Jarocho Rice and Black Beans (Moros y Cristianos)

Veracruz, especially the port and the Sotavento, is where this dish belongs in Mexico. Moros y Cristianos came through the Gulf with the Afro-Caribbean line, then Veracruz made it its own with frijol negro, epazote, garlic, bay leaf, and sometimes a strip of tocino cooked down until the fat perfumes the rice.

Do not bring me pinto beans for this. In Veracruz, the black bean rules. The bean pot sits at the center of the kitchen the way the comal does in other states, and the rice is not cooked separately like a polite guest. It marries the bean broth in the same pot. That dark broth is the flavor. Throw it away and you have missed the point.

I learned a version of this near Tlacotalpan from a woman who served it beside platanos fritos on banana leaf, with a clay olla sweating in the humid kitchen and a wooden spoon stained almost purple from years of black beans. She told me, 'El arroz tiene que tomar color.' The rice has to take the color. She was right. Cada estado, su propia cocina.