...achiote. I didn't try it, but in view of my experience with Stelae in a similar matter, I have my grave doubts (see below). From this I think you may gather, correctly, that top flight genuine Yucatecan food is not to be found in the fancy highly be-sculptured tourist restaurants. There are some Yucatecan dishes in such places, and in the tourist places of less pretention, such as Garibaldi or Mexicana or even Bellini, and several seafood restaurants offer the passing dish with a Yucatecan base. Nearly all such places do what Americans do with it -- they destroy the unique and special qualities, beginning of course with the chiles. They try to link it with something you know, or know about, turning Veracruzana sauce into a variety of ratatouille or spaghetti sauce, totally losing its character. What an enormous pity. Even the Mexican restaurants will do that, if you don't watch out. They aim to please, not to educate. After all, that is where the money seems to be. Alas.
It is time to move away from the locations, to see what emerges when the product appears. What can a tourist like myself find for Yucatecan food? First some mea culpae. In two months I cannot be an authority, and don't intend to become one. I can tell you what I found. The boundaries between Mexican and Yucatecan are not firm, and I am not setting up artificial ones. What I discovered was in and around Cancun; not in Merida, where it would be possible to find foods totally missing here. I am not always sure that what I tell you about is Yucatecan in the indigenous sense, or Yucatecan in the sense that the country is now part of Mexico, writ large. It is not comida casera, home cooking, except perhaps for one or two antojitos and perhaps for Los Venados. But I am sure that is it what you will find, and that if you persist you will find many other fascinating things too.
So let's get on with it and find out.
As everywhere in Mexico the basis of eating lies with the tortillas, served as part of the dish itself, or on the side like our bread. Sometimes, because of the deep influence of bakeries of French origin (going back into history) you will find bollitos, hard rolls, or even French bread.
Here as elsewhere, corn tortillas are the thing, and hand made at that. Except at Los Venados, do you think that's what I was eating? Wrong. And in fact I did not once have corn incorporated into my main food, except when I had a light pork soup with salad floating on it at the home of Jaime Rubio. No wonder, especially with free trade and cheap imported corn on the horizon, the Mexican government, with an eye to voting patterns, is afraid for its peasant corn farmers.
Not once did I see corn tortillas on sale in any supermarket, as is possible in New Mexico. They were all factory made wheat tortillas (de tinga). In one or two places you could also get pita bread, calle pan arabe. (There is a long standing Lebanese influence in this part of the world). Residents tell me that if they want corn tortillas they either make them themselves, or buy them fresh in the outdoor markets early each morning and put them in the refrigerator.
The variety of things that can emerge from tortillas is legion, and totally confusing, since the same word can mean different things in different parts of Hispanic America, or within Mexico; and nowadays tortilla based snacks are competing with various kinds of bread sandwiches. Given the nature of competition and public presentation, words are also deliberately made ambiguous so that customers may be seduced, and there is a certain amount of slippage because of the nature of transliteration. Thus bollitos are hard crusted French rolls, but bollitos are also sandwiches, like anywhere in the world, with any kind of filling, made of French style wheat round buns. These are sometimes called tortas on the road sign of the snack bar, but tortas is a word reserved for sandwiches made from lengths of French baguettes, very popular indeed.
We are sliding into the world of antojitos, loosely translatable as snacks or hors d'oeuvres, one of the most marvellous and rewarding elements in Mexican, and Mayan, cooking. The French influence has, for centuries and even before the French imposed the Mexican Empire on the people for a few short years, dominated baking, apart from tortillas. Since the Spanish influence has been even greater, and was responsible for the introduction of a range of food products that was at least the equal to the indigenous, it is extraordinary that one of the most typical Spanish institutions is totally unknown -- tapas and the tapas bar. Whenever I raised the subject I got blank looks, even among many sophisticated Mexicans -- what are tapas? (See Segovia.) Until I learned that cantinas in Mexico City are full of such things, under the name of botas, where you go to eat inventive nibbles as much as you do to drink. But not in Yucatan.... (I did see some places mentioning botas on their signs, but they were simply tacos and enchilladas and so on and had none of the required inventive delicacy.)
But the Mayans have something that almost takes its place, the antojitos. As with pita bread or a pizza you can load anything you like onto a tortilla. The tortilla can be small or large, thick or thin, crepe like or doughy, flat or rolled, sandwiched, toasted, lightly fried in oil or fat, deep-fried to become crisp. The only version I didn't find here were the puff-balled sopapillas of Santa Fe. Nor did I come across any of them served with honey, though that must surely happen, since bee-keeping and honey are so important locally.
The simplest forms, loaded with food like an open-faced sandwich, are the tacos, with their derivatives that give rise to a host of names, sometimes based on the shape and material of the taco, sometimes based on the filling.
