# Yucatan Style Pork BBQ



## rivet (Aug 13, 2009)

Right now I'm interested in learning about the roots of barbecued and smoked meats. The real old stuff, from way back when...what were the recipes like? What did they eat with the meats? Lots of BBQ history out there and lots of good recipes. I want to try my hand at going back to the original, the basics.

Here's my take on Puerco Pibil, a pork barbecue the Mayan's made hundreds of years ago.

Decided on this because I got a great price of fesh pork butt this morning~ 99cents/LB~ Plus, my 2 vacation days make for a nice long smoking weekend! 
	

	
	
		
		



		
			








Next step is to marinate it in fresh citrus juice till tomorrow. Got some grapefruit, regular limes and Meatball's Key Limes from the exchange program. 



And here it is in the bowl marinating in the fresh juice. It's getting covered in plastic wrap and into the fridge~ I'll turn it every three or four hours until tomorrow. 



Tomorrow it will be rubbed and smoked as they did it way back then. More Q-Vue to come, and thanks for taking the time to look at the prep!


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## jirodriguez (Aug 13, 2009)

Sounds interesting! Let us know how it goes. 
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





Of course the real question is what did they drink back then.... I think some research is in order!


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## werdwolf (Aug 13, 2009)

I'll be watching closely.


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## cajunsmoke13 (Aug 13, 2009)

Nice...sounds like it will be good.


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## mballi3011 (Aug 13, 2009)

thats very cool rivet. I cann't wait till tommorrow and fine out more about the way thing were done back then. Till tommorrow.


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## tasunkawitko (Aug 13, 2009)

i've been waiting to see this one in action ever since we first talked about it, rivet - it's looking GREAT so far and i'm eager to see how it goes tomorrow ~

what wood are you planning to use? normally, I would assume hickory, but what would the mayans have used? is it available? i don't know ~


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## fire it up (Aug 13, 2009)

I absolutely LOVE puerco pibil.
I can't wait to see the outcome of this one.
Now you have me on the verge of running out to get some habs, a butt and some banana leaves.


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## alx (Aug 13, 2009)

Real nice Rivet.Look forward to the finale....

Real good recipe.Thanks for sharing the start...


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## elde (Aug 13, 2009)

As someone who does historical recreation cooking for a hobby...  What was the historical source you based your recipe and methodology on?


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## ronp (Aug 13, 2009)

I'll be waiting for the outcome also.


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## rivet (Aug 13, 2009)

That's an excellent question. I'm a history buff, and -something I learned today from you- a lover of historical recreational cooking. Never knew there was such a thing! 

For example, I recall about about 20 years ago reading _The Annotated Dracula_ and in it was the recipe for paprika chicken Johnathan Harker ate at the inn on the way to castle Dracula at the beginning. I just HAD to make it. From then on I was hooked. Been tweaking that recipe ever since, but that is another story.... 
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





I just read a lot, research the writing where and when possible. Thanks to Google and the internet we can now access international sites and records we were unable to as recently as ten years ago.

For puerco pibil, it is not that difficult since the recipe has essentially remained unchanged since Cortez and his men documented it on their arrival to the peninsula. It is very popular all over Mexico. If you go to Yucatan and ask around you will find that is so. I took a "Mexico on $10 a day" type trip to Yucatan and the Mayan ruins about 10 years ago and found that very true.

Hope this answers your question!

TASUNKAWITKO- I'm using oak. Of all the woods that I have available to me right now the only one I know is available in Yucatan and the Mayans may have used is oak. Think of the huge oaks in the Gulf panhandle of Florida, and Southern Georgia for that matter. I thought about a a nut tree, but there is no walnut or pecan that far south in Mexico that I know of. I thought to Google the ranges of different tree's but I recall from my trip, huge oaks with Spanish Moss hanging all from them down there, so that was an easy decision for me. Oak it is.


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## beer-b-q (Aug 14, 2009)

Very interesting Rivet,  Waiting to see how it comes out...


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## richoso1 (Aug 14, 2009)

Rivet, you're pulling on my Mayan roots. It will have a different taste based on the marinade, but it should be a tasty treat. Good luck my friend.


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## tasunkawitko (Aug 14, 2009)

sounds like a good plan, and i like your dedication to keeping it real. count me in as a fellow adherent to historical recreation cooking  

- keep us informed and let me know how it is ~


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## rivet (Aug 14, 2009)

Shot out of bed early this morning...got some pork to smoke! Took a bowl out to the garden and started picking fresh hot peppers for the rub. Jalapeno's, Cayennes and something new we tried this year- _SATAN'S KISS _hot peppers from Calabria, Italy. They call them _BACCIA DE SATANA_. I ordered the seeds online last winter, and these peppers are hot, but dang good too! About twice as hot as a really-hot jalapeno, and twice as big. They are the two on the rught, one red and one green-



Chopped them up as fine as I could, and wow, they even smelled hot!



Made the Achiote from the powder-block. Smelled really fresh and sure beats the bottled stuff!



