A Head Above: How Barbacoa Paved the Way for Barbecue
Two hours north of Mexico City, in the state of Hidalgo, is Actopan, commonly considered the epicenter of Mexican barbacoa. The city is known for its barbacoa de borrego (lamb barbacoa) and gastronomy festivals preserving Indigenous regional food traditions.
Barbacoa is prepared in hoyos (literally, “holes”) a meter or more deep and made with brick. In them, maguey-covered meat is placed on racks and then covered and sealed with a layer of metal or wood and dirt until the earth oven is airtight. The barbacoa cooks there for an extended period of time, usually overnight. Underneath the meat, pots collect the juices for consommé, a rich broth typically containing rice, garbanzos, and hardy vegetables that makes a great hangover cure for Sunday mornings, the traditional time barbacoa is served.
Alternatively, barbacoa can be cooked over superheated rocks in a partially underground horno (Spanish for “oven” and interchangeable with “hoyo”). The technique is mentioned in the 1896 Mexican cookbook Cocina Michoacana. In homes and some restaurants, barbacoa is often made using a large steamer, lined with agave leaves, similar to the pots used for tamales. But in central Mexico, customers seek out restaurants serving barbacoa a pie de horno (“at the foot of the oven”), where they know the lamb is cooked in the pre-Hispanic tradition.
It’s no simple thing. Rather, barbacoa is a laborious and time-intensive process—not just an ingredient—whose practitioners across Mexico are called barbacoyeros (barbacoa masters).
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Regional differences are myriad. Even within central Mexico, goat is occasionally used instead of lamb, especially in the state of Morelos and in northern Guerrero. Ingredients for the consommé, the salsas, the side dishes, and the antojitos (appetizers) change from town to town.
In Oaxaca, you can get goat or lamb cooked with or without red chile sauce. In Córdoba, Veracruz, they have barbacoa de pollo, a whole chicken marinated in red chile sauce and wrapped in hoja santa, avocado, and banana leaves. Ximbó (pronounced “cheembo,” with the stress on the last syllable) from Hidalgo and the Estado de México can feature chicken or pork or a combination of cuts of both meats. The proteins are slathered in a chile-based marinade and cooked wrapped in maguey leaves until hot and easily shredded. The herbaceous fragrance that erupts from the unwrapped maguey is due partially to the plant matter but also to the spices and seasonings. If you’re lucky, you will find someone serving jackrabbit barbacoa in Sonora, venison barbacoa in Sinaloa, langoustine barbacoa along the coast of Veracruz, or iguana barbacoa at Christmastime in Morelos. Beef is a common ingredient for barbacoa throughout Mexico, but especially in northern Mexico and the former part of Mexico that is Texas.
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The terms “vaquero,” “barbacoa,” and “barbecue” are intimately linked. The word “barbecue” is the English rendering of the Spanish word “barbacoa.” What we know as barbecue in the United States was originally encountered by Europeans in the Caribbean Basin and on what is the modern Latin American mainland. As Spanish explorers and missionaries noted at the time, “barbacoa” (derived from the native Taíno word “barabicu”) was used to describe a grain store or a stick framework upon which meat or fish was roasted or grilled. In a letter to the Spanish king dated 1520, Hernán Cortés described it as meat cooked under the ground and sold by vendors in the main market of Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City).
Although evidence of earth-oven cooking in Texas goes back several thousand years, South Texas barbacoa de cabeza practitioners trace the practice back to the the nineteenth century, when Americans began immigrating to Texas. When Anglo ranchers butchered beef, they would pass on the unwanted heads—brains and all—to their Mexican ranch hands and vaqueros. These workers did what they could with the scraps. They cleaned each discarded head, wrapped it in maguey leaves and/or burlap, and placed it into a pit heated by mesquite coals. The pit was covered with maguey and soil, and the heads would be left to cook overnight or longer. It was an example of human ingenuity and survival.
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Pit-cooking barbacoa isn’t extinct—it’s just not officially sanctioned. Vera’s Backyard Bar-B-Que’s special status allows it to showcase South Texas–style barbacoa in all its shimmering, smoke-anointed fattiness. It is the template for Texas barbacoa far removed from pressure-cooked, offset-smoked, or braised preparations that have become standard across the state and country. Barbacoa is often one of the fillings in the omnipresent pork-beef-chicken taco category. It’s on the menus of taquerias, food trucks, and barbecue joints alike. It’s served by the pound, in tacos, and with other elements….