An anthropologist, José N. Iturriaga, has written a marvellous little book which is an ethnography and cook's guide "De Tacos, Tamales y Tortas" as presented in roadside stands and cafes throughout the country, with literally scores of descriptions. There are a few special sections on Yucatan, but not specially Quintana Roo; needless to say, some of the fillings he mentions I didn't come across such as those made with turkey and black sauce, or with venison sausage; others I mention he didn't catch up on, since the possibilities are infinite.
The first local taco I had was at a simple stand by the ferry terminal at Punta Sam. The tacos were loaded with chicharrones, dried pork rinds, broken onto thin tortillas, with chopped onion, cilantro leaves, red bell pepper dices, slice of avocado. Since there are no implements bar a paper napkin, you fold the tortilla over by yourself and eat hamburger style. The stand's salsa on the side was excellently strong and pungent with roasted habañeros chiles that made all the difference, onion and cilantro. You can usually depend on simple cafe and road stand salsas much more certainly than restaurant ones, which are toned down for the tourist and often have less flavourful chiles. And often the food depends entirely on the fact that you will be using a salsa, so if one is not evident, don't hesitate to ask. It will always come, even at a place like Bellini in a shopping mall, designed for tourist relaxation -- it takes the cook just seconds to put it together.
Usually tacos at a stand will consist of something like those called salbutes, fried on a hot plate, loaded with chicken strips, salad, tomato, maybe a slice of avocado, cilantro or mint. At Antojitos Yucatecos the tortilla was made from masa de maïs, literally a lump of corn dough, and raw onion was more prominent, without the avocado. Ortiz' Latin American book has recipes under the name sambutes.
Antojitos Yucatecos is in fact a marvellous place to get a run through of many of the different ideas. One of my most total favourites, which I am going to learn to master when I get home, consisted of papadzules. (See Ortiz for some recipes.) These are typically Yucatecan. At Antojitos Yucatecos they consisted of soft rolled tortillas containing chopped hard-boiled egg, covered with pumpkin seeds and a salsa ranchera and scattered with egg again. At Los Venados they were very much larger, with invisible pepper inside as well as the egg. They were covered this time with cream and a little tomato salsa, unchili'd. At Los Almendros the pumpkin seed is turned into a green salsa which underlies the egg, with the tomato salsa and additional scattered egg on top.
Huaraches are oval shaped tortillas with a similar range of fillings. There is a self-service restaurant on Uxmal -- pay before you eat -- which has a wide variety of such things. Mine came loaded with Yucatecan chorizo style sausage, probably from Valladolid, a city famed for such products. A kind of spicy Mexican hamburger -- and indeed Mexican chorizo is very spicy indeed from several ingredients, and somewhat dry to the taste.
Sometimes you will see a sign that indicates the food will consist of Mexican antojitos and especially flautas. Unlike flautas you often find in Tex-Mex or North America, these are crisp from deep frying and really are flute-shaped tight rolls. They vary a great deal in width and length. You can even buy them in packages in the supermarkets ready for your own frying. Mostly the interior meats have been dried out by the process so that there isn't all that much gastronomic interest. But in a little wayside cafe I ordered one each of three kinds -- chicken, pork and potato. Without losing any of the crispness of the flauta itself, the filling was jam packed with salad ingredients and overlaid with crême fraîche -- just called crema in Mexican.
The equivalent Yucatecan products are called codzitos and are more lightly fried, rolled and more openly filled, preferably containing aromatic leaves. The meat is still dry, moistened perhaps with a tomato based salsa.
Ituriagga mentions that Yucatan is famed for its tacos de ceviche, which I imagine would be very good indeed. The nearest I got to that was at El Calamar, which served me a plate of three, one containing shark (cazón), another the most tender octopus, and the third conch. The marinade was minimal, just a touch of lime and I think cilantro, so that nothing whatsoever interfered with the paradisiac sense of freshness and cool firmly-soft texture. Three stars in my book.
At El Parilla, a place where loud noisy music deafens tourists and makes conversation impossible, where muggy heat is intended to remind you are in Mexico (fair enough), in and out of the clichéd grills, you can find items of interest, and perhaps survive long enough to enjoy them. One such are the tacos de nopalitos.
Nopale are the leaves of a prickly cactus, the idea of which puts people off. But they are delectable and should enter the repertoire of all cuisines, especially since they are available internationally in many bottled and canned forms. One writer has most accurately described them as being between okra and bean in taste, and their tenderness leaves nothing to be desired. Here they were served with slices of onion, the whole tacos fried.
Panuchos are another Yucatecan favourite. At Antojitos Yucatecos they came as tortillas covered with fried beans, slivered chicken, chopped raw onion, and a tomato salsa. There was a tigerishly innocent looking side salsa with chopped onion and chiles habañeros. The Almendros version is more complex still, with turkey.
