Carnitas is the dish - a national treasure in Mexico. Defined, it means "little meats", or hunks of pork simmered for three to four hours in its own fat and served with hot tortillas, cilantro, diced white onions, jalapeños, and salsa on the side. Hundreds of years ago, the lower class French figured out how to work the cheap cut of pork and called it Rillons de Tours. The recipe came to Mexico with the Spanish in the sixteenth century. Now, in the morning, you can hardly walk two blocks in many Mexican cities or small villages without seeing a family restaurant with a line of loyal neighborhood carnitas friends waiting outside. Carnitas are cooked in the middle of the night/early morning, and as such, they are traditionally eaten for breakfast while the greased pig is still snorting and juicy. It's rumored to be (along with barbacoa and menudo) a guaranteed cure for head-banger, mezcal, and/or tequila-fueled hangovers. Anyway, that's what I hear.
Some folks might read this piece as a restaurant review, which it is not. It’s more of a loving lingering testimonial to the carnitas process. I also see it as clear evidence of informal religious doctrine because since Cortez introduced horses and pigs from Spain in the early 1500s, many are the hard-working Mexicans who will swear that eating a fat-boiled pig for breakfast is the exact same experience as finding God.
Breakfast. Carnitas with homemade tortillas, red and green salsa, jalapeño's, chopped white onions and cilantro. Nothing even close. It's like you're eating one of the beating hearts of Mexico.
The pork fat glazed hands and gentle eyes of Don Pedro Bautista. Born to make carnitas.
For over 40 years, Don Pedro Bautista's elegant hands have been slowly glazed to a pig's shade of golden brown and coated with fumes from decades of boiling fat. Macbeth's three witches with caldrons bubbling full of eyes of newts and toes of frogs have nothing on this guy. I've watched him work, stirring the pork mix in huge stainless steel cauldrons. When holding the long paddle to stir, his hands swing back and forth in and out of the vapor and close to the surface of the boiling liquid. Over time, his family claims his hands have turned into carnitas.
He has the smooth serenity of presence and movement that only comes to a person who has, day after day, decade after decade, done the same thing they've always done in the same manner, with the same attention to the same small details, and the same obsessive love of doing it over and over and over again. Don Pedro makes carnitas that will melt your heart.
It's about 3:30 in the morning and Don Pedro is cutting up a side of pork. He'll cook four to five pigs today.
4:00 AM and Don Pedro begins his dance with caldrons full of pork and boiling pork fat.
Don Pedro is 70. He grew up around a lot of pigs on a ranch about 25 minutes out of San Miguel de Allende. When he was in his late twenties, he learned how to cook carnitas from his dad. He says, "Now, at this age, sometimes I get tired faster than I used to, but my daughter tells me, "You have to remember your hands have been so good to so many people for so many years. They bring joy to everyone. Hearing that gives me all the energy I need." So today, he makes carnitas for one more day, and the people come. Celebrities, tourists, the mayor of San Miguel, loyal neighbors who have been coming forever, and the odd gringo or two who have heard about "the old guy and his carnitas." They all come and sit together to see and eat what Don Pedro has created with his hands and heart. Carnitas Bautista is a restaurant that helps bind the neighborhood together and helps hold the community in place.
Carnitas Bautista around 4:30 in the morning with the ficus tree protecting and the maestro conducting.
Don Pedro gets up at 2:30 AM, cuts up a couple of pigs by 3:30, and is cooking alone by 4:00. At that hour, the whole interior of the restaurant/kitchen takes on the same golden patina of his hands. The staff of twelve people start arriving around 7:00 to 8:00. Family members and a few trusted employees make up the team. These days, he gets his pig sides delivered to the restaurant and cooks about 200 kilos, or four to five three-month-old pigs daily. Multiply that by 40 years, and I'm guessing we're talking about more than a couple of pigs and even a couple more. They boil the tomatillos, roast the tomatoes, chilies, and garlic on the makeshift comal, and grind the salsa in a huge molcajete, using a plastic cup to crush the ingredients. The corn tortillas are made while customers stand in line. The pork cooks in three enormous stainless steel kettles filled with about 35 kilos of fat (manteca). The only spice is salt. He says, "I cook the meat for about three to four hours on low gas. I use a paddle (pala) to stir the meat into the fat. Temperature? That's a gringo question, Senior Hodges. The gringo brings too many questions :-). This is Mexico. I have no idea what the temperature is, but I can tell when it's done from the color of the meat and the feel and taste of it. I know just by looking at it." Yeah, you do, 'cause it's what you do and how you do it, and that's how it's always been. When it's right, you know.
Filipe Bautista, one of Don Pedro's son's, helps out with the cooking today. He is using a pala to mix the pork parts with the simmering fat.
Don Pedro and Efrain Diaz pull the finished pork out of the fat and into a box ready to be sold.
The finished Carnitas on it's way to the customers at Carnitas Bautista.
Carnitas Bautista is on a narrow street in Colonia Allende of San Miguel de Allende. It's not shiny, polished, or perfect for selfies and social media posts. There's no Instagram site, web page, marketing plan, or beer - nothing but carnitas and soda. It's built from concrete, plastic, corrugated sheet metal, folding tables, beat-up folding chairs, and parts of an old house where Pedro still lives. It doesn't have a sign outside, and it's partially hidden under a huge ficus tree that appears intent on camouflaging everything, so only those who know get to go. To find it, you can do it with Google Maps, but you gotta want to get there. My advice would be to get there.
The surrounding rough-cut, family-oriented neighborhood has some well-earned Mexican miles on it, and it might look a little sketchy to the uninitiated, but it's not. This is home to a lot of really good people. This is the real Mexico that travel blogs and websites don’t promote because there’s no profit in the process. Carnitas Bautista and similar places all over Mexico are part of the fabric that makes up the true heart and soul of the country. In this story’s example, the threads of the fabric are carnitas. In other stories, the threads might be carving, music, ceramics, painting, poetry, or sculpture - the arts of living. Sometimes, the threads are nothing more than a friendly smile and a simple act of kindness. Taken as a whole, it’s the meal that is Mexico.
Juanita Ramirez is an expert at making salsa from tomatoes,garlic, and jalapeños.
Beatriz, Araceli Pastor, Christina Paz, and Juanita Ramirez, make up the staff who put the carnitas together for the customers. An improvisational Mexican ballet.
Emilia Ramirez sells carnitas direct to the customers. They can buy it by the kilo or order particular cuts to be eaten at the restaurant in tacos or tortas.
The carnitas are cooked in the restaurant. Carnitas Bautista remains a gathering place for familes and neighborhood friends. In this case, the family and friends of Janito Côrdova have gathered for breakfast as servers, Renata Bautista and Manuel Bautista are in constant motion serving the tables.
Good carnitas places are not uncommon. If you're from around here or there in Mexico, you probably have your favorite places as well. I’m thinking you'd be wrong, and I suppose, that would be another story, but who cares what I think?. It's time to eat. :-).
Carnitas Bautista opens with people in line around 9:00 (Mexican time) and closes around 3:00. Look for it on Google Maps at 37760, C. Guadiana 2, Allende, 37760 San Miguel de Allende, Gto. Don’t call. They won’t answer. They’re too busy making carnitas.
Don Pedro and his sons Felipe, and José Bautista pause for a moment next to the stainless steel kettles holding the pork mix that will becomes carnitas.
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