Frijoles de la Olla con Hoja de Aguacate

These beans are Oaxacan. The technique travels, but the herb does not. In central Mexico the pot of beans gets epazote. In Veracruz it gets epazote too. In Oaxaca, and in parts of Puebla and Guerrero, the leaf in the pot is hoja de aguacate, the leaf of the criollo Mexican avocado tree, toasted on a comal until it releases an anise-licorice perfume that perfumes the entire broth. Cada estado, su propia cocina. The leaf is the dish.

The bean matters too. The small black beans grown in the Valles Centrales of Oaxaca are not the same bean you find in a generic supermarket bag. They are smaller, denser, and they hold their shape through a long simmer while still turning the broth a deep purple-black. If you can find frijol negro de Oaxaca at a Mexican mercado, buy two pounds. If not, the smallest black beans your vendor carries will do, and I will tell you the broth will be a little less inky and the flavor a little less concentrated. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.

This is the dish my mother kept on the back of the stove every Monday in Colonia Roma. She used epazote, because she was from Jalisco and she cooked the way her mother had cooked. The first time I ate frijoles with hoja de aguacate I was twenty-three, in a small comedor in Etla, and I sat there in disbelief that a bean could taste like this. I went back to Mexico City and rewrote my mother's bean page in the notebook. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo. The leaf is what makes it Oaxacan.