Enchiladas and empinadas are Mexico-wide. In North America and elsewhere the word taco has been taken over by the fast food companies which market "taco shells", crispish pre-folded tortillas, into which you can force stuffings much in the manner of open pita bread. In North American Mexican restaurants enchiladas are thought of as rolled. Here in the Yucatan flautas are rolled, but more crisply and tightly, and enchiladas are folded as with North American tacos but softer.
Thus it was with the enchilada de mole at Antojitos Yucatecos, a rolled tortilla.
But what about the filling, and that infuriatingly difficult word mole? One thing it most certainly does not have to be, that is a chocolate flavoured sauce, as in the classic dish mole poblano. By derivation from the Spanish it could imply something mixed or pressed together; by derivation from Pre-Hispanic languages, a chile-hot sauce or stew. The Mexican recipe books I have to hand make it clear that almost anything can go into a mole, which can be vegetarian, contain meats, aim at different colours like red or green or black. The one common denominator that I can find is stewing to the point of heavy reduction, the result being either a stew in itself as in mole poblano where the main ingredient of the stew is not even mentioned in the name, or a thick sauce for use over something. Ortiz, however, states that mole is any sauce made from any pepper, which seems a bit broad as a definition to me.
In the case of this enchilada all I could infer was that the shredded chicken had been stewed in a dark bean and chile sauce which was used to cover the folded tortilla. But who cares? It was delectable. Empanadas are simply little pies or turnovers, with a thicker crust than is implied by a tortilla. I didn't seek them out very much, because mostly, unless you are in Alsace, pies are pies, and the one I remember, stuffed with spiced ground pork and covered with a tomato salsa, was, well, a pie.
At the Contoy fish restaurant there are several other kinds of tacos, listed as "de tinga, de morcilla, de rajas". I didn't get around to checking them out. Tinga is a complicated dish with boiled pork accompanied by fried sausage and other ingredients, which hardly seem likely here, rajas are strips or slices, as with rajas de chile, but perhaps used in other contexts, morcilla is a blood sausage. These are available only at lunch.
Of course I came across other tacos which are more Mexican or national, and have their delicious characters. The Garibaldi restaurant, near Avenida Tulum, not always with success, and with a bit too much toutism, nevertheless tries to showcase regional Mexican food. It presents sopes in the form of thick home made pork flavoured tortillas with cold shredded chicken, lettuce, and crême fraîche..
Molotes at the Flor de Hidalgo are like tortilla fingers, closed at both ends, with chicken and tomato filling, sprinkled with powdered cheese. Gorditas at the same very special restaurant are like a fried tortilla sausage roll. Mine was served with a chile-hot orange coloured sauce that looked like jam but was not sweet. Sprinkled with powdered cheese. (Booth mentions a road stand that made gordas on the spot with a mas de maïs patted into a tortilla, filled with refried beans, parcelled up and fried).
I didn't go in for tamales because I didn't find them very often. Classically they consist of ingredients wrapped in corn leaves and steamed. Any I have had I have found coarse and unappetizing. But in the Yucatan -- and I believe in some other countries such as Costa Rica -- tamales are made not with corn leaves but banana leaves. This gives an entirely different flavour and quality.
My one and only try was totally delicious. I was walking from the Cobå corner along Avenida Tulum and came across this little somewhat grubby stall selling beer and hamburgers to harassed Mexican shop-wives and drunken beachcombers. But I noticed they listed tamales de chaya and I hadn't been able to taste chaya leaves as yet. So in I go and order one. Chaya are the leaves of the tallish shrub, much prized for their nutritional value and for their somewhat soft spinach-like taste. It came with the banana wrapping opened, a pleasant looking lump of whitish green. The mild but palatably tasty chaya had been mixed into a soft mas de maïs with mashed boiled egg. I loved it - just the sort of tasty mush I adore. And nowhere, nowhere in any restaurant (though some modern ones try to use chaya leaves).
The day I wanted to try an equivalent at Antojitos Yucatecos they weren't available. But the menu talks of vaporcitos, described as tamales containing chicken stewed in banana leaves.
Apart from chaya the two herbs most special to Yucatecan cooking are achiote (axiote) and epazote, together with generous usage of cilantro, and such other ingredients as parsley, mint, camomile, and garlic. Achiote is a reddish powder made from grinding the seeds of the annatto tree, bixa orellana. It is available in bottled commercial form almost throughout the world, the bottling including, in one form I know, oregano and cumin and vinegar, allowing it to be mixed into a sauce or spread over a meat or fish. This gives a yellowish red colour that is somewhat similar to what you get by roasting with a paprika baste.
