Lentejas Poblanas con Plátano Macho

This is from Puebla. Not the generic central Mexico that gets called 'el centro' on cooking blogs, Puebla specifically, the city of conventos and talavera and the most baroque kitchen in the country.

Lentejas poblanas is a colonial dish in its bones. The lentil came from Spain. The clove and the cinnamon came through the Manila galleon trade that landed in Acapulco and traveled overland through Puebla on its way to Veracruz and Europe. The tomato and the chile ancho were already here, waiting. The plátano macho arrived from West Africa through the same colonial currents, and the nuns of Puebla, the same nuns who get credit for half the great dishes of the region, figured out that frying it in lard and folding it into the stew gave you something nobody else in Mexico was eating. This is what people mean when they say poblana cooking is baroque. It does not refuse contradictions. It puts them in the same pot.

The sweet-savory thing trips people up. You read the recipe and think it sounds strange. Lentils with pineapple and fried plantain? Yes. That is the dish. The fruit is fried separately so it caramelizes and keeps its shape; you fold it in at the end so it does not turn to mush. The tocino renders the fat that fries the salsa. The salsa is built on charred tomato and toasted chile ancho with clove and cinnamon. Every step has a reason. Remove a step and you have made something else.

My mother did not cook lentejas poblanas. She was from Jalisco and lentils were not her tradition. I learned this dish from a señora named Doña Carmen who sold comida corrida out of her front room in San Pedro Cholula. She let me sit at her stove for an entire week one summer when I was twenty-eight. She told me the secret was the vinegar at the end, just enough to wake the sweet up. She was right. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.