South of Mérida: Sikil Pak and Milpa Suppers on the Forgotten Hacienda Road

The highway south of Mérida toward Ticul doesn't show up on most tourist itineraries, and I think that's exactly why the food along it is so good. No one is cooking for a tour bus here. The haciendas that line this road — Yaxcopoil, Sotuta de Peón, a handful of others in various stages of crumble — once ran henequen fiber to the port at Sisal, and now they sit among low scrub and limestone walls, their machine rooms rusting into the landscape. But the towns between them — Muna, Sacalum, Mama, little places where the colectivos barely stop — are eating extraordinarily well, in ways that make Mérida's own restaurant scene feel like it's trying too hard.

I drove this road twice last November, once on a Sunday when everything was closed and once on a Wednesday when everything was perfect, and the difference taught me something about how rural Yucatán actually feeds itself.

1. Sikil pak is not a dip

Let me get this out of the way: every Mérida restaurant menu that calls sikil pak a "pumpkin seed dip" is doing it a disservice. It's a sauce. It's older than the haciendas. And the version served from a plastic tub at a nameless lonchería on Calle 30 in Muna — the one across from the yellow church, no sign, just a woman and her comal — is so much better than anything I've had in the city that I stopped comparing.

She roasts the pepitas until they're just past golden, grinds them with roasted tomato, habanero, and cilantro, and serves the whole thing at room temperature on warm tortillas that she pats out to order. Twenty pesos. The texture is grainy, almost like a rough hummus but with that toasted, slightly bitter depth from the seeds, and she adds enough habanero that your lips go numb by the third tortilla.

Most food writers will tell you sikil pak is best experienced at Kuuk or Casta Nativa in Mérida's centro. I disagree. The restaurant versions are too smooth, too polite, and they always add lime juice, which flattens the roasted flavor into something that tastes like it's apologizing for itself.

2. Milpa suppers in Mama, and why you need to ask around

The town of Mama — yes, that's its name — is about twenty minutes past Muna, and if you drive through without stopping you'll see nothing but a convent and some dogs. But several families in Mama still cook milpa-based suppers on request, full spreads built around whatever the plot is producing: squash, beans, chaya greens, ears of young corn if the season is right, all of it prepared over open fire in a backyard solar.

There's no website. No TripAdvisor listing. You ask at the municipal market in Muna or, better, at the tienda on the main road into Mama, and someone calls someone. Last time, a woman named Doña Lidia fed six of us — poc chuc on a stone grill, papadzules in a dark, almost chocolatey epazote sauce, black beans cooked with avocado leaf, and a jícama salad with lime and chili powder that I'm still thinking about. She charged 250 pesos per person.

The meal lasted two hours. Her grandson translated when my Spanish gave out. The only light came from the fire and a single bulb on an extension cord.

You can't just show up. Plan at least a day ahead, and bring cash.

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3. Skip Hacienda Yaxcopoil's café

I know. It's the famous one, the photogenic one, the one with the Moorish arches and the old Pullman car on the grounds. And the hacienda itself is genuinely worth walking through — the entry is 120 pesos, and the machine room still has all its original French equipment, which is eerie and cool.

But the on-site café serves reheated panuchos and bottled Fanta at city prices, and the whole thing feels like it was designed for someone who just got off a cruise ship in Progreso. Skip it. Drive the extra fifteen minutes to Sotuta de Peón instead, where the restaurant serves cochinita pibil that's actually cooked underground in banana leaves that morning, not warmed in a steam tray. Sotuta charges more for admission — around 300 pesos last I checked, sometimes bundled with the henequen tour — but the food justifies the stop in a way that Yaxcopoil's doesn't.

Ridiculous and wonderful. They still process henequen fiber on the grounds, and the cenote on the property is fed by a narrow rail cart that you ride through the scrub.

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4. The drive back, and what to bring home

On the road between Muna and Mérida, just before the turnoff for Umán, there's a roadside stand — palapa roof, hand-painted sign that says MIEL DE ABEJA MELIPONA — selling honey from stingless native bees. It's thin, almost watery, more tart than sweet, and it costs about 350 pesos for a small bottle. Expensive for Yucatán. Worth it.

Buying it here, from the family that keeps the hives, felt like the right way to close out the trip.

The whole drive — Mérida to Muna to Mama to Sotuta and back — is about 160 kilometers. Three hours if you don't stop, but stopping is the point.