Salsa Borracha del Altiplano

Salsa borracha is from the altiplano, the high central plateau that runs through Hidalgo and Tlaxcala and reaches into the state of México. This is pulque country. The maguey plant grows in long rows across the dry highland soil, and the men who harvest its sweet sap, the tlachiqueros, have been doing the same work for centuries. The salsa is named drunken not because it makes you drunk but because it is built on pulque, the fermented agave drink that the conquest tried to erase and that refuses to disappear.

The chile is pasilla. Not ancho. Not guajillo. Pasilla, the long, wrinkled, near-black dried chile that smells of dried fruit and tobacco when you toast it. Pasilla is what gives this salsa its color and its smoke. A small amount of guajillo can be added for brightness, but the pasilla is non-negotiable. Without it, you are making something else.

This salsa belongs on barbacoa de borrego on a Sunday morning in Actopan, on mixiotes pulled out of their maguey paper wrappers, on grilled meats laid out on a tabla. The queso añejo on top is dry, salty, and sharp. The raw onion cuts through the pulque's sweetness. The olive oil ties everything together. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and the altiplano made this one.

My mother did not make salsa borracha. She was from Jalisco and pulque was foreign to her kitchen. The first time I tasted this salsa was in a tiny pulqueria in Apan, Hidalgo, sitting next to a woman who had been serving barbacoa for forty years. She watched me take the first bite and waited. Then she said: you do not eat salsa borracha. You drink it. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.