William Lawson
And there was the cenote…
And there was the cenote…
William Lawson
Ni Chac - A Yucatan Bourdain Moment
Ni Chac - A Yucatan Bourdain Moment
William Lawson
Hacienda Chochoh, a Dog, and some Flowers

Doggies, hacienda and flowers

Hacienda Chochoh, a Dog, and some Flowers
Destinations
William Lawson
Wild Lunch at Codornejo - Akil, Yucatan

…wild lunch in Akil Yucatan…

Wild Lunch at Codornejo - Akil, Yucatan
William Lawson
Los Chocantes Caves - Revisited
Los Chocantes Caves - Revisited

mexico

It's the Hottest Time of the Year and Yet...

When asked about the weather, us locals always love to mention that April and May are the hottest months of the year, which surprises people who expect you to say July or August. In fact April and May are the culmination of several months of normally continuous dry weather. There are brush fires along the sides of roads and in the countryside, both from carelessly tossed cigarette butts and from campesinos doing annual burns to prepare fields for planting in the coming rainy season. The landscape goes from multi-hued green to dry, grey, crispy. The rocks everywhere are evident and previously hidden vestiges of ancient monuments emerge from their hiding places in the Yucatan’s dry tropical forest.

And yet, in spite of this rather stark landscape, nature is alive and well and really active at this time of the year. The mangos are coming. Ciruela or abal, as they are known here, are ripening. Grosellas are popping on scrubby trees. Caimito, limón indio and mamey. And flowers! At no other time of the year are there so many flowers, from wild vines in fluorescent purple, yellow and fuschia to more domesticated varieties like flor de mayo (frangipani or plumeria), bougainvillea, flamboyan, lluvia de oro, and others.

The frangipani with their velvet-like colors and sweet vanilla scent are stunning and you can find them in shades of creamy white to almost shocking purple and fuschia. The photos below are from the town of Dzitya, taken at 11 AM on a scorching 41-degree day. They are beautiful, are they not?

Give us this day... traditional bread making in the Yucatan

Introduction

If you have spent any time in and around the Yucatan, you will have heard the term “francés” usually associated with the word “caliente” Now this may come as a surprise, but when someone talks about having a francés caliente they are not talking about assaulting a hot Frenchman. No, it refers to a long-ish individual loaf of bread, baked daily in bakeries throughout the region and enjoyed as an evening snack with pieces of Edam from that hollowed out queso de bola (unfortunately and unappetizingly translated as ball cheese) or in the morning stuffed with juicy, greasy and delectable cochinita pibil.

And while these and other bread products are nowadays finished in ovens for the most part, the traditional way is to find them baked in gigantic wood-fired ovens, very similar to the brick pizza ovens that can reach very high temperatures and whose delectable crusts are charred and crisp and ash-sprinkled from real pieces of wood crackling inside the baking space.

The Process

In the case of the francés, the dough is shaped by a combination of pounding, elbow thumping (the actual elbow is used) and shaping by hand. A sliver of palm (not banana leaf as some would have you believe) is laid along the length of the shaped loaf which is then set in trays placed on racks where they await, rising slowly in the local heat, to be baked in the afore-mentioned oven. Why the sliver of palm? I was told that it is to maintain the shape of the bread, not that it imparts any special flavor to the final product as I had previously been told.

Loaves are laid onto the hot bricks in the oven, having been previously swept clean with a moist rag to remove excess ash and coals. This is done with a very large wooden spatula with a handle that will cross the entire room, so as to keep the operator from contracting heatstroke in the face of the very caliente oven. A few moments in the oven and they are removed, fresh and ready to be delivered to points of sale around the village or prepared in bags for orders from the vendedores who will be selling tortas and tacos early the next day.

Juan Sabido (left)

Juan Sabido is one of these bakers and has generously shown us around the operation where he works, in an unmarked and unremarkable house that you would not even suspect of being a bakery when driving by.

This, and other experiences like it, are some of the things we offer our guests when they come to visit the Yucatan giving them a true glimpse into traditional life, customs and its people.

Inspired by Netflix: a Trip to Yaxunah and a Visit with Rosalia Chay

Yaxunah Chef Rosalia Chay Chuc and her famous box keken (hairless pig) cochinita pibil. Out of this world!

Yaxunah Chef Rosalia Chay Chuc and her famous box keken (hairless pig) cochinita pibil. Out of this world!

Inspired and motivated by having seen her on an episode of Netflix Chef’s Table BBQ series, I decided that this was definitely a destination worth checking out as someplace new and different we could visit, and the promise of exquisite food made the decision so much easier.

Yaxunah is a tiny village about 25 minutes from the world-famous Chichen Itzá, where you are immersed in the peaceful feel of a Mayan village, and far removed from the crushing commercial activity, the mercenary official and unofficial guides, the nauseating noise of jaguar whistles and a million trampling feet of red-faced tourists from Cancun.

In Yaxunah you can feel time slow down; you can breathe in the oppressive oxygen-laden air of the lush vegetation everywhere and appreciate friendly locals who immediately smile and return a wave.

An amazing roofless church in town. No mention of it’s history anywhere on the many sites that offer info on Yaxunah. Caste War? Rain? Gilberto? If anyone knows what happened to this church, let me know!

