The Bread Soup (Sopa de pan)

The cuisine plays a very important part in the traditional celebrations of San Cristobal de las Casas, with recipes combining ingredients brought from the old world with fresh vegetables from the region, and a good example of this is the simple, economical, and equally famous sopa de pan. The history of this classic dish from the Valle de Jovel goes back three hundred years, to the early seventeenth century and is thought to have been designed with the idea of being an abstinent meal that allows people to use their stale leftovers of bread; this dish has evolved over time to nowadays be featured at elaborate traditional dinners, mostly in this region of the mexican state of Chiapas.

Recipe for the Bread Soup

Ingredients:
* 8 small white bread rolls, or 2 baguettes
* 1 tomato, sliced
* 1/2 onion
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 3 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 cinnamon stick
* 6 peppercorns,
* 6 cloves
* 4 cups chicken broth
* 4 hard boiled eggs, sliced
* 2 plantains, sliced and fried
* Salt to taste
* 2 tablespoons sugar

Preparation:

1) In a skillet, fry in butter the bread, previously sliced into chunks, tomato, onion, peppercorns, cloves and cinnamon stick.

2) Pour it all in a dutch oven then add the chicken broth and simmer it for 10 minutes, then add a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of sugar. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat.

3) Garnish with the sliced hard boiled eggs and fried plantains. In Chiapas this soup is usually follwed by a chicken stew...