Whole Baked Fish, Estero-style

A few miles north of Juchitán in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is a spot called just El Estero (“The Estuary,” after some tidal inlet). It consists of several restaurants that are unprepossessing huts on the outside and even worse inside, with dirt floors that at the time of my visit (the rainy season) were ankle-deep in mud. At one of these hovels I had a most delicious chipotle-seasoned fish baked in a calabacero, a type of masonry and adobe oven. It was unbelievably simple, but worth