Carnitas estilo CDMX

Carnitas were born in Michoacán. Anyone who tells you different is wrong. But Ciudad de México took them in, set up a counter on every other corner, and made them part of the city's daily life. This is the CDMX version: faster than Quiroga's all-day cazo de cobre, leaner on the showmanship, heavier on the chop. The taqueros at Mercado de San Juan, at El Cuadrilatero, at the carnitas stands in Coyoacán and Colonia Roma, all build their tacos the same way. Two tortillas. A rough chop that mixes mahogany crust with soft interior. Onion, cilantro, lime. Salsa to taste.

The shoulder gives you the meat. The belly gives you the fat and the skin that crackles. Both go into the pot together. La manteca es el sabor, and in this dish, the lard is not a cooking medium, it is half the recipe. The milk and the Mexican Coca-Cola are not American additions. They are how it has been done in Mexico City taquerias since at least the 1970s. The lactose and the cane sugar caramelize the edges in the last fifteen minutes when the liquid cooks off and the lard alone takes over. Skip them and your carnitas will be pale.

My mother bought carnitas on Saturday afternoons from a man with a cazo on the corner of Avenida Alvaro Obregon. He chopped them on a wooden board so worn the grain had become smooth as glass. He never weighed anything. He looked at how many people were in your group and pulled meat from the pot accordingly. That is the spirit of CDMX carnitas, fast, generous, chopped to order, eaten standing up at the counter or wrapped in butcher paper to take home. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and the capital learned this one from Michoacán and made it her own.