While I was doing the above, I let the meat air dry, then I rubbed it. 



I reserved about a third of the rub for the recipe later. Letting mister pork bathe in the rub for a couple hours and come to room temp, too. Going to head out and start the coals!


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## chisoxjim (Aug 14, 2009)

looks really good rivet,  nice selection of peppers.

are you wrapping the pork in banana leaf?  I have seen recipes that call for that, and also burying the meat in a charcoal pit.  

I am looking forward to seeing your results.


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## wutang (Aug 14, 2009)

That is gonna be outstanding. Your threads are always great but this is above and beyond.


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## rivet (Aug 14, 2009)

Hey thanks for the nice words guys! I really appreciate them and you all taking the time to follow my cooking along. 

Chisox- no, no banana leaves on my version. Main reason is that here in this part of Missouri I can't find any! I thought about fresh corn husks but decided against that. Just gonna continue on with my take on things and see how it turns out. My goal is making it as I imagined they did back then, and I know they didn't have tinfoil, but then I don't have a bbq-pit in the ground either!


It's in the smoker humming along at 250-275 over oak right now. The temps will settle down in a bit and am shooting for 250 F average for the duration.

Got a lot of yardwork to do as well, so back outside I go! I'll post some more in a few hours. 

Also.... gonna make an Inca corn dish as a side too. "Smoked Choclo" it's a kind of corn-loaf the Ecuadorians make, and pretty darn tasty. Stay tuned!


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## chisoxjim (Aug 14, 2009)

sounds like your version is ging to be great, 

 I just had read that those were some of the methods used, and was curious if you were doing them, especially the in ground pit.


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## bluefrog (Aug 14, 2009)

I wonder about this dish as it is my understanding that there were no pigs in the new world until the Spanish introduced them.  Am I wrong there?

Scott


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## beer-b-q (Aug 14, 2009)

Here is what "The Cambridge World History of Food" has to say... http://www.cambridge.org/us/books/kiple/hogs.htm


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## placebo (Aug 14, 2009)

I'm guessing mead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead

Great thread Rivet and what a novel idea to go back to the roots. Can't wat to see the end result.

All the way!


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## beer-b-q (Aug 14, 2009)

Rivet, do you have the recipe for this???  It sure looks good...


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## rivet (Aug 14, 2009)

Allrighty, here is Mr Pig about three hours into the smoke! Lookin' and smellin' real good. I had forgotten how good oak smells as a smoking wood...



As I was chopping up the corn for the Smoked Choclo, the wonderful Mrs Rivet said to me, "Why don't you put in a Mayan picture on the thread?"

I looked up at the Aztec calendar hanging on the wall right in front of me and replied "Tha's Aztec, not Mayan"

She pointed over my head to the bookcase in the next room and well whaddya know! There's Kukulcan, the Mayan God, the feathered serpent in all its glory!

Kukulcan is the Mayan "main" God, closely followed by Chac Mool, the god of corn. Kukulcan is the god of knowledge and culture and is represented as a feathered serpent. 

When I was a kid, we had this statue / carving / effigy thing in the house. I was fascinated by it and would run my kid-hands over its smooth, lumpy head and think how scary Kukulcan would be if he ever showed up in person! My fascination for this never stopped and one day I was on leave from the Army and my dad saw me staring at it again, so he gave it to me. It sits on our bookcase today, here in Missouri.



So this pic is the lovely Mrs Rivet's contribution to the thread!


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## the dude abides (Aug 14, 2009)

Pork is looking good man!  A little hot for my pansy palate, but tasty looking none the less.  Nice work outta you no matter when pigs showed up in Missouri.  LOL


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## fire it up (Aug 14, 2009)

Man oh man is that looking good already!
This post has twisted my arm enough so now I HAVE to make some puerco pibil.
Hope the weather holds tomorrow.  
Can't wait to see the finish of this smoke, you're gonna have me dreaming of Mayan Gods, feathered serpents and smoked goodness tonight.


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## forluvofsmoke (Aug 14, 2009)

Rivet, I can tell you're having fun with this one!

I've been following this since lastnight, off and on. I'm very intrigued by all the details of the Mayan culture that others have included here, to go along with your great revisit of a fallen civilization.

That piggy sure does look like it will be fit for anyone to dine on, regardless of their heritage.

Excellent background work, and piecing it together as best you can.

Great history lesson, too! 
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





I'll definately be watching this to the end...

Eric


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## realtorterry (Aug 14, 2009)

Rivet,

  That is looking off the chart!! Can't wait to see the end. I'm looking up this recipe you talk about. I had a quick question though being as Im still new. Doesn't the citrus you started with contain acid that would make the meat mushy after that long? Keep up the good smoke


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## rivet (Aug 14, 2009)

Hey PAUL- I will get the recipe together and PM it to you. Glad you like it!

Mister Porky finally hit 160 F internal so into the next phase we go! No banana leaves around here in the midwest, so into a foil pan it goes, along with a 1/4 cup OJ, and juice from a single Key Lime. Tightly foiled and back into the smoker until around 200F. 

