Barbacoa

The pit-roasting technique is pre-Hispanic and Mesoamerican, but the lamb that defines Hidalgo barbacoa is not: sheep were introduced to mainland Mexico by the Spanish in the early-to-mid 16th century, after which mutton, beef and goat joined the older repertoire of turkey, deer and game. Barbacoa de borrego is therefore a colonial-era synthesis — an indigenous earth-oven method applied to a European animal. The word itself entered Spanish from the Taíno (Arawak) language of the Caribbean, where it named a wooden framework of sticks built over a fire; recorded by Spanish chroniclers in the early 16th century, it is the direct ancestor of the English word barbecue. Within Hidalgo, the town of Actopan is widely called la cuna de la barbacoa, the cradle of the dish, and holds an annual barbacoa fair.

The lamb pulls into moist, faintly smoky strands, soft enough to shred under a fork yet still distinct — never paste — and carries a vegetal, lightly sweet note from the maguey leaf it steamed in. Spooned into a warm blue-corn tortilla with a ladle of the deep, fat-glossed consomé, then brightened with raw onion, cilantro and a spoonful of salsa borracha, whose ground pasilla chiles and pulque give it a smoky, faintly boozy edge. Pulque, the fermented agave drink of which Hidalgo is the leading producer, is the traditional accompaniment.

This is steaming, not dry roasting: the sealed pit traps the moisture the meat and leaves release, holding a humid heat over many hours that breaks down the lamb's connective tissue into gelatin. The maguey leaves are first toasted over flame (tatemado) until pliable, which keeps them from tearing and lends a faint smoke; as they heat they give off moisture and aromatic compounds, lending the meat an earthy, vegetal sweetness. The genius of the layout is the catch-pot set beneath the meat: every drop of rendered fat and juice falls into a broth of chickpeas, rice, onion and chile, so nothing is lost — the meat above and the consomé below cook from the same drippings.