Epazote is a flavouring that is special to Yucatan, although it grows wild in many parts of Mexico and the United States. It is the leaves (NOT the seeds) of chenopodium ambrosioides L., which has the common English name of, alas, wormseed. My books say that it is not used this way, even in Mexican cooking, in the United States. If so, pity.
Lime, orange, bitter orange, are used with considerable effect and delicacy. I did not come across other use of fruit in main courses -- unless you count raisins, olives and almonds. And of course sometimes, but not often, and usually on the side, cooking bananas or plantains. Mexico -- and Yucatan is no exception -- has to be the land where the cult of the chile is rarified, nurtured to be the sine qua non of the educated person. Never was any waiter at the slightest moment's loss to identify precisely what chile was being used where. And you do NOT get them mixed up. Any old red chile, any old medium hot chile, any old very hot chile, will simply not do. Every chile has its flavour, and all chiles may, if you wish, be eaten raw, or marinated, or cooked, or baked, or whole, or chopped. But the decision is precise.
The prime chile of Yucatan is small, greenish to white with touches of red, squat, and called, with reverence habañero. The more you roast it, marinate it, treat it, the more a pungent full flavour emerges that few other chiles can match. It has its own character that will not be submerged. Many is the time that I have had a salsa or some other dish and searched for the identification of the flavour. Could it be cilantro perhaps? No. No other flavour was needed. It was habañero.
Other chiles are of course used. In most supermarkets there are perhaps half a dozen varieties, some dried. But in the real vegetable stores there will be a minimum of thirty to forty, as there will be in the marvellously localized supermarket on the outskirts of town on Avenida Cobå. These are the varieties my photographs revealed.....
Some Yucatecan dishes have of course entered the national repertoire -- cochinita or pollo pibil, pavo de relleno negro, jaiva relleno, huevos motuleños, tikin zic.
Perhaps we can start with breakfast, since this is something you can get in one form or another almost anywhere, from hotels to Americanized places like Super-Deli and 100% Natural to Antojitos Yucatecos. You are likely to get a choice of three offerings: huevos rancheros, huevos Mexicanos, and huevos Motuleños. It is the last that is Yucatecan. The first can be found almost throughout Latin American in one form or another, but in Mexico has a specific meaning that is different from, for example, the way I was served it in Lima, Peru, where it was rather like a Spanish omelette, spiced. Here it is fried eggs on slightly fried tortillas, with a reduced sauce on top made from tomato, garlic, onion. chiles (probably serrano), herbs, with refried beans on the side. Mexican eggs, by contrast, are scrambled in oil with finely chopped tomato, onion, green chile and coriander, again with refried beans on the side. Restaurant cooks will play with additional ingredients and side elements. Ideally, huevos Motuleños are more complex. The eggs are fried, and the tortillas soft fried and covered with refried beans. The egg is on top, and then a sauce, usually consisting of mixed tomato, chile and garlic, to which is added separately cooked peas and fried chorizo sausage pieces with herbs. On top of that again is a garnish of onion rings, avocado slices and sprinkled soft cheese.
Antojitos Yucatecos serves another breakfast which I've seen here and there called Desayuno (breakfast) -- as distinct from huevos -- Mexicano. Apart from juice, fruit and coffee, you get a steak with fried egg, refried beans, tortilla and choice of salsa. It is quite clear that in Mexico breakfast is a serious business -- especially since it may be eaten late in the morning.
Cochinita (sucking pig) -- or its cousin pollo (chicken) -- pibil is without doubt the most recognized contribution of Yucatan cooking to the national cuisine. Pit cooking seems to have occurred in most parts of Mexico, since it is a natural form of creating an oven that can be found from Polynesia to Croatia. That is the meaning of the word pibil in Mayan, a word rendered in most parts of Mexico by barbacoa, said to be the ancestor of the North American word "barbecue". But in pibil cooking you don't just leave the food on the top of a grill, as in barbecuing. You dig a pit and line it with stones that will preserve the heat, create a fierce fire within, let charcoal form, remove the flames, wrap the food in moist leaves, and bury it on the heat. And you have to judge exactly when it is going to be done -- three hours, they say, for a skinned pig -- or you might just get a charred mess. (In parts of Polynesia, the red hot stones are doused in water to create steam, and the "roof" of the oven can consist of thick layers of leaves.)
Of course that is not all there is to it. The meat is marinated in flavours, of which achiote and sour orange are the most important, and it is wrapped in banana leaves for flavour as well as protection.
Since no one in these days has an open pit or pib, other devices have to be used. Restaurants wrap the food in the required leaves, then in aluminium foil, and cook in an oven or stove-top container with bottom high steady heat. Great traditional Mexican restaurants like Le Flor de Hidalgo, which I will soon describe, use enormous cauldrons with bottom fire to pre-prepare the food and keep it warm.