Sotavento Plantain Mash (Machuca de Plátano)

Veracruz, Sotavento, the lower Papaloapan and the coast around Alvarado and Tlacotalpan: that is where this machuca belongs. This is not a sweet plantain dessert and it is not guacamole with a different base. It is plátano macho boiled until starchy and tender, machacado with manteca de cerdo, garlic, and fresh chile jalapeño, then set on the table as botana with totopos.

The Afro-Veracruz hand is in the technique: boil the starch, pound it, season it with fat and chile, feed the room. Plantain grows in the humid Gulf heat. Jalapeño comes down from the highlands around Xalapa. The lard comes from the pig pot, and the totopos come from nixtamal corn. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

My mother was from Jalisco, so this was not in her notebook. I learned this in the Tlacotalpan market from a woman who watched me mash too politely and took the spoon from my hand. Machucar means to crush with intention. If you blend it, you make paste. If you pound it while hot and loosen it with its own cooking water, it becomes soft, savory, and strong enough to stand up to the totopo. Así se hace y punto.