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Yucatán's frozen coconut pop, sealed in a long plastic bag, bitten from the corner and squeezed up as it melts. The Peninsula's playa snack, made on cremita de coco with a steep of cinnamon and lime.
This is from Yucatán. Specifically from the small tiendas and home freezers of Mérida, Campeche, and the Caribbean side of Quintana Roo, where a woman with a deep freezer in her front room sells bolis to the kids on the block for a few pesos each. You see them at every playa from Progreso to Tulum, in coolers strapped to bicycles, in plastic crates next to bottles of agua de chaya.
A boli is not a paleta. A paleta is on a stick, made in a mold, sold from a cart by a man with a bell. A boli is in a long plastic bag, tied at the top, eaten by biting off a corner and squeezing the frozen cream up as it melts. The format is the point. No stick to throw away, no wrapper, just a bag you can fit in your pocket frozen and finish on the walk home.
The cremita is what makes a Yucatecan boli a Yucatecan boli. Three milks, fresh grated coconut, a steep of canela and lime zest in the warm milk before everything goes in the blender. The lime is what people miss when they try to make these without ever having been to the Peninsula. It is not a flavor you taste directly. It is the thing that keeps the coconut and the condensed milk from sitting heavy on your tongue. Without it, you have a sweet block. With it, you have a boli.
My mother never made these. Bolis are not from Jalisco. But I have spent enough afternoons in Mérida, talking to the women who sell them out of their kitchens, to know that the recipe is not the cremita. The recipe is the gesture: the bag, the knot, the bitten corner, the walk home. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
The boli, also called bolis, bolsitas, or chupichupis depending on the state, emerged across Mexico in the mid-20th century as a household-economy frozen treat made possible by the spread of domestic refrigeration after the 1950s. In Yucatán, the format became inseparable from coconut, a crop introduced to the Peninsula by the Spanish via the Manila Galleon trade in the 16th century and cultivated commercially along the Gulf coast from the 19th century onward. The neighborhood boli economy, women selling homemade frozen treats from front-room freezers, remains an unregistered but significant part of the informal food sector in Mérida, Campeche, and the small towns of the Peninsula, where children learn to identify a casa de bolis by a hand-painted sign in the window.
Quantity
2 cups
grated, from about 1 mature coconut (or 2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut)
Quantity
1 can (13.5 ounces)
Quantity
1 can (12 ounces)
Quantity
1 can (14 ounces)
Quantity
1 cup
Quantity
1
Quantity
1 strip, about 2 inches long
Quantity
1/4 teaspoon
Quantity
1 teaspoon
Quantity
12
about 2 inches wide, 9 inches long, or small zip-top bags
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| fresh coconut meatgrated, from about 1 mature coconut (or 2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut) | 2 cups |
| full-fat coconut milk | 1 can (13.5 ounces) |
| evaporated milk | 1 can (12 ounces) |
| sweetened condensed milk | 1 can (14 ounces) |
| whole milk | 1 cup |
| cinnamon stick (canela de Ceylán) | 1 |
| lime zest | 1 strip, about 2 inches long |
| kosher salt | 1/4 teaspoon |
| Mexican vanilla extract | 1 teaspoon |
| long narrow plastic boli bagsabout 2 inches wide, 9 inches long, or small zip-top bags | 12 |
If you are using a fresh mature coconut, drain the water, crack the shell, and pry out the meat. Peel off the brown skin with a paring knife and grate the white flesh on the medium holes of a box grater. You want about two cups. Fresh coconut is what they use in Mérida and on the playa at Progreso. If you cannot find one, unsweetened shredded coconut from the market is the honest substitute. Sweetened bagged coconut is not. The sugar is already there in the condensed milk.
In a heavy saucepan, combine the whole milk, the cinnamon stick, the strip of lime zest, and the salt. Warm over medium-low heat until the milk is just under a simmer, when small bubbles trace the edge of the pan. Do not let it boil. Pull it off the heat and let the cinnamon and lime steep for ten minutes. The lime zest is the Yucatecan touch. It cuts the richness of three milks and the coconut and keeps the boli from tasting cloying.
Fish out the cinnamon stick and the lime zest and discard them. Pour the warm milk into a blender. Add the coconut milk, the evaporated milk, the sweetened condensed milk, the grated coconut, and the vanilla. Blend on high for one full minute until the mixture is smooth and the coconut is broken down into fine flecks. You want body and creaminess, not whole shreds floating around. This is cremita de coco, not a chunky pudding.
Taste the base while it is still liquid. It should be sweet but not sugary, with the coconut clearly present and a faint perfume of cinnamon and lime behind it. Cold dulls sweetness, so if it tastes only mildly sweet now, it will taste flat frozen. Adjust with a tablespoon more condensed milk if it needs more body, or a pinch of salt if it tastes one-note. Trust your tongue. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.
Set a boli bag inside a tall glass to hold it open. Pour or ladle the cremita into the bag until it is about three-quarters full. Leave room at the top for the liquid to expand as it freezes. Press the air out, then tie the top tightly with a double knot. The knot has to be tight. A loose boli leaks in the freezer and again in your hand. Repeat with the rest of the bags.
Lay the filled bolis flat on a sheet pan and freeze for at least eight hours, ideally overnight. They have to be frozen solid through the center. A half-frozen boli is a sad thing on a hot day. Once they are hard, you can pile them into a freezer bag for storage. They keep for up to two months.
Take a boli out of the freezer and let it sit on the counter for two or three minutes so the edge softens slightly. Bite a corner of the bag off with your teeth, the way every child in Mérida and Campeche learns to do it, and squeeze the cremita up into your mouth as it melts. This is how they are eaten on the way home from the playa, walking barefoot on hot pavement. Así se hace y punto.
1 serving (about 127g)
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