Morelos, Mexico. Photographed September 10, 2015. Fields in a growing area other than Tulyehualco.

Photo: Turismo.temoac / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Original. Reduced display-size image from the source, no additional processing.

Santiago Tulyehualco, in the south of Mexico City, is known for growing amaranth and making alegría. The crop in the fields and the sweets in the market are not separate industries; they have been linked through the work of local families and artisans.

Records held by the seed conservation organization Native Seeds/SEARCH also include amaranth collected in 1979 from a Nahua market in Tulyehualco. These seeds are registered as producing pale-colored seeds and as being used for a sweet of popped seeds and honey. The work of selecting and growing seeds also connects to the texture of the sweet made with honey.

In cultivation here, a method called chapín has been handed down, in which a seedbed made with canal mud is divided into small sections. Besides raising seedlings there and then transplanting them to the fields, some growers sow directly in the fields. The harvested seeds are dried and sifted to remove plant debris and soil before moving on to sweet-making.

There are also different methods of popping: heating small amounts at a time on a clay comal set over a fire, and using dedicated machines. In family workshops, the heating method is chosen according to the volume of work and the scale of the equipment. Alegría is shaped not only into slabs but also into skulls for the Day of the Dead, as well as hearts and flowers.

Ancient ritual food shaped into images of gods

Amaranth is a crop that has been used in Mexico since before the arrival of the Spanish. In old rituals, people used tzoalli, made by processing amaranth, called huauhtli, combining it with a sweet binding ingredient and forming it into shapes such as images of gods. Tzoalli was divided and eaten by people during the rituals.

From ancient ritual food to today’s alegría, in which the grains are set with honey or cane sugar, the way the ingredients are used has changed. A present-day piece and the ancient images of gods cannot simply be linked as having the same formula.

There is also a local tradition that likens the seeds jumping on a hot comal to “dancing with joy” and regards this as the origin of the name alegría, meaning “joy.”

Glossary