Gringas de Pastor

Gringas are from Ciudad de México. Specifically from the al pastor taquerias of Colonia Roma, Condesa, and the Centro, where the trompo turns from noon until two in the morning and the flour tortilla is what separates this from a regular taco. Pastor goes on a corn tortilla. Gringa goes on flour. That is the rule and the dish is named for it.

The story everyone repeats: a fair-skinned customer, a gringa, walked up to a Roma trompo decades ago and asked for her pastor on a flour tortilla with cheese instead of corn. The taquero made it and put it on the menu. Nobody knows if the story is true. The name stuck either way. What you need to know is that gringa is not a Tex-Mex quesadilla. The al pastor is the dish. The cheese and the flour tortilla are the frame.

Al pastor itself is not Mexican in origin. It came from Lebanese immigrants who arrived in Puebla and Ciudad de México in the early twentieth century with their vertical spit and their shawarma technique. Mexican cooks took the spit, swapped lamb for pork, added the adobo of guajillo and ancho and achiote, and topped the trompo with a pineapple. Within a generation, it became one of the defining dishes of the capital. Esto no es comida de un solo México. Pastor is what happens when CDMX absorbs an immigrant tradition and makes it its own.

You do not have a trompo. Do not pretend otherwise. What you have is a comal, a hot pan, and patience. Marinate the pork overnight, sear it in batches over high heat, chop it fine, char a piece of pineapple, and griddle the whole thing inside flour tortillas with real Oaxaca quesillo. Not cheddar. Not mozzarella. Quesillo. The string cheese from Oaxaca that pulls when it melts. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.