"beans" news and stories

Happy Eat Beans Day!

Controversial to the proverbial uselessness of a pile of beans, there are some 18,000 beans in existence, an impressive span of exotic, flavorsome varieties that titillate the tastebuds beyond the tired same three or four types of beans most Americans usually chew. And one brave, lyrical writer, Ken Albala, resolved himself to devoting a year to edibly exploring the protein-packed seeds in research for his book, "Beans: A History."

Wrote Albala, "To really understand beans, to become one with my subject, I resolved to eat beans every single day, ideally a new species or variety with every meal. Soon my cabinets were bulging with heirloom appaloosas, delicate Spanish Tolosanos, football-shaped lablabs, specimens from the far-flung corners of the globe, from tiny teparies to mammoth Greek gigandas. There followed regular visits to ethnic grocery stores, especially Indian for every form of dhal, hours spent hulling and peeling fresh favas, and frenzied Internet bean forays in the middle of the night. I munched pickled lupines for breakfast, snacked on Japanese wasabi peas, frightened the children with sticky natto, and with nearly every supper I pulled out the brimming bean pot... There was always a bowl or two of beans soaking with zen-like patience on the countertop."

Who knew beans could sound so magical? Share your unique bean recipes in the comments!

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Monday may still be red beans and rice day in New Orleans, but an increasing number of home cooks are now making the traditional dish with canned beans.

"At my house, it's real convenient for us to open a can," says Luis Ramos, plant manager for Blue Runner, the legendary Gonzales, La., company that's been canning Creole cream-style beans since 1950. "We even do Minute Rice now."

But the sudden shift to precooked beans doesn't just reflect busier schedules in south Louisiana. Blue Runner's sales have increased 10 to 15 percent a year since 2005 – the same year Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.

"During Katrina, because you didn't have electricity, a lot of people started realizing canned goods are good," Ramos explains.

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.

I know you thought we were through with the genus-species-kingdom stuff after high-school biology, but did you know there are two different species of coffee plant? Well, there are: Arabica, or high-altitude grown gourmet coffee, and Robusta, or the more environmentally tolerant (and much cheaper) sort of coffee often found in instant crystals and behind bodega counters around the world.

But is the latter really more "robust" than the haute Arabica? Find out after the jump.

Heirloom beans. Photo: Brent Ridge, Beekman 1802.

Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell are the farmers and innovators behind Beekman 1802, a 200-year-old estate and farm in upstate New York. We'll be running recipes, gorgeous photos and tales from the farm as their crops come into season.

Native daughter Rachael Ray has a profound appreciation for the farmlands of upstate New York, and just paid a visit to Beekman 1802 to learn more about our farm-to-table project with The American Hotel.

What does one make when Rachael Ray comes to dinner? We knew it had to be 1) delicious, 2) simple, and 3) easy. So we traipsed out to the garden for inspiration and found a few tender new green beans just ready for the picking. These are sometimes referred to by their French name, haricot vert, which translates to, you guessed it, "green bean."

Our "yummo" recipe and a bit about our hills of heirloom beans, after the jump.

With Southern chefs sourcing everything from trout to tempeh locally, it seems almost impossible they'd overlook something as basic as beans. But Appalachian food advocates say the region's leading kitchens have inadvertently snubbed one of the mountains' most distinctive crops.

"People who like to eat out should see more beans with local history," asserts Peter Marks of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Program, who's urging western North Carolina produce distributors to help wean local chefs off the standard Florida snap beans they now use for their soups, casseroles and oh-so-fancy green bean almandines.

Marks' organization is championing the neglected greasy bean as an alternative to the ubiquitous (and often flavorless) bush bean, with its puny beans and limp, stringless pod. Greasys are the beans mountaineers have been eating since European settlers first poked their wagons over the Blue Ridge, and -- depending on which scholar you trust -- possibly for many years before that.

"It's a muscular bean," says Ron Caylor, who annually plants four or five rows of greasys on his farm in Jonesborough, Tenn. "When they're ripe, they just burst with delicious vibes."

More greasy goodness after the jump.