Cocotazo Yucateco

This is from Yucatán. Specifically from Mérida, where the panaderias of the centro open their wood-fired hornos before dawn and the trays of cocotazos come out in the late morning for the merienda crowd. The Peninsula has its own bread tradition that has almost nothing to do with the pan dulce of central Mexico, and the cocotazo sits at the heart of it.

The four chuchulucos on top are the dish. Four small dough nubs pressed into the crown in a square, north south east west, like four little hats. Without them, you have a sweetened salty roll. With them, you have a cocotazo. The name itself, in Yucatecan Spanish, refers to a thump on the head with the knuckles, and the bread is shaped like a head with four bumps. The señoras in the panaderias of Mérida will tell you the chuchulucos must be even and firmly pressed or they pop off in the horno. They check every tray. I have watched them.

What makes this bread Yucatecan is the fat. Egg yolks for richness, butter for tenderness, manteca de cerdo for the flavor that no other fat gives you. La manteca es el sabor. Strip the lard out and you have a brioche. Keep it in and you have what Mérida eats with its café de olla at four in the afternoon, torn open, dunked, eaten with the windows open to the heat of the Peninsula. Cada estado, su propia cocina.