Burro Percheron Sonorense

This is from Sonora. Specifically from Hermosillo, where the burro percheron belongs to the late-night carretas parked along the avenues and to the food trucks that open after the sun finally lets go of the desert. The burro percheron is not a Mission burrito. It is older, simpler, and rooted in a different geography: the cattle country of the Mexican northwest, where flour tortillas are a birthright and mesquite is the cooking fuel.

The sobaquera is the soul of this dish. A flour tortilla so thin and so wide it drapes over the cook's forearm while she stretches it. The name comes from sobaco, the armpit, because that is roughly where it ends up. Sonoran women have been making them this way for generations, in wheat-growing country where corn was always the second grain. If you serve a burro percheron on a small store-bought flour tortilla, you have made a burrito. You have not made a percheron.

The meat is arrachera grilled over mesquite. Not gas. Not propane. Mesquite. The smoke is dry and faintly sweet and the desert wood is what makes Sonoran carne asada taste like Sonoran carne asada. The cheese is Chihuahua or asadero, melted onto the tortilla so it pulls in long strings when you lift it. The avocado is whole, not mashed. The crema is real Mexican crema, not sour cream. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to the noroeste.

The burro is named for the percheron, the heavy draft horse, because it is supposed to be huge. Two-handed huge. The kind of food you eat once a week and remember for the rest of it. La manteca es el sabor and so is the size. No me vengas con atajos.