Tacos Placeros de Toluca

Tacos placeros are from Toluca, the capital of the Estado de Mexico, and they are named for the place they were born: the plaza, the market, the open-air stalls where women cook at the comal and the customer stands at the counter building lunch from whatever the cook lays in front of them. You will not find these tacos served pre-assembled in a fancy restaurant. They are a working person's lunch, and the work happens in front of you.

The foundation is the big tortilla. Nine inches across, hand-pressed, heated on the comal until the queso Oaxaca melts into the masa and the two become one surface. On top goes cecina enchilada, the chile-marinated pounded meat that Toluca has been curing for centuries. Then nopales, cooked with epazote to cut the baba. Then chicharron, still crisp. Then avocado, onion, cilantro. The layers are not negotiable. Each one carries the weight of what is above it. Remove any of them and you have a different taco.

My mother had a cousin in Toluca who would send dried cecina wrapped in butcher paper every few months, and my mother would pull it out on Sundays and lay out the comal and the bowls of nopales and the queso Oaxaca and tell us to build our own. The taco placero is meant to be made by the person eating it. The cook gives you the foundation. The eater finishes the work. Saber cocinar es saber vivir. Cada estado, su propia cocina.