Agua de Chaya con Piña

Chaya is from Yucatán. The Maya have been cultivating it for over a thousand years and they still grow it in the backyard solares of every village from Valladolid to Ticul. The leaf looks like a wide green hand. The Maya called it the tree spinach, and it carries more iron, calcium, and protein than any leafy green you will find at a Walmart. This is medicine and food at the same time, and the Yucatecan kitchen knows it.

You must cook chaya before you drink it. Raw chaya contains a small amount of cyanogenic compounds that break down with heat. Five minutes in boiling water is enough. The señoras at the Lucas de Gálvez market in Mérida will tell you the same thing. No me vengas con atajos. Skip the blanch and you have made a mistake. Do not improvise on this point.

The pineapple here is not decoration. It carries the chaya. The natural sweetness rounds out the green vegetable flavor and the bromelain pulls everything into a frothy, almost creamy texture once you blend it. The lima agria, the bitter orange-lime of the peninsula, sharpens the whole thing. If you cannot find lima agria outside Yucatán, mix regular lime juice with a small splash of fresh orange juice. It is a compromise, not an upgrade, but it gets you close.

My notebook from a 2014 trip to Mérida has three different versions of this agua in the margins, each from a different cook at a different cantina. They all agreed on the chaya, the pineapple, and the lima agria. They disagreed on the sugar. That argument belongs to you now. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.