Cemita Árabe Poblana

The cemita is from Puebla. Not from Mexico City, not from the north, not from anywhere else that tries to sell you a version of it. Puebla. And the árabe is the Lebanese chapter of Puebla's history made edible.

In the early 1900s, Lebanese and Syrian families arrived in Puebla and brought with them the vertical spit, the allspice, the cumin, the technique of stacking marinated meat and shaving it off as it roasted. Poblanos took that technique and married it to their own bread, the cemita: a round, domed roll crusted in sesame seeds, sweet from a touch of egg in the dough. Eventually the same trompo technique traveled to Mexico City and met the achiote and pineapple of al pastor. But the original, the one before al pastor existed, is árabe. And it lives in Puebla.

The pápalo is not optional. It is a wild herb that grows in central Mexico, bright and slightly soapy and unlike anything else, and it is what makes the cemita taste like a cemita and not a torta. If you cannot find pápalo at your mercado, the dish loses something it cannot get back. The quesillo is from Oaxaca, the chipotle from Veracruz or Puebla, the avocado from Michoacán. One sandwich, a map of central Mexico, with the Lebanese signature underneath. Cada estado, su propia cocina, but a cemita is what happens when those kitchens meet on a single roll.