Tabasco Black Beans with Salt Pork (Frijol con Puerco)

Tabasco, the wet lowlands along the Grijalva and Usumacinta rivers, is where this frijol con puerco belongs. Not the Yucatan Monday version, though it has cousins there. This one is Tabasqueno: black beans, salted pork, chicharron, epazote, white rice, radish, cilantro, lime, and the small green chile amashito that bites harder than its size suggests.

The beans are the body. The pork gives salt and fat. The chicharron breaks down into the broth and makes the pot thick, dark, and serious. You don't cook this like a clean restaurant side dish. You cook it like a house pot, the kind that sits near the stove while tortillas warm and someone cuts radishes at the table.

I learned a version like this from a woman near Comalcalco who served it in a clay cazuela with rice on the side, not underneath. She crushed chile amashito with lime and salt in a small jicara and told me, 'This chile is Tabasco. Don't replace it with jalapeno and then say it's the same.' She was right. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

Soak the beans if they are old. Simmer them gently. Add the chicharron late enough that it keeps some body but early enough that it gives itself to the broth. No me vengas con atajos. This is weeknight food only if you planned like someone who knows how to live. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.