There is a Mayan archeological site within walking or biking distance from the village, blessedly free of a gift shop, an INAH marker or a ticket booth. Villagers administer the site and sell a few locally made wares including honey on the grounds. There are no ridiculously translated-into-English signs like there are at Uxmal or Chichen. “Not Rise to Structures” is not on display here and you can explore at your own pace or hire someone local, if you prefer. The site is small, but interesting and includes a ball court as well as other platforms and altars, for the most part reconstructed. There is jungle everywhere and on a pandemic kind of visit, with few other humans around there are bird as well to be observed.

While there, I observed a couple arrive on a motorcycle. They dismounted and began to climb the largest structure, a pyramid-like altar about 20 meters or more high. Thinking they were up to some romantic hany panky I made a remark to that effect to one of the caretakers.

“No” he corrected me. “Están subiendo para hacer una llamada”.

That’s how I found out about an interesting function of the highest structure at Yaxunah: it is used as a telephone “booth” as it has cell phone reception when there isn’t any down below, including in the town.

Here are some quick shots of the Mayan site of Yaxunah from October 2020, day of my visit (text continues below):

In the town there is a spectacular cenote surrounded by a true jungle of trees and vines and stone stairs heading down to the water, which was high at the time of my visit. There is also an attractive cultural center that, for the time being is shut down to avoid any COVID-related issues, where one can learn about the history of the area (think Caste War drama) as well as the culinary prowess of the local cooks.

Speaking of food, the trip here was inspired by Rosalia Chay, a local chef who was “discovered” by Merida celebrity chef Roberto Solis of Nectar fame, who was in the area scouting for ingredients and meat in particular. His visit prompted more visits from other chefs and one thing led to another and a Netflix crew showed up and filmed a segment, catapulting her into instant worldwide recognition.

She still cooks for regular mortals like us and so we took in the full experience, from visiting her hair-free piglets to digging up chachak waj (tamales) cooked underground and savoring the exquisite flavor of her cochinita pibil and relleno negro. She is happy to share her knowledge with anyone who asks and like a proper Mayan lady, wastes no time with useless banter.

“Can we buy some of the tamales to take home?”

“No, those are for the family”

“OK”

The pib, an underground cooking pit that is typical here is where the magic happens and she uses branches of the pixoy tree to add the smoky flavor to the foods cooked among the hot stones of the pib. As a visitor, if you are so inclined you can help uncover the cooking pit and extract the goodies waiting for you, hot, fragrant and delicious. Everything she makes from scratch and her own property, from the pork to the salsas to the refreshing agua de lima to accompany your meal, taken in what used to be her home, a thatched palapa now set up as a dining room with pretty ceramic plates and colorful table runners on a communal table.





Ni Chac - A Yucatan Bourdain Moment

Have you ever had one of those moments where you feel just a tiny little bit like Anthony Bourdain? I had one, just last week.

It was on my latest twice a month pilgrimage to one of the local villages where my tour company has enlisted the services of families to provide meals for our guests when we tour them out that way. I had just finished unloading supplies from the trunk of my car when the lady of the house asked if I wanted to try something special.

“Acabamos de regresar del monte y recogimos estos” Marisela said. Monte is the word Yucatecans term for the local underbrush and scrub forest that covers much of the northern part of the dry, rocky peninsula. She held up a oval-shaped, flat panal which looked like a beehive except, she explained, this one was made by a particular kind of wasp. This wasp reproduces in the hive - these hang vertically from the trunks of trees - and the larvae, those white things sticking out of each of the little holes, are what one is after.

After carefully removing them from the trees, making sure not to get stung by any wasps flitting about and not breaking them, she and Leo, her husband, had put them in her plastic market bag aka her sabucan and brought them to the house. There, she lit a small fire in what is essentially a homemade barbeque grill and with the heat of the coals (no direct flame) she toasted the hives which loosens the larvae and these are pulled out, one by one and put in a bowl. And there they gather, in all their delicate, white, larva-y goodness in the bowl. A quick toasty trip across the heat of the comal, a hot metal griddle, to give them a golden, slightly crisped-around-the-edges look, and they are ready to eat. I should mention that the teen-aged boys charged with patiently picking out the larvae, their fingertips blackened from where the hive had been slightly charred, were popping them into their mouths like grapes.

Except these were most definitely not grapes.

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Without overthinking it too much, I grabbed some between my thumb and forefinger, and popped about three of them into my mouth and chewed. To paraphrase a sommelier, the flavor was subtle with hints of nut, smoke and the texture was squishy between my teeth. I put the recurring thought of worms in my mouth out of my mind.

I swallowed.

Then it was time to savor the complete dish, with lime juice, tomato and onion - ceviche style - in fresh corn tortillas. It was a marvelous, simple meal. “Ni chac” said my hostess. This was the name of the dish and yes, it was something special that wasn’t available year-round. “Por las lluvias, hay muchos panales” added Leo, glancing up briefly from his work, indicating that the recent heavy rains had increased the number of hives in the monte.

While I ate, the parents, teenagers and even the littlest kids continued their work of removing the larvae from the hives and chatted in Mayan. I understood nothing except a word or two and when suddenly everyone erupted in laughter, I asked what was so funny. A family story. The ex-husband of one of the daughters, who had come to visit his children, had been offered this simple meal and had reacted angrily, claiming to be offended at having been offered such a lowly dish. They thought it was funny that the gringo was eating it while the other man had found it beneath him.

"People are generally proud of their food. A willingness to eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice… they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get." - Anthony Bourdain -

When someone offers you food, you accept it. With pleasure and with respect. As Bourdain pointed out, it is part of a bigger picture. And although I was not there looking for a story, it certainly brought me that much closer to the people I was sharing this food with.