A Sacrilegious Plant-based Aguachile

How the iconic dish of lime water, wild peppers, and dried game brought me to a smoky make-out session on a ranch.

Aguachile, meaning ‘chili water,’ is a prehispanic dish from the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa. Its OG recipe is made with chiltepín peppers, onion, lime water, and sun-dried game meat. Today, it’s served ceviche style with anything from raw butterflied shrimp in green salsa—to octopus in black squid ink. It’s come a long way. As the food writer and my friend Micheal Snyder wrote in The Lost City of Aguachile, “The first aguachile, in all likelihood, had nothing to do with seafood.” Quoting author Idolina Velázquez, he adds, “Confusing aguachile with the shrimp is a way of erasing the Indigenous cultures and the whole story of mestizaje that created it.”

“Confusing aguachile with the shrimp is a way of erasing the Indigenous cultures and the whole story of mestizaje that created it.”

As Snyder suggests, shrimp and seafood weren’t introduced into aguachile until the 1970s. Before then, it was a meat and lime water snack that ranchers and cattlepeople ate with tortillas while out on pastures and woodlands. A protein-packed and flavor-forward light meal that made sense for a hunter or rancher, as you could easily make it from what was recently hunted or foraged while out in the mountains. According to locals, the dish's name was a derogatory term loosely used for a mountain person who ate chili and water in the woods.

The Spice Factor

It had to be a sign from the aguachile gods that while visiting palenques mezcal distilleries for the inaugural Mexico In A Bottle event in the state of Durango, I found myself making out on the sofa of a fine ass rancher on his pecan farm. Coming up for air while sucking face, I noticed that his massive 90’s era ranchero house was covered in mounted deer heads, giant birds, and even a fucking bobcat. There were maybe 22 taxidermy animals that I counted with my stretched eyes—all of which he hunted.

Hunting isn’t entirely my thing, but survival skills are, and the Vaquero rancher vibe was hot as hell and worked well for him. He earned bonus points for growing up in both Mexico and Oakland, rolling up weed from a friend’s nearby farm, and humoring me when I wanted to talk about the story of aguachile instead of having sex.

He confirmed everything I had read and told me that chiltepín peppers are so rare and expensive because they’re nearly impossible to cultivate as humans. Birds are, by and large, responsible for most of their propagation. Native birds like the xtakay (vermillion-crowned flycatcher), and the yuya (oriole) love to snack on the flowers and seeds of the peppers, later spreading the seeds while shitting on nearby branches. As a species, these peppers prefer to grow in wilder, arid mountainous regions in fertile soil.

As the key ingredient in the traditional and modern versions of aguachile, chiltepin pepper is commonly known by many names: some in the Americas refer to it as the mother of all peppers, chile del monte, bird peppers, grove peppers, ’a’al kokoli (in O’odham), chiltepictl (in Nahuatl), amash (in Mayan), or simply American wild pepper. They’re hands-down Mexico's spiciest and most coveted of all peppers.

The intense heat and unique flavor it produces with few seeds are a testament to the rich culinary heritage of the northern Mexican states like Sinaloa and Durango. Chiltepin can be found growing wild in hills and valleys amongst clandestine cannabis fields and poppy farms in Sinaloa—making it even more special to me as a weed tía. As a spice enthusiast, the burning heart and soul of aguachile is all about the spice factor. But because this species of peppers is challenging to source for this recipe, you can easily use serrano or jalapeño—if you can find any spicy ones anymore.

Jicama in Aguachile

From deer meat to shrimp, it feels almost sinful to prepare aguachiIe without the meat of an animal. But during one of my animal-free eras, I decided to try out a meat-free version a couple of years ago. I used what was in my fridge and swapped jicama for shrimp. The crunchy, starchy, almost tasteless texture of jícama is satisfying enough to snack on alone but outstanding with any amount of added flavor. I wasn’t entirely sure if this rendition was as good for other people as it was for me. Still, after trying this recipe at a few food pop-ups in Mexico City and receiving encouraging feedback, I felt like I’d developed a good recipe. Even though jicama is a far cry from game meat or seafood, it’s a vegetable indigenous to Mexico and Central America that is well-loved, versatile, and maybe the perfect plant-based substitute for a protein.

Aguachile Recipe