Xec Yucateco

Xec is from Yucatán. The name is Mayan, not Spanish. It is pronounced shek and it means shuffled, which is exactly the gesture you use to make it: hands in the bowl, lifting and turning jícama matchsticks through citrus until every piece has met the juice.

This is a Hanal Pixán dish. Hanal Pixán is the Maya Day of the Dead, observed across the peninsula from late October through early November, and xec appears on altars and family tables because the season is right: mandarina, naranja dulce, toronja, and naranja agria are all in the markets at the same time, and the jícama is at its sweetest. A fruit salad in Yucatán is not lettuce-and-dressing. It is built on jícama, citrus, and chile, and the dressing is the juice of the fruit itself. No oil. No sugar. The acidity of the naranja agria is what holds the whole bowl together, and that is the ingredient you should not skip.

The chile piquín on top is small and hot and grows wild across the peninsula. Mayan cooks have been seasoning fruit with chile and salt since long before the Spanish arrived. The combination of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy in a single spoonful is not a modern food trend. It is one of the oldest flavor structures in the Americas.

I learned this version from a senora in Mérida who set out a clay bowl of xec for her grandmother on the Hanal Pixán altar every year. She told me the trick was to cut the jícama by hand, never on a mandoline. The mandoline cuts too thin and the jícama loses its crunch under the citrus. Cada estado, su propia cocina. This one is Yucatán's, and the peninsula does not share it.