The Mexican Pinata Origynally a clay pot covered on brightly colored paper.is one element that can not miss in any Mexican holiday or party. The goal is quite simple, hit it with a stick until it breaks and shower everybody below with goods or candy, needless to say, the Pinata is a kids favorite but that doesn’t mean that adults won’t have tons of fun while swinging ot trying to hit the Pinata.
But where did the Pinatas come from? Well, although made popular by the Mexican people, the origin of the Pinata is not Mexican but Asian, surprised? It is said that Marco Polo, in one of his trips to Asia noticed that the Chinese used to hang figures of animals covered with papers. He brought this news to Europe and the Pinata found its home at the Eastes Holidays in Europe, mostly Italy and Spain where the first Sunday of every Easter a Pinata was used to celebrate and gather people, note that the word Pinata is awfully similar to the Italian word Pignatta (that could be translated as pot or fragile pot).
The news of the Piñatas were heard by Spanish missioners based in North America, and they soon adopted this new way to get more people together and teach them about Good and Evil in a “fun” way. The original piñatas were round pots with seven cones (each representing the Seven deadly sins) and the goal of the game was to, blindfolded (thus representing faith) with and break the Piñata with a stick (that represented virtue) and, at the end, when the Piñata was finally broken, candies and goodies showered all below as a symbolism of the goods to come by fighting temptation through faith and virtue.
Nowadays, the Piñata has lost much of his religious origins (as have many other holidays celebrated these days) except on Christmas where the Piñata represents the Star of Belen and the kids sing “dale dale dale no pierdas el tino, porque si lo pierdes pierdes el camino” a representation of the shepherds following the star of Belen trying not to get lost.
But like grandma used to say, there’s no Piñata like a Homemade Piñata, how to make a Piñata you ask? Get a soft clay pot, varnish it with “engrudo” (baked flour) stick all kinds of colored papers on it, fill with candies… and break away!!!
