Since Chipotle has added something called Chicken Al Pastor to their menu, and since I don’t like Chipotle, I thought I’d take an opportunity to once again dump on the fast-casual chain. Chicken Al Pastor is not a thing. They and others are marketing on a trendy item. If you marinate some chicken and cook it on a grill, you can call it anything you want. However, al pastor is more than just the seasonings used.
Al pastor, or tacos al pastor, are made from pork and have a lot in common with trendy Middle Eastern favorites like shawarma or Turkish donor. In fact, they have more in common with the Greek gyro than anything Chipotle is serving up.
Full disclosure: As I said, I don’t like Chipotle restaurants. For one, they have bad food safety standards and practices due to their fake locavore marketing. I pretty much predicted Chipotle’s food poisoning outbreak before it occurred (check the dates). And, I think their food is slop that is built on marketing to the names of Mexican or Latin dishes rather than authenticity.
I’ve already written about tacos al pastor here on Culinary Lore. As I wrote in that article, pastor, in Spanish, means shepherd. This recalls the Middle Eastern origins, centered on lamb meat. What does chicken have to do with shepherds?
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As well, there is more to it than simply marinating pork in pineapple, cilantro, onion, etc. The seasoning used is sometimes called adobada* but the same name could be applied to any type of marinade, in Spanish. Simply marinating some chicken with similar flavors and cooking it on a grill is more accurately called ‘grilled marinaded chicken.’ Render that in Spanish however you like.
Al pastor, however, is made with thin slices of pork that is marinated and stacked on a vertical spit just like Middle Eastern shwarma. In fact, al pastor is simply the Mexican version of the shwarma, made with pork instead of lamb.
It was brought to Mexico by Lebanese immigrants. As is normal with social media influencers and the fake-it-till-you-make-it culture that is the internet, the name of a dish, Al Pastor, has become trendy, rather than the dish itself.
Therefore, I shouldn’t blame Chipotle, exclusively. They are just jumping on a bandwagon that was already popular, as chicken al pastor has been showing up at every would-be taco joint you can find. If you want real Al Pastor, don’t look to Chipotle. But if you are a fan of ‘slop everything into a bowl’ and cover it with a sloppy mess of something else, then you may like the grilled marinaded chicken with hints of pineapple and…spice?
*Adobada, in Mexico, refers to marinated meat. Red chile sauce, vinegar, and oregano is one common example of a adobada marinade or seasoning, but the types of marinade use in Al Pastor may also be called adobada. The marinaded meat may be baked or fried along with other ingredients.
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