The dish is substantial, but not heavy; crisp, but not fragile. It is portable, but best enjoyed immediately, in place, surrounded by the warmth of chatter and grill smoke, at a communal table draped with floral oilcloth, just in front of the open kitchen.
Mr. Martinez, 41, didn’t grow up eating tlayudas. But as a musician in a brass band, he traveled to the capital, Oaxaca City, and often demolished the snack after shows — trombone in one hand, tlayuda in the other.
In Los Angeles, he put aside music and worked briefly in a Chinese restaurant, a cafeteria at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an Iranian restaurant.
But two years ago, Mr. Martinez started to make the food he wanted to make — tlayudas and moronga — at home. His first customers were Zapotec, members of an Indigenous group living near him in South Los Angeles.
In October, he and Miguel Mendez, a cook, set up the food stand at the downtown Sunday market, Smorgasburg. (There, in response to a crowd that is less familiar with Oaxacan food, and wary of the tlayuda’s unwieldy size, they have ordered smaller versions of the tortillas.)
The blood sausage, also on sale at Smorgasburg, has become a fixture at Oaxacan events across the city — weekend religious celebrations, traditional brass-band performances — and, more recently, has played a vital role in the city’s day-to-day politics.
Poncho’s Tlayudas nourished activists, many of them Indigenous people from Oaxaca, as they protested and prepared for hearings at City Hall leading up to the legalization of sidewalk vending late last year. Teachers on strike stopped in to refuel with tlayudas in January, after spending the day marching in front of city schools.
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