Mone de Robalo Tabasqueño

Tabasco, especially the Sierra around Tacotalpa, Teapa, and Tapijulapa, is where this mone lives. The robalo comes from Gulf water, river mouths, and lagoons. The hoja de momo grows fat and glossy in humid patios. The banana leaf is not decoration. It is the cooking vessel.

I learned this technique from women who could wrap a fish parcel tighter than most people can tie a shoe. First the hoja de momo touches the fish, because that leaf gives the perfume. Then the tomato, onion, chile dulce, chile amashito, black pepper, and manteca de cerdo settle over it. Last comes the banana leaf, folded like a package that knows its job. The fish cooks in its own juices, not in a dry pan pretending to be elegant.

Do not replace the hoja de momo with parsley. Do not use butter because you are nervous about lard. La manteca es el sabor. This is Tabasco's green, wet, river-fed cooking, and it should arrive at the table opened in its leaf, with the juices still pooled inside and warm corn tortillas waiting. Cada estado, su propia cocina.