Poc Chuc

Poc chuc is from Yucatán. Not from generic Mexico, not from the north, not from the central plateau. From Yucatán, the peninsula with its own chiles, its own citrus, its own Mayan vocabulary still alive in the kitchen. The name itself, poc chuc, is Maya. Poc means to toast or sear. Chuc means charcoal. The name is the recipe.

This is daily food in Mérida. Not Sunday food. Not celebration food. Daily food. Lunch at a wooden table under a slow ceiling fan, the platter passed around, everybody building their own taco. Thin pork loin, sour orange and charred garlic, a hot charcoal fire, and the three things that always sit at the table of a Yucatecan cook: chiltomate, cebolla morada encurtida, and frijol colado. Take any one of them away and the meal limps.

The sour orange is the heart of it. Naranja agria, the bitter Seville orange the Spanish brought to the peninsula in the 16th century, which the Mayan cooks folded into their existing tradition of citrus-cured meats. If you live somewhere you cannot find sour orange, mix regular orange with lime in a two-to-one ratio. The señoras of Valladolid who taught me this recipe will not love that you had to do it, but they understand. They have daughters in Houston and Los Angeles. They have made the same compromise.

One more thing. The pork must be thin and the fire must be hot. Thick pork on a weak fire gives you something that is not poc chuc, no matter what you call it. Pound the steaks. Build the fire properly. Cook them ninety seconds a side. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and in Yucatán, saber cocinar is also saber leer el fuego.