Since I'm still smoking the "choclo" side dish, I put it back into the smoker instead of firing up the oven and heating up the house.

The Smoked Choclo thread can be found here:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/for...threadid=80545

Here's a pic of the meat at 160....



Stay tuned..it's getting close to dinner time!


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## gruelurks (Aug 14, 2009)

Nice looking recipe, I will have to give that a try real soon. Spicy peppers are right up my alley.


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## tasunkawitko (Aug 14, 2009)

rivet - left points for the choclo, so i can't leave you any for this, but POINTS! looking great with awesome pictures and commentary. i also like the setting of the mood with the pic of the mayan effigy. 

i'm heading out the door now, so am a little rushed, but keep us informed ~


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## rivet (Aug 14, 2009)

Okay, here we are out of the smoker at 195F and getting ready to rest.

I will be posting plated pics next, but in the meantime, here is the Yucatan Project in all its glory prior to being pulled!


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## fire it up (Aug 14, 2009)

Rivet, I'll leave you the points on this one since Tas spent his on the other post.
Hope she only takes a short rest, that looks amazing and I cannot wait to see it all deliciously plated up!
Did I say it looks delicious?  I meant absolutely, wonderfully, mouth wateringly delicious!


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## beer-b-q (Aug 14, 2009)

Rivet, that is some fine looking meat... I love the color and I bet it tastes as great as it looks...


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## rivet (Aug 15, 2009)

Hey all, I really appreciate all the interest and nice words you've passed down through this thread~ Thanks!

Here's the pibil all nice and pulled. Boy, was it tender and falling apart!



Snuck a few pieces of the bark and meat as I was pullin' and good golly miss molly! Was it gooood! Wow!

Set up a nice plate with the smoked Choclo loaf, refried black beans, garden tomatoe and hot corn tortillas. Man, this was killing me as I took the pictures. 



Got to say this was fantastic~ I loved the flavors of this pibil. 

A couple notes to keep in mind for myself and anyone interested.

1- Marinating the pork in the citrus made the pulled pork taste "meatier" and "porkier" than I have ever tasted. No citrus taste remained, just all "meat". I'm thinking to do this from now on anytime I make PPB. Nope it did not make it mushier or softer...which was a worry for me. Citrus acids don't break down meat fibres fast at all, if they even do.

2- The achiote and hot pepper rub wasn't really hot at all. It was "zingy" and big-time-daggone-good, but not hot. For us chili-heads, next time, use habaneros peppers. Outside the heat, the bark was one of the best I've had. Real mellow taste and balanced out by the spices....excellent and a definite must-make-again-recipe. I wondered about the allspice in the recipe, but it all came together just fine.

3- I'm intrigued by the banana leaves wrapping thing. Course I didn't have any, but I know they will impart flavor and moisture to the meat before pulling. Got to try that. 

4- Have to say that this is definitely a keeper recipe. Once you get down to the nuts and bolts, it is surprising hop easy it is to make, and quick too. Posting it online just draws it out. 

5- Got to say that hot corn tortillas and puerco pibil are a match made in heaven!!!!


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## beer-b-q (Aug 15, 2009)

Killing you, we just get to look and clean the drool off the keyboards...LOL


Yep Banana Trees to get leaves from are few and far between  here in Kansas and Missouri... LOL


That looks to die for...


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## alx (Aug 15, 2009)

Rivet once i get my darn computer fixed.I anticipate seeing this on a full screen.Looks awesome from what i can see....I am really intrigued by the peppers and recipe etc.


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## elde (Aug 15, 2009)

It's a blast...  Earlier this year I got to help do a recreated Italian feast from the 1600's.  Raph tasked me with the main dish, but gave me nothing but the text redaction, directly translated from the original Italian source, for the recipe!  It was quite the challenge to go directly from the text to the stove to service, having to develop technique on the fly while creating the dish described in the redaction.

We're currently in the initial stages of planning a recreated Roman feast.

Here's my album of pictures from a culinary demo we do every June as part of a larger demo event.

Which is what I was curious about - as Cortez introduced pigs to the Yucatan peninsula.  Do you have a copy of his recipe?

The Qview looks excellent!


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## fire it up (Aug 15, 2009)

Everything looks great Rivet!
I can imagine wanting to get the picture done and finally tearing into that plate of goodness.
Choclo looks great too, I have got to try that out.


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## tasunkawitko (Aug 15, 2009)

everything looks great, rivet - this is a perfect melding of food and history!

regarding the questions of when pigs came to america, i had always assumed that there were wild boars here, but i could easily be wrong. with that in mind, i can only assume that the mayans and other cultures used this method on what meat they had available to them


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## rons (Aug 15, 2009)

wow awesome! Points man!


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## seaham358 (Aug 15, 2009)

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


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## rivet (Aug 15, 2009)

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!


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## tasunkawitko (Aug 15, 2009)

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


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## elde (Aug 16, 2009)

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.


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## planethill (Aug 16, 2009)

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.


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## rivet (Aug 16, 2009)

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!


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