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"The spices, the flavor profiles, the down-to-earth qualities of the people we worked with, the amazing use of produce—learning about ingredients we’d never encountered before, like epazote, hoja santa, achiote, and all the different chiles—was a revelation," Feniger said.

It’s a large tamal filled with both chicken and pork, achiote, onion, tomato and epazote.

The beans — which have a nutty flavor and come in white, black and many colors in between — are also available through Native-led projects like Ramona Farms and on the menus of Native chefs around the country: James Beard Award-winning Indigenous chef Sean Sherman pairs Tepary beans with scallops, chayote, epazote and chile at Owamni, in Minneapolis; at Th_Prsrv, a restaurant just outside Houston that celebrates Indigenous Thai and Indigenous American cuisine, the beans feature in a thoughtful interpretation of the Three Sisters.

Next to that I always have several jars of herbs — I just stand them up in little Mason jars with a little bit of water — epazote, cilantro, parsley, dill; kind of like a little forest in there.

Ultimately, the winner was La Paz a family-owned Tex-Mex restaurant that served lionfish tostadas, epazote lionfish soup and lionfish fajitas.