Mukbilpollo (Hanal Pixán Buried Tamal)

Mukbilpollo belongs to Yucatán. Not to Mexico in some vague national sense, to the peninsula, to the Mayan kitchens of Mérida and Valladolid and the small towns of Yaxcabá and Tixkokob where the families still dig the pib in the backyard at the end of October. The name is Mayan: muk means to bury, bil is the verb form, pollo is chicken. Buried chicken. That is exactly what this dish is.

This is the food of Hanal Pixán, the food of the souls. Between October 31 and November 2, the dead return to eat with the living, and what they come back for is mukbilpollo. The pib is dug in the earth, lined with stones heated in a wood fire, and the cazuela is lowered in, covered with leaves and dirt, and left to bake for hours while the family waits. The oven version you are about to make is a translation, not a substitute. Honor it accordingly.

The recado rojo stains the meat and the masa the color of brick dust. The kol, a thickened broth bound with masa, keeps the filling moist as it bakes. The banana leaves, passed over a flame until pliable, hold the whole thing together and give the masa a deep green herbal smoke that no other wrapper can replicate. Epazote, chile xcatic, sour orange. These are not garnishes. These are the dish.

My mother did not cook Yucatecan food. She was jalisciense. But I learned mukbilpollo from a señora named Doña Elvia in a small town outside Valladolid, who dug the pib with her sons every year on October 30 and taught me to flame the banana leaves over a wood fire so they would not crack. She told me: "Si no haces el pib, los muertos se van con hambre." If you do not make the pib, the dead leave hungry. I have made it every year since. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and in Yucatán, saber cocinar es también saber recordar.