Tacos de Barbacoa de Borrego Hidalguense

Barbacoa belongs to Hidalgo. There are other barbacoas across Mexico, the cow-cheek version of the north, the goat barbacoa of the Bajio, but when a Mexican says barbacoa without a qualifier, they usually mean borrego en penca de maguey, hidalguense, eaten on a Sunday morning in Actopan or Tulancingo with a clay cup of consome on the side.

The maguey leaf is the whole point. Pulque country, the volcanic high plains of Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, and the State of Mexico, grows the maguey that gives this dish its identity. The pencas are toasted, the lamb is wrapped, and the package is cooked low for hours in a pit lined with hot stones. The leaf does not just hold the meat. It seasons it. It traps the juices that fall and become the consome below. Without the maguey, you are making a stew. With the maguey, you are making barbacoa.

I watched this done properly in Actopan one Saturday at five in the morning. The man who taught me lit his pit Friday night, lowered the lamb in just before dawn, and pulled it out at noon. He did not own a thermometer. He did not need one. He knew by the smell of the smoke when it was ready. I cannot give you that pit in your apartment kitchen. What I can give you is the method scaled down, the leaves you need to look for, the salsa borracha drunk on pulque that anchors the dish to its region. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and to make this dish properly is to learn what the cooks of Hidalgo have known for centuries: low fire, green leaf, patience.