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While Stixs & Stone offers a modern interpretation, barbacoa and barbecue tacos aren’t new. Barbecue joints across Texas—including now-closed Wilson’s Barbecue in El Paso and the former Bar-B-Que Pit in Brownsville—peddled the dishes throughout the twentieth century, with more joining with each passing year. Newspapers disseminated recipes nationwide—even in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where it was written that “[t]he Mexican ‘barbacoa’ has been adapted and taken over North of the Border, becoming the favorite for family cookouts and casual entertaining in the summer months.” According to a 1966 recipe printed in several newspapers across the country, the meat of choice for “Barbacoa Mexicana” was chicken, which was marinated in dry vermouth, cinnamon, honey, lime juice, garlic, and salt.
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Perhaps barbacoa’s biggest nationwide exposure was in the 1956 film Giant, starring James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor. There is a scene in which Hudson’s character, rancher Bick Benedict, throws a party to introduce neighbors and friends to his new bride, Leslie (played by Taylor). The culinary centerpiece of the shindig is barbacoa. The camera focuses on men removing the meat from a pozo. Later, Bick describes barbacoa as “the best food you ever ate, honey” and “where we get the word ‘barbecue.’ ” Bick explains the cooking process to Leslie, the camera homes in on barbacoyeros unwrapping and separating the meat from the cow’s head, and the genteel rancher’s wife faints. While barbacoa and barbecue are familiar to all Americans, the Lone Star State is the beefy heart of the classic Mexican preparation.
Tedtam,
Condolences on the loss of your dear cousin. It is never easy to lose a dear person regardless of circumstances beyond anyone’s control this side of God’s grace and love.
double uncklo7
65 Shannon
You’ve had more women in your life than Sean Connery.
You oughta be ashamed of yourself.
In 1962 I was seven years old, in 2nd grade, and in love with a blond girl named Holly.
Shannon What were you doing in 1962 when I was in the fifth grade at Rummel Creek ? I spent 48 hours holed up in the bedroom writing an insane history of Oklahoma Boomer Sooner 1907 statehood to try and beat out my classmate, the evil Loren Clay, for the best, longest history report of the year. I won and… Read more »
I didn’t realize Oklahoma didn’t become a state until 1907.
If there is any doubt in your mind, refresh your historical knowledge about Finland and Russia.
The Finns are incredibly fierce people. You don’t want to rile them up.
Trust me, the Russians don’t take them lightly.
And they won’t just willy-nilly screw around at Finland’s border. They have not forgotten the Cold War.
For the second time in as many years, the Kremlin is deliberately fomenting a refugee crisis. In late 2021, it helped embolden the threats of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to “flood” Europe with migrants, targeting Poland and the Baltic countries. Now, over the past few weeks, Russian authorities have been forcibly pushing hundreds of migrants and refugees towards Finland’s eastern… Read more »
58 Squawk
Yes, I agree. It’s devastating.
It needs to be reposted tomorrow.
Texpat
She has so many quotable quotes in that video and it is all so true. I fear no one is listening to the alarm she is sounding to us.
Tedtam – prayers for comfort and peace, and for safe travels, if you do, indeed, travel… It’s been several years since I lost both cousins on my Mama’s side of the family – one of whom was like a big brother to me, and the other, the closest thing to a sister I had… Someone once said something to the… Read more »
Tedtam
I am deeply sorry for the death of your cousin.
My most sincere sympathies and prayers are with you and your loved ones.
Squawk
This is even worse.
October 7th is like Israel’s version of Biden’s Afghanistan disaster. The failures are equivalent.
Texpat
i am not easily shaken. but that message chilled me to the bone.
No words………………………..
Once again, how I wish I was a cartoonist. I can see the finished piece in my mind. 🙂
Squawk
I am only 13 minutes into the video and I am outraged. I knew things were bad, but I never knew they were this bad.
No words. No Words.
Caroline’s message at the end of the video is for the West…… that means us.
Are ya listening?
Texpat etal
Inside the Insane Intelligence Failure of Oct. 7 | The Caroline Glick Show In-Focus
This is unbelievable. My heart goes out to the Jewish people big time. The hubris of the IDF commanders contributed to this atrocity. they should be tried for treason and turned over to Hamas. They aided and abetted the enemy.
Wow, BETA moved fast on Green Cousin’s arrangements: https://www.shaferfh.com/obituary/PatriciaPatty-walzem The picture of her is at least 30 years old. BETA, family, and I were all commenting in the hospital how she was the spitting image of Grandma Walzem. She changed in those 30 years, though I can certainly see Grandma beginning to show in her features in this picture. So,… Read more »
Was it wearing a speedo?
I don’t know.
I had a nightmare about an iguana wearing a kippah speaking Hebrew. It looked exactly like Squawk.
I couldn’t sleep for days.
Hubby and I decided on chili tonight. I had a quart of stuff I canned two years ago handy.
Dinner. Done.
And it was delicious.
I do love having stuff on my shelves, especially when I don’t feel like cooking.
#43 Shannon: Goats are kosher. Lizards are not.
