Travel to the Yucatan Penninsula of Mexico – Amateur Traveler Episode 163 Transcript

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Travel to the Yucatan Penninsula of Mexico – Episode 163 Transcript

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Chris: Right.

Zora: I mean, I’m not exaggerated, as we talked about the last time I was on, I’m from New Mexico, I know from hot, so I know the chili, I can take it, but even I approach habanero salsa with extreme trepidation and it can also be a little alarming to visitors, because they’ll give you, like, habanero hot sauce in a bottle, like Tabasco, but they’ll also give you a bowl of what looks like, sort of, normal pico de gallo, like, raw tomato salsa, which I think a lot of Americans think of as the mild option, and it looks totally fine but it actually has little pieces of habanero in it, and it’s really, really deadly, and the Maya word for it, that they use everywhere is Xni Pec, which actually means dog’s nose, because that’s how sweaty it makes you when you eat it! Which I love that! So, yeah, if you want to get the nose sweat going, you go for a generous dab of the Xni Pec, but, otherwise, you want to proceed with extreme caution. I haven’t gotten into specifics of what the food is. There is great, great, long stewed pork in banana leaves, which is called cochinito pibil or puerco pibil. Really rich, really soulful, super delicious. Um, when you go to the beaches, you get something called Tikin Xic, which is fish wrapped in banana leaves with the achiote paste, the red achiote paste and onions, and grilled, so you get a nice like rich smoky flavor on your fish. You get really delicious shrimp tacos, battered, deep fried shrimp, quick fried, for some reason, maybe it’s the like loving the French for so many years, people in the Yucatan are really, really into mayonnaise.

Chris: Hmm, ok!

Zora: It’s actually hilarious – every time I go in a supermarket, I laugh at, like, how much shelf space is taken up with mayonnaise, it’s, like, more than the salsa. It makes no sense. So the shrimp taco is usually served on a corn tortilla with a smear of mayonnaise to sort of hold your shrimp in place, then you shake on, there’s usually a mild tomato salsa for that one, so you don’t totally wreck yourself. There’s one place in Playa del Carmen, it’s on the Highway, called La Floresta, where, conveniently, I’ve always managed to make my trips very inefficient, and I have to drive through Playa del Carmen about eight times, but, every time I drive by, I’m like “Great! Time for La Floresta!” and I stop off and I have a couple shrimp tacos and a cane sugar coca cola and it totally hits the spot.

Chris: Time of year to go?

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