Sopa de Chaya Yucateca

This soup belongs to the Yucatan Peninsula. To Merida, to Valladolid, to the small Maya towns in the interior where chaya grows in the courtyard of almost every house. It is not Mexican food in the generic sense. It is Maya food, a survival from a kitchen tradition that predates the Spanish by a thousand years.

Chaya is the heart of this dish and it has to be respected. The leaves are bigger and tougher than spinach, with a deeper green and a faintly mineral flavor. They also contain hydrocyanic compounds that have to be cooked out. You boil chaya. Always. You do not blend it raw, you do not eat it in a salad, you do not cook it in an aluminum pot. The senoras in the Lucas de Galvez market in Merida will tell you the same thing if you ask. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado.

The rest of the soup is a Yucatecan base of chicken broth, white onion, garlic, manteca de cerdo, and a sprig of epazote. The pepita is what turns it from a broth into a soup. Toasted on a comal until it puffs, then blended into the chaya, the pepita gives the soup body and a quiet nutty depth that holds the green together. At the table, lima agria, the small, fragrant Yucatecan lime that is nothing like a Persian lime, and finely chopped chile habanero. Each diner finishes their own bowl. That ritual is part of how the Peninsula eats.

This is a weeknight soup in Yucatan. It costs almost nothing if you grow chaya in the yard, which most families do, and it feeds a household well. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and the Maya cooks who hand this recipe down know exactly what that means.