Pan de Cazón Campechano

This is from Campeche. Not Yucatán, not Quintana Roo, Campeche. The state on the Gulf side of the peninsula, the one with the walled colonial port, the one that catches the cazón. The other peninsular states have their own great dishes. This one belongs to Campeche and the campechanos will tell you so before you sit down.

Pan de cazón is built in layers, three tortillas high, frijol colado and shredded cazón between them, the whole stack bathed in chiltomate so hot and red it stains the top tortilla. People call it the lasagna of the peninsula. The comparison is useful for someone who has never seen it. It is also misleading. This dish is older than the comparison suggests. The technique is Mayan: layered tortillas, fish from the Gulf, charred tomato sauce, the habanero, the epazote. Spanish influence shows up at the edges, in the lard, in the pickled onion. The bones are pre-Hispanic.

The cazón is small dogfish. A young shark. Mild, firm, the flesh flakes into pieces the size of a thumbnail. If you cannot find cazón, fresh cod will get you close, skipjack closer. What you cannot do is substitute the chiltomate. The charred tomatoes, the habanero, the epazote, these are the dish. Skip the tatemado and you have made fish in tomato sauce. That is not pan de cazón. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and Campeche guards this one carefully.

My notebook from the trip to Campeche has a page from a señora at the Mercado Pedro Sainz de Baranda. She told me to char the tomatoes until they were ugly. Those were her words. Until they look like you ruined them. Then you have chiltomate. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.