Ponche Navideño Norteño

Ponche is national, but every region pours it its own way. This is the northern version, the one you will find in the kitchens of Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and across into Coahuila and Nuevo Leon, where the December nights drop cold across the desert and the families pull out the largest pot in the house for the nine nights of Las Posadas.

The spine of the ponche is tejocote. A small wild fruit, golden when ripe, sour and aromatic, native to central and northern Mexico and harvested from October through January. No tejocote, no ponche. Crabapple is not a substitute. Loquat is not a substitute. If you cannot find fresh tejocote at the mercado, look for frozen at any Mexican grocery from November on. They sell it for this dish. Buy enough for the whole season.

The northwest version is drier and more austere than what they pour in Mexico City. We use less sugar, more tamarindo, more jamaica. We do not throw in every dried fruit in the cupboard. Sugar cane goes in by the baton and comes out chewable at the bottom of the cup, the favorite prize of every child in the room. The piloncillo is dark and the canela is true Mexican cinnamon, not the rough cassia sold in American supermarkets. And when the adults take their cup, they crown it with a shot of bacanora from the Sonoran sierra or a tequila reposado. That is ponche con piquete. The piquete is the whole point.

My mother was from Jalisco and her ponche carried jalisciense weight: sweeter, with more guayaba, less tamarind. The recipe in this book is the one I learned in Hermosillo from a senora named Yolanda who ran a posada for her whole block for thirty years. She wrote it for me on the back of an envelope and told me: the ponche must last nine nights. So you make a big pot and you keep adding water and fruit. Cada estado, su propia cocina.