The potentially severe weather never showed up today. I got up way early and left before dawn hoping to avoid it while working.
Now I’m ready to go to sleep at 6pm.
Can’t do that or I’ll be up and wide awake before 2am.
Or are you still talking lizards? 🙂
36 Bones
Now wait just a minute.
Goats are warm-blooded, hairy, and the mommas produce milk – might not be Kosher, but that makes them mammals.
41
These MSM outlets could only have been more excited if he had died.
Actually, the Derek Chauvn stabbing has been pretty widely reported. I saw it on one Evening news program and two local Houston stations.
Derek Chauvin is recovering from a stabbing attack in the federal prison (medium security) in Arizona.
How much have you heard of this attack in the LSM or anywhere else?
I witnessed one side of a phone call between a local Middle-Eastern convenience store manager and his goat farmer friend as he was ordering a dressed kid to cook for a weekend party. We talked about it afterwards. He was ordering a 50 lb. kid on the hoof.
TT 1523: Good on Paxton! This will loop the censorship and peddling of lies of the Feds as well. Now it depends on getting a judge who does not have his head up his rectum; like that lunatic in NYC going after Trump.
According to the USDA: Kids (goats under a year of age) are often slaughtered when 3 to 5 months of age and weighing from 25 to 50 pounds. Kids do not store much body fat until they are about a year old. Many goats are older than a year and heavier when marketed, but most, except aged cull goats, are… Read more »
#34 Pyro: Definitely NOT Kosher. No cloven hoof, not an ungulate (4 chambered stomach), not even a mammal.
Sorry for your loss Ms TT. On our front, we’d been waiting for Home Health to come evaluate our dad for some direction and approval to get in skilled nursing or some help with next step. She said get him to ER so we put him in Tomball Hospital. Been here 30 minutes they already have him on fluids, did… Read more »
From what I hear, you can go over to Florida when it gets cold and it’s raining iguanas. They also have iguana hunters that go out with pellet guns and shoot them out of the trees (in a way similar to how mistletoe is gathered in Oklahoma). Remaining to be answered is: Do they taste like chicken? Are there roasters,… Read more »
Attorney General Ken Paxton Sues Pfizer for Misrepresenting COVID-19 Vaccine Efficacy and Conspiring to Censor Public Discourse Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Pfizer, Inc., for unlawfully misrepresenting the effectiveness of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine and attempting to censor public discussion of the product. Pfizer engaged in false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices by making unsupported claims regarding the company’s… Read more »
LD is working her last day before going on maternity leave. She’s busy making sure her replacement has everything she needs. She had some small contractions last night, so she encouraged one of her bosses to start a pool for when baby boy arrives. If you remember, that could be an interesting baby pool. Sunshine was a 28 hour labor. … Read more »
30
Dr phil
I have long assumed that is what is coming…..and why you always comment in code.
And with advances in AI they are going to easily be able to round us up like a herd of cows, charge us with phony crimes, and ship us off to the gulag, work camps, or euthanasia centers.
The longer clip of Musk at the end of Tedtam @10:25 is the only way to get the discussion in full context.
Attention;
Marie Harfcorporate mediaisareaStinking Lying Skanks! But you already know that. That is all.https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/11/30/putting-it-together-the-forced-metadata-demand-inside-the-jack-smith-court-order-they-are-showing-us-the-govt-battlespace-for-2024-and-what-we-will-face/
TT, It’s always hard to lose the ones we love, however comfort can be found understanding that where they are now is much better than where they were then.
Sorry for your loss.
Thanks for the hugs Squawk. I’m still adjusting to the fact that I’ll never hear her drawl “Just tell him/her/them to KISS YOUR A$$!!”
I can only imagine the ruckus “up there” about now….
I was going to run my box of rosaries to the parish, but I checked this afternoon’s forecast. The nasty stuff is going to hit any time now (just started getting more wind and rain as I’m typing), so I guess it’ll wait ’til tomorrow.
Morning, y’all. We need rain, so I am glad we are getting it. Also glad that I was able to put Billy Cat’s breakfast in the gazebo during a cessation of the wetness when I had his chow ready. I checked on him several times, so I saw him finish eating, then curl up in a dry spot under the… Read more »
I recently picked up another column about the rise in turbo cancers after the clot shot, and it reported the studies that show why – an element IG4 (or something like that, I’m no medico and I don’t have the article at my fingertips right now) gets turned on and NOT TURNED OFF in about half of the shots. A… Read more »
Dang Tedtam So sorry for your loss. H U G S
I just talked to my cousin who was keeping me informed on GC. Yes, she did leave around 1:15 in the morning. He said that just before she went, she got a smirk on her face and looked very peaceful as she went. Smirk. That was GC all the way to the end. Now I just wait for news on… Read more »