Papas en Escabeche Yucatecas

These potatoes are from Yucatán. More specifically, they come from the eastern part of the peninsula, from Valladolid and the small towns around it, where they sit on the plate next to pollo en escabeche oriental and quietly do half the work of the meal.

Yucatán is not Mexico the way most foreigners imagine Mexico. The peninsula spent centuries with stronger trade ties to Cuba and New Orleans than to Mexico City. The cuisine carries Maya pre-Columbian techniques layered with Lebanese, Spanish, and Caribbean influences, and it tastes nothing like the food of Jalisco or Oaxaca or the north. The chile of choice is the xcatik, pale yellow, slender, smoky when roasted, never crushed into the dish but laid in whole. The acid is naranja agria, the bitter Seville orange that grows in courtyards across the peninsula. The spice paste is recado blanco, peppercorn-and-allspice-forward, descended from Maya practice and refined through the colonial spice trade that ran through the port of Campeche.

I learned this dish from a señora in Valladolid named Doña Cristina who ran a small fonda two blocks from the cathedral. She told me the secret was to roast the chile xcatik until it blistered but not to chop it, to use real manteca de cerdo and not oil, and to let the potatoes rest in the escabeche for the better part of an hour before serving. She also told me that papas en escabeche without pollo en escabeche oriental on the same table was a sad meal. She was right about all of it.

If you cannot find naranja agria or xcatik or recado blanco where you live, I will tell you what to use instead. But understand what you are missing. This is a Yucatecan dish and the Yucatán is its own country in matters of the kitchen. Cada estado, su propia cocina.