Though there was plenty of rice and many a bean in my childhood diet, I didn’t often eat them as the traditional “rice and beans.”
More often, rice was served as a side dish to a plate of baked chicken, and steamed vegetables (usually carrots, string beans, broccoli or all three). Beans in our pantry were usually black-eyed peas, especially around the new year holiday, kidney beans for chili, or baked beans for pork ‘n beans.
I met my first black bean dish in the best way possible, at a Dominican restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue in New York City. I was a college student and in the usual college student condition: in between Western Union transfers from my father, starving, and with little time to eat.
A friend, whose family was Haitian and Puerto Rican, recommended this very…affordable Dominican restaurant that served what is a staple around Latino neighborhoods: lick-your-fingers roasted chicken, garlicky-lemony black beans, fluffy white rice, sweet plantains, and some sort of gooey dessert for less than $10. The dish was absolutely divine.
My first attempt to recreate the dish in my own kitchen because at times even $10 was too much to ask, was a disaster. My dish lacked the savour and succulence of the restaurants'. Fortunately, another friend, a Los Angeles-raised Chicano, skilled me on flavor and the dish became more than edible but delicious. In the years since college, fortune has allowed me to eat rice and black beans more out of enjoyment than necessity.
As well, Chipotle, California Tortilla, and other restaurants have made rice and beans popular to the American palate. But when circumstances require a “two-buck Chuck” kind of dinner—such as my final days in graduate school—I’m quite happy to have this dish in my mental cookbook.