A Tale of Two Sausages
Longaniza in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula
LA SULTANA DEL ORIENTE — the Sultaness of the East — is not, as it sounds, the heroine of a fairy tale. Rather, it refers to Valladolid, a small colonial city in the state of Yucatán in Mexico. It earned its nickname because it is about a hundred miles east of Mérida, the capital. But there is something undeniably exotic about the food in Valladolid, even within the distinct, rich culinary traditions of the Yucatán Peninsula. Cocina vallisoletana is known for such baroque dishes as pavo en relleno negro — turkey in a voluptuous sauce, black from charred dried chiles — and pollo en escabeche, grilled chicken in a vinegar broth that is legitimately “Oriental,” as the method was brought by the Arabs to Spain from medieval Baghdad. Compared with all that, the local sausage, longaniza de Valladolid, which usually shows up on restaurant menus near the bottom of the “Regional Specialties,” never really caught my eye. For years, I just never got around to ordering it.
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