As, I think, most people familiar with Latin American rice and beans of any sort will tell you, in the northern United States we really don't know what we're doing when it comes to rice and beans. Seriously...whatever mothers, restaurants, and cafeterias have been providing to us can not do justice to the glory of what I once tasted; that being the Puerto Rican rice and bean dish, arroz con habichuelas rosadas.
I remember it like it was yesterday. After becoming close with a now dear friend who moved to the U.S. from Puerto Rico, his mother sent us homemade meals for lunch. I had heard him rant more than once about the poor quality of the rice served at school...to which I could only agree. Yet I truly could not understand this man's dilemma, until I tasted what he had been blessedly exposed to his entire life. As he set down a steaming hot Tupperware container filled to the brim with chicken cooked in garlic and lemon, sauted peppers, tostones (fried plantains)and, of course, the famous rice and pink beans, my mouth watered in a particular breed of anticipation: the one reserved for sampling something you have never been exposed to in your entire life that you know is going to easily surpass everything you have ever eaten in terms of food awesomeness. Eying the feast laid on the table, I grabbed a bite as soon as could.
There is only one phrase that comes to mind.
I reached enlightenment.
These beans...the rice...where are the words? It was at once creamy and slightly chewy, warm not only from the temperature but from the spices. Whatever that magical combination of spices was...it was time honored from cocina to cocina across the ages. Bursting with flavor at every corner, these rice and beans slid through every dusty corner of my digestive system that was left disappointed by bland carbohydrates. I had to sit down and take in the experience. It didn't even stop there. The tostones, dipped lovingly into mayoketchup (which is a blend of...you guessed it...mayo and ketchup), and the juicy chicken mixed lovingly with these rice and beans in a way that could only confirm my then new found appreciation for Latino cooking, culture, and the fact that someone had realized that mayonnaise and ketchup create a whole more beautiful than the part
Since this magical moment, I've had one or two opportunities to again taste the magic of the food of another place. While I know I've only tasted a very tiny sample of cuisine from only one location in the Spanish speaking world, I feel that I can say without a doubt that this brief encounter with arroz con habichuelas rosadas has informed me that the dishes of this world are meant for my, and many others', taste buds. Buen provecho, my friends.
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