Pescado a la Talla de la Costa Oaxaqueña

Pescado a la talla belongs to the Oaxacan coast. Specifically to the stretch of Pacific shoreline that runs from Puerto Escondido down through Mazunte, Zipolite, and into the Costa Chica, where the fishermen come in at dawn and the comedores along the beach build wood fires by mid-morning. By lunchtime there is fish on every grill.

The word talla comes from tallar, to rub or to score. The fish is butterflied open, rubbed hard with a chile adobo, and grilled flesh side down so the paste chars into the skin. This is not pescado zarandeado from Nayarit, which uses a clamshell grill and a different chile profile. This is the Oaxacan version, built on guajillo, ancho, and chile costeño, that small bright red chile that grows in the coastal lowlands and gives the paste its particular sharpness. If you can find a chile pasilla oaxaqueño from the Sierra Norte, smoke-dried over wood, add it. That smoke is what separates the Oaxacan version from every other grilled fish in Mexico.

The women who run the comedores in Zipolite taught me this dish. They do not measure. They build the paste by feel, taste it off a spoon, adjust the salt, slather it on a snapper that was swimming three hours ago, and slide it onto the grill over coconut wood. The fish comes off charred and red and smelling like the sea and the chile vendor's stall at the same time. My mother never made this dish, she was from Jalisco and her ocean was different, but I have a page in my notebook from a senora named Rosalba in Mazunte who showed me how to mix the adobo without writing anything down. I wrote it down for her. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Use a whole fish. A red snapper, a robalo, a huachinango. Skin on, head on, tail on. Filleted fish is for a different recipe. The skin holds the chile paste and the bones carry the flavor into the flesh. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to the Oaxacan coast.