Bolillos Norteños

The bolillo is the daily bread of northern Mexico. Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Sinaloa, Baja. Every morning before sunrise the panaderias light their ovens and by seven the trays come out: rows of bolillos, golden, fat in the middle, pointed at both ends, the crust crackling as they cool on wire racks. People line up with paper bags. You eat one walking home.

This is wheat country, not corn country. The north has grown wheat since the Spanish brought it through Sonora in the 17th century, and the panaderia is as much a fixture of a northern Mexican town as the tortilleria is in the center and south. Bolillos are the vessel for the torta, the carrier of frijoles refritos at breakfast, the bread that gets ripped open and stuffed with carne asada at lunch. Without bolillos, the entire northern table loses its anchor.

The fat is manteca de cerdo. Not butter. Not vegetable shortening. The lard gives the crumb a particular tenderness and keeps the bread alive for a full day, which butter cannot do. La manteca es el sabor, even in bread. My mother bought bolillos every morning from a panaderia three blocks from our apartment in Colonia Roma. She did not bake bread because the panaderia was better than she could ever be. But when I started traveling the north for the 32-state project, I sat down with senoras in Hermosillo and Ciudad Obregon who taught me to make them at home for the days when there is no panaderia within walking distance. This is that recipe. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

The two things that make a bolillo a bolillo: the slash down the center that opens like a seam in the oven, and the steam in the first minutes of baking that gives you the thin crackling shell instead of a thick hard crust. Skip the steam and you have a roll. Make a deeper slash than I tell you and you split the bread in half. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and the bolillo belongs to the north.