Pan de Pulque de Tlacolula

This bread is from Tlacolula de Matamoros, in the Valles Centrales of Oaxaca. Sunday is market day there, the biggest tianguis in the central valleys, and the panaderias along the streets that lead to the mercado have been pulling pan de pulque from wood-fired clay ovens since before anyone alive can remember.

The leavener is pulque. Not yeast. Pulque, the milky fermented sap of the maguey, the drink the Mexica considered sacred long before the Spanish brought wheat or commercial yeast to this country. When the wheat arrived, the bakers of the central altiplano did what cooks always do: they used what they had. They fermented their wheat dough with the same pulque they were drinking. The result is a bread with a slow, slightly sour pull, a tender crumb the color of pale straw, and a depth of flavor that no packet of yeast will ever produce. Pulque is not a substitute for yeast. Pulque is the leavener. It is older.

My mother did not bake pan de pulque. She was from Jalisco and her bread tradition was different. But I spent three Sundays in Tlacolula with the panadera at Mercado Alarii in Zaachila and another with the Sanchez family in Miahuatlan, and I filled half a notebook learning how they handle a pulque dough. The lessons are these: the pulque must be fresh and active, not the bottled curado you find at a tourist shop. The ferment is slow. You do not rush a pulque dough. The manteca de cerdo gives the crumb its tenderness. The piloncillo balances the sour. And the bread is a Sunday bread, eaten with chocolate de agua frothed with a molinillo, torn by hand, never sliced. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and in Oaxaca, knowing how to bake with pulque is knowing how to keep something ancient alive.