Dishes To Order In Cancun Part 2

Visiting a chain restaurant while traveling in a foreign country is a little like wearing blinders at a museum; you only experience what you are expecting to see. Don't go to Starbucks or the Hard Rock Cafe in Cancun! Take off those blinders and head to the local eateries, the places the locals go for their meals. That is where the genuine cuisine will be. In part one we guided your first menu choice towards the Cancun tamale, and what a fabulous way to start! Doughy goodness filled with meaty delights, or sweet fruits. Now we will take you through the fabulous pibil.

Pibil is a marinade and sauce, most commonly served with pork and thus is often listed as cochinita pibil (cochinita is Spanish for baby pig). Goat, beef and chicken also make acceptable pairings for pibil sauce. Pibil is comprised of two main components: citrus and annatto seed. Seville or bitter oranges provide the citrus element for a traditional take, however limes or lemons may also be used. A unique flavor is imparted by the intense citrus juice, and it also helps to tenderise the pork.

The annatto seed come from the achiote trees of Mexico and the Caribbean. They are red in colour, and often used as a source of orange food colouring. The flavor uniqueness however, is the function of the annatto seed. Food writers have described the flavor as nutty, sweet and peppery.

The main thing to remember, is that annatto seed paste and citrus juices, are the most important elements of pibil marinade. When it comes time to cook the pork, several ingredients are added to the marinade: onion, tomato, habanero pepper and epazote (a tropical herb with a flavor similar to anise). Everything is wrapped up in banana leaves, and cooked with fiery hot rocks in an underground pit. Of course, restaurants don't use the pit method anymore, but their ovens achieve the same end result!

When everything smells just right, the banana leaf package is extracted from the pit and unwrapped to reveal tender pork enveloped in a striking red sauce. Once the pork as has been shredded and pulled to perfection, then re-doused with its sauce, everything is loaded in a taco. We recommend trying a few, or twenty, of these little gems. Pork will never be same again.

Seafood will be our main item of discussion in part three of this series. Cancun is smack dab in between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, so there is definitely a lot of fresh seafood to be had. Join us as we guide you through the seafood menu choices, and settle on the wonderful pescado tikik-chik.

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