Trompa de Puerco al Ajo (Charamakua)

Michoacan, Meseta Purhepecha. This dish belongs to the pine-oak forests above Lake Patzcuaro and the pueblos where the rain decides the menu: Cocucho, Cheran K'eri, Comachuen, Nahuatzen. Trompa de puerco is the Spanish nickname. Charamakua is the Purhepecha name used for this bright-orange foraged mushroom, and that name comes first in any serious kitchen.

I learned this register from cocineras tradicionales who wait for July and August the way other cooks wait for a holiday. Maria Elena Reyes of Cocucho has shown foraged mushroom plates with the patience of someone who knows the forest is not a supermarket. The charamakua comes in with pine needles clinging to the stems, then it is cleaned, torn, and cooked in manteca de cerdo on a comal de lena. Not vegetable oil. Not a stainless pan over gas if you have a better choice. La manteca es el sabor, and the wood-fired comal gives the mushroom the dry heat it needs before the garlic goes in.

This is not calabacitas con elote y rajas. That is another dish, broadly Mexican and perfectly useful, but this is Purhepecha indigenous cooking from Michoacan's rainy forest. No me vengas con atajos. Outside July and August, the terekuecha plate is not available. The cocinera tradicional waits for the rain, and so do you.

Use chile guajillo for color, pasilla for depth, and a little chile poncho peron if you can get it in Michoacan. The quelites, if you add them, are cooked, never raw. The finished cazuela should taste of forest, garlic, chile, lard, and smoke. Cada estado, su propia cocina.