Chochos en Tomachile de Los Tuxtlas

Veracruz, Los Tuxtlas, is where chochos en tomachile belongs. Not the port with olives and capers, not the northern cattle country, but the humid volcanic lowlands around San Andres Tuxtla, Santiago Tuxtla, and Catemaco, where the market baskets carry palm flower buds when the season is right.

Chochos are tender unopened palm flowers, often sold as tepejilote or pacaya in other regions. In Los Tuxtlas they are cleaned, blanched to tame their bitterness, then stewed in tomachile: roasted jitomate de bola with chile chipotle seco, a little chile ancho for body, onion, garlic, and hoja santa, which Veracruz calls acuyo. That leaf is not decoration. It is the smell of the region.

I learned this pot from a señora near the Catemaco market who cooked it in a clay cazuela with black beans waiting on the side. She told me the sauce had to be fried before the chochos went in, because raw tomato tastes like laziness. She was right. The dish is vegetarian because the land made it that way, not because anyone was trying to impress a menu. Cada estado, su propia cocina.