Black Beans with Chipilin (Frijoles con Chipilin)

Chiapas, especially the Central Depression around Tuxtla Gutierrez and Chiapa de Corzo, is where this pot belongs. Black beans, fresh chipilin, white onion, garlic, and manteca de cerdo. Nothing decorative. Nothing pretending. This is the kind of food that keeps a household fed when the money is tight and the mercado still has good greens.

Chipilin is the ingredient that makes the dish Chiapaneco. The leaf is small, fragrant, and stubbornly southern, used in beans, tamales, soups, and masa dumplings from Chiapas into Tabasco and Guatemala. I learned this version from a woman in the Mercado Juan Sabines who sold chipilin tied in damp green bundles. She told me, 'No lo hiervas hasta matarlo.' Don't boil it until you kill it. She was right.

The beans cook first. The lard, onion, and garlic season the broth later. The chipilin goes in at the end, because its perfume is the point. This is not a chile-heavy dish. If you want chile amashito, put it on the table with lime and salt. Do not bully the pot. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.