Geographically isolated from the heart of México,
the Yucatán developed a separate cuisine long ago.
Rooted in the traditions of the local Maya, Yucatecan food has been influenced by the Caribbean
and Europe due to the peninsula’s ports that carried
on a heavy flow of trade with foreign countries.
Pork, chicken, and fish are the mainstays of
Yucatecan food. Essential to the cuisine are
seasoning mixtures called
recados.
They’re often rubbed into meats as marinades before
cooking or thinned with liquid and used as sauces.
Achiote
paste, made from the bright-red annatto seed and
other spices, flavors the region’s most famous dish,
cochinita
pibil.
Traditionally, wild boar was marinated in achiote,
then wrapped in banana leaves and roasted in a pit.
Today, chefs use pork (alternatively, chicken or
fish) and often substitute ovens for pits, but the
deep-flavored seasoning and banana leaves still
leave a rich, unique taste. At the Hacienda
Chichen Resort, cochinita pibil is still prepared in
the traditional fashion: the pork and other
ingredients are wrapped in banana leaves, placed
within a recently made earthen pit full of burning
embers and fragrant wood, then covered, and finally
left to cooked for eight hours. It is then
disinterred and served with corn tortillas, pickled
red onion, and Habanero chiles.
Two other recados are commonly used:
recado de chilmole
and recado
para bistec.
Recado de chilmole, also called relleno negro, is
made with charred chiles and fragrant allspice
berries. Black and pungent, it’s added to meatballs
and is the base for the sauce in turkey chilmole.
Recado para bistec, a green blend of chiles,
cinnamon, cloves, and other spices, jazzes up
seafood, soups, and pollo escabeche
oriental,
a Christmas favorite found year-round in many
restaurants – the "oriental" refers to eastern
Yucatan, not Asia. For this dish, the recado is
added to vinegared, cooked chicken, which is briefly
grilled and served with broth.
Finally, you’ll want to savor a few of the local
drinks. You shouldn’t leave a Yucatecan restaurant
without a taste of xtabentún,
a Maya liqueur flavored with honey and anise.
Xtabentún was the nectar of the ancient Maya
god-kings and is reputed to be an aphrodisiac.
For a cool, refreshing drink, try an agua fresca,
a lemonade-like drink made with wonderful local
fruit. Agua
de horchata
is a sweet, rice-based drink originating from this
region.
Jamaica,
also a type of agua fresa, is more of a fresh brewed
tea made from the flagrant flowers of a bush from
the hibiscus family, but is not hibiscus. The
locally brewed beers here are some of Mexico's best:
if you enjoy light beer, order a Montejo; for a dark
beer, choose Negra Modelo.
If you would like to
learn how to cook some of the Mayan dishes described
above and more during your trip to the Yucatan
Peninsula and the Mayan Riviera, check out our
featured package:
Mayan Cooking Heritage.
For free Mayan and
Fusion Cuisine Recipes, please visit
Yucatan Adventure
— dedicated to promote the Maya
Culture Traditions.
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Remember, Chichen
Service offers you great Yucatan Hotels and Haciendas Rates,
fabulous Green Vacation Packages to visit Yucatan, Mexico and to
enjoy Yucatan's Mayan Cultural Traditions, Mayan Spa treatments
and Rituals, fun eco-activities, great Mayan Spa Packages, and
the best room rates and special promotion offers in Merida's
Boutique Hotels and Boutique Haciendas, as well as Chichen
Itza's best Eco-Spa Resorts: Yaxkin Spa and Hacienda Chichen
Resort acclaimed as Yucatan's top Mayan Spa and Mexico's most
innovating Eco-Spa Resort Experience at Yaxkin's Mayan Holistic
Spa Center. Visit our various web-pages filled with ideas
on what to do in Merida, what to visit in Yucatan, where to stay
in Merida, where to go in Yucatan, and what Yucatan Haciendas to
stay in. All these and more can be part of your next visit
to Merida, Chichen Itza, and the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
.
