Yucatan Style Pork BBQ

[rons]

wow awesome! Points man!

 

[seaham358]

That's Great looking Pulled pork... All that hard work looks like it paid off big time.
Great pics..

 

[rivet]

Elde- the books were a pair called The Conquest of Mexico or something like that, a 2 volume set. The copyright on them is the 1850's and I got them for a song at a yardsale. I have them in storage right now on the outher side of town, so I can't pull them out and give you details. They are an english translation of the conquest history written in Spanish by the folks who chronicled it.

Turkey's were the main source of land animal protein they ate...that we know. The word "pibil" is (nahuatl? Yucatec?) their language for pit-barbecue if I am not mistaken, and they "pibilled" lots of things including fish.

I guess I am taking this further in that once pigs became available they used them too.

I was always under the impression that wild boars, or "Jabali" were available in the region, let me look this up.....

Okay, I have definitively solved this! There were Jabali in central America when Cortez arrived. They are Peccaries, a subspecies from which Pigs and Hippopotamus belong to:

This is from Wikipedia:

"Peccaries (also known as javelinas, by the Portuguese name javali and Spanish jabalí or pecarí) are medium-sized mammals of the family Tayassuidae. Peccaries are members of the artiodactyl suborder Suina, as are swine (Suidae) and hippopotami (Hippopotamidae). They are found in the southwestern area of North America and throughout Central and South America. Peccaries usually measure between 90 and 130 cm in length (3 to 4 feet), and a full-grown adult usually weighs between about 20 and 40 kilograms (44 to 88 pounds).

Peccaries are medium-sized animals, with a strong superficial resemblance to pigs. Like pigs, they have a snout ending in a cartilagenous disc, and eyes that are small relative to their head. Also like pigs, they use only the middle two digits for walking, although, unlike pigs, the other toes may be altogether absent. Their stomach is non-ruminating, although it has three chambers, and is more complex than that of pigs.

...In European pigs the tusk is long and curves around on itself, whereas in peccaries, the tusk is short and straight. The jaws and tusks of peccaries are adapted for crushing hard seeds and slicing into plant roots, and they also use their tusks for defense...."

Also, thanks for the link to your web page! I am familiar with the Society for Creative Anachronism, and my wife who teaches at the University always has a couple of students each semester involved in it- sounds like a lot of fun!

I appreciate your interest in this thread and asking the questions...it got a lot of us involved in learning something new and I am sure we got a lot more out of it than just good Q-Vue!

 

[tasunkawitko]

javelina! of course! forgot all about them! excellent!!

 

[elde]

Isn't that the fun of recreation cooking? Figuring out their tools, ingredients, recipes, and techniques and then trying to recreate them? Lots and lots of sweat, both mental and physical.

And a lot of screw ups along the way... Don't ask how many pots and pipkins we broke trying to learn how to cook in pottery over an open fire!

Coolness! And that brings us full circle to the reason why the cooking method(s) that evolved into BBQ came into being - wild peccaries would have been lean, tough, gamy, and full of connective tissue. A perfect match for long, slow, moist, pit cooking.

It's a blast - I've been doing it for over twenty years, and we've been doing the cooking demo (as completely accurate as possible) for about eight years now.

Here's an overview of the Guild, some articles on things we've done over the years are linked at the bottom.

It's been interesting - I had no idea that they may have had a pig like animal to cook.

 

[planethill]

Just grow your own! I have had a banana plant for years, just because I liked the way it looks. Now, it could actually serve a purpose!

It's indoors for the New York Winter, and after the last frost it hangs out by the pool till Fall.

 

[rivet]

Elde- very nice pics of your group, and guilds. Thanks for sharing! I tried to open the roast pelican vigil meal, but it wouldn't. Too bad, pelican